“Petter tak’ Tonald’s pig puss o’ money first,” said Morag, pointing down to the corpse in the hollow.
“Ha! money saidst thou, my gay girl?” cried the trooper. “Who would have thought of a purse of money being in the pouch of such a miserable rascally savage as that? But the best apple may sometimes have the coarsest and most unpromising rhind; and so that fellow, unseemly and wretched as he appears, may perchance have a well-lined purse after all. If it be so, girl, I shall say that thy language is like the talk of an angel. Then do you hold the rein of this bridle, do you see, till I make sure of the coin in the first place—best secure that, for no one can say what mischance may come; or whether some comrade may not appear with a claim to go snacks with me. So lay hold of the bridle, do you hear, and dont be afraid of old Canterbury, for the brute is as quiet as a lamb.”
Morag took the bridle. The trooper descended the bank, and he had scarcely stooped over the body to commence his search for the dead man’s supposed purse, when the active girl, well accustomed to ride horses in all manner of ways, vaulted into the saddle, and kicking her heels into Canterbury’s side, she was out of the hollow in a moment. Looking over her shoulder, after she had gone some distance, she beheld the raging dragoon puffing, storming, and swearing, and striding after her, with, what might be called, that dignified sort of agility, to which he was enforced by the weighty thraldom of his immense jack-boots. Bewildered by the terror and the anxiety of her escape, she flew over the country, for some time, without knowing which way she fled. At length she began to recover her recollection, so far as to enable her to recur to the object which had prompted her to leave home. On the summit of a knoll she checked her steed—surveyed the country,—and the whole tide of her feelings returning upon her; she urged the animal furiously forward in the direction of the fatal field of Culloden.
She had not proceeded far, when, on coming suddenly to the edge of a rough little stoney ravine, she discovered five troopers refreshing themselves and their horses from the little brook that had its course through the bottom. She reined back her horse, with the intention of stealing round to some other point of passage; but as she did so, a shout arose from the hollow of the dell.—She had been perceived. In an instant the mounted riders rushed, one after another, out of the ravine, and she had no chance of escape left her, but to ride as hard as the beast that carried her could fly, in the very opposite direction to that which she had hitherto pursued, for there was no other course of flight left open to her.
The five troopers were now in full chase after Morag, shouting out as they rode, and urging on their horses to the top of their speed. The ground, though rough, stony, and furzy, was for the most part firm enough, and the poor girl, now driven from that purpose to which her strong attachment to John Smith had so powerfully impelled her, and being distracted by her griefs and her fears, spared not the animal she rode, but forced him, by every means she could employ, either by hands, limbs, or voice, to the utmost exertion of every muscle.
“Lord, how she does ride!” said one trooper to the others; “I wish that she beant some of them witches, as, they say, be bred in this here uncanny country of Scotland.”
“Bless you no, man,” said another; “them devils as you speak of ride on broomsticks. Now, I’se much mistaken an’ that be not Tom Dickenson’s horse Canterbury.”
“Zounds, I believe you are right, Hall,” said another man; “but that beant no proof that she aint a witch, for nothing but a she-devil, wot can ride on a broom, could ride ould Canterbury in that ’ere fashion, I say.”
“Witch or devil, my boys, let us ketch her if we can,” shouted another.—“Hurrah! hurrah!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” re-echoed the others, burying their spurs in their horses’ sides, and bending forward, and grinning with very eagerness.