The Highlander, anxious to secure the wounded birds, went bounding in the direction in which they had flown. As he hastily stepped forward he did not perceive that a viper was directly in his path, and, before he was aware of its being near him, the reptile had bitten his bare foot. Striking it off with the point of the barrel, he uttered not a word, but giving one glance round, as if looking for something, he took to his heels with a swiftness not unworthy of Luno himself.
The gauger, seeing his fowling-piece in Eachainn’s possession, who was running as if a lion were at his heels, naturally concluded that he had run off with it.
‘Stop, thief!’ shouted he, at the top of his voice, ‘stop, ye confounded Hielan’ cateran! How fast the vagabond runs; gude’s me, he is already out of sight. Haud there, ye scamp, ye traitorous reever, ye!’
Out of breath with his own indignant exertions, Gillespie turned to mount his gearran. That sagacious beast, however, considered the whole thing as an arrangement for his own especial benefit, and whenever his would-be rider approached to mount, would edge off, and trot to a little distance, and then quietly graze, until poor Gillespie would again get close to him, when the same little performance would be repeated. All this was naturally very provoking, and added intense bitterness to the gauger’s other reflections.
He now eagerly followed Eachainn on foot, but in such a chase he was no match for the fleet-footed Highlander.
The day was hot, the moor boggy, and his greatcoat, which he still clung to, as if it were a part of his nature, was very heavy. ‘The scoundrel!’ he muttered, as he plodded wearily along, ‘the bare-legged rascal, to rob me of my gun in open day on the King’s highway; but I’ll have him by the heels for it, as sure as there’s letters of horning and caption to be had in Scotland; aye, he shall hang as high as Haman, if there’s a tree in all the island—but I doot there’s nane. It’s ower vile for even a tree to make a gallows of to grow in it. Then I doot after a’ if the law can make much of the case, seeing that this canna be said to be the highway. The rascal has not absolutely put me in bodily fear either, except fear of losing my gun. No, I doot I canna hang him, and to transport him from such a slough of despond, would only be conferring an acceptable obligation on the young thief.’
Thus he hurried on, lamenting his loss, until his further progress was interrupted by a stream or burn, that ran gurgling between mossy banks, fringed with junipers and dwarf rowans. There the worthy man stood panting and blowing for about a minute, when some yards below him, at a shallower part of the burn, kneeling at the water’s edge, and gulping in the pure element, he beheld the runaway Highlander.
The gauger’s anger was, however, considerably mollified on seeing no effort on the part of Eachainn to continue his flight, and also by seeing his gun lying safely on a dried part of the bank. ‘Ye villain,’ he exclaimed, clutching his fowling-piece, ‘and have I caught you at last!’
The Highlander, without answering, took another copious draught of the limpid stream, then washed his wounded foot, on which was distinctly visible the marks of the viper’s fangs.
Gillespie, too, observed that notwithstanding his warm race, the lad looked deadly pale. The latter, now slowly rising, expressed with rueful tone and looks his hope ‘that he had got to the water before her.’