At this moment Granny, going at a smart trot, turned to look back, for she was not yet out of sight; she saw the cadger pushed towards the inn by Barclay, she saw him run back under the arch, and she understood. She sat down in her place, her heel against the footboard, and let the lash float out on Rob Roy’s shoulder. She knew the value of a good start.
Showers of mud flew behind her as the little horse’s hoofs smote the earth in the fast, steady trot to which she kept him. The east wind almost hurled her out of her seat as she passed the fringe of the town, for she was going north, and it came in from the sea, not half a mile off, with a violence that blew Rob Roy’s mane stiffly out from his neck. At the further side of Kaims flowed the South Lour, making a large tidal lake west of it; along the north side of this estuary the Blackport road ran, straight, but for certain indecisive bends; practically level for eight miles. As she turned along it and found the blast at her back she increased her pace. Not far in front the way dipped, and a sluggish stream which drained the fields on her right hand ran under a low, stone bridge into the marsh which edged the ‘Basin of Kaims,’ as the semi-salt lake was called. The wind had whipped the water into small waves, for it was high tide and the swirl almost invaded her path; a couple of gulls, tilted sideways on outspread wings, were driven over her head. The sound of the crawling water was drowned in the gale which was growing steadily. She pressed on, the horse well in hand, till she reached the summit of the rise half a mile ahead and pulled up for a moment in the shelter of a broken wall. Turning, she strained her eyes into the dusk, and, remote from the undercurrent of the water’s voice, on the following wind there came to her the distant beat of hoofs.
She was old, her body’s strength was on the wane, but the fire of her spirit was untouched, as it would be until Death’s hand, which alone could destroy it, should find her out. Though she knew herself face to face with a task which needed more than the force she could bring to it, though her body was cold in the rain and the hands which steered her were aching, her heart leaped in her as she pulled Rob Roy together and cried to him in the wind. The Queen of the Cadgers was on the road again.
O faithful hands that have wrought here; that have held sword, or plough or helm! O fighters, with souls rising to the heavy odds, nerves steadying to the shock whose force you dare, unrecking of its weight! What will you do in the Eternity when there will be no cause to fight for, no Goliath of Gath, twice your size, to sally forth against with sling and stone? In that Paradise that we are promised, where will be your place? We cannot tell. But, if there be a just God who made your high hearts, He will answer the question whose solution is not for us.
The next three miles were almost level and she drove on steadily; she had seen her pursuer’s nag in the Black Horse yard, a hairy-heeled bay with a white nose who looked as if he had already travelled some distance. Rob Roy had been little out of late and the cart was empty; indeed, it was light enough to be a precarious seat for a woman of her age. By the time she had done half her journey it had become dark enough to make caution necessary, for few country travellers carried lights in those days, and she was on the highroad which took an eastward sweep to the coast between Perth and Aberdeen. She stopped once more to listen and give Rob Roy his wind; for the last half mile they had come up a gradual ascent whose length made up for its gentle slope. He did not seem distressed and the gale had helped him, for it was almost strong enough behind him to blow the cart forward without his efforts.
On again, this time a little faster; the solid blackness of the fields slid by and she passed a clump of trees, creaking and swaying over a patch of light which she knew to be a mill-pond. Three miles more, and she might climb down from her place to rest her stiffened limbs, before the Laird should be due and she should go to the door of the Crown to wait for his coming. She almost wondered whether it were her imagination which had seen the cadger run back at Barclay’s instigation, whether she had dreamed of the horse’s feet pursuing her near the Basin of Kaims. She let Rob Roy walk.
Her hair was blowing over her face and she pushed back her soaking plaid to twist it behind her ears. In a momentary lull, a clatter of hoofs broke upon her and voices answered each other, shouting. Either her enemy was behind with some companion of his own kidney, or there were others abroad to-night with whom time was precious; she could hear the wheels grind on a newly-mended piece of road she had crossed. A cottage, passed in blind darkness, suddenly showed a lamp across the way, and, as the driver behind her crossed the glaring stream which it laid over his path, she saw the hairy-heeled bay’s white nose swing into the strong light to be swallowed again by the dark. She took up her whip.
Hitherto, she had saved her horse, but, now that there were only three miles to be covered, she would not spare for pace. How the white-nosed beast had crept so close she could not imagine, until it occurred to her that the evil short-cut taken by herself on a memorable occasion, years ago, must have served his driver too. She laid the whip remorselessly on Rob Roy.
Fortunately for her aching bones, the road improved with its proximity to the town, or she could scarce have kept her seat. As it was, she could not see the stones and irregularities in her way and it might well be that some sudden jerk would hurl her headlong into the gaping dark. But she dared not slacken speed; she must elude her pursuer before reaching the first outlying houses, for, were her haven in Blackport discovered, she knew not what foul play he might set afoot. She resolved that she would not leave Rob Roy until he was in Gilbert’s hands, could she but get the cart into the tumbledown premises of the friend whom she trusted, and for whose little backyard behind River Street she determined to make. Blackport was a low place, and her friend, who kept a small provision-shop, was a widow living alone. Suppose she should be discovered! Suppose, after all, she should fail! What Barclay had said to the cadger whose wheels she could now hear racing behind she did not know, but his action in securing the post-horses and in sending such a character after her showed that he was prepared to go to most lengths to frustrate Speid. She had known of men who lamed horses when it suited them; the thought of what might happen made her set her teeth. She remembered that there was a long knife inside the cart, used by her grandson for cleaning and cutting up fish; if she could reach her destination it should not leave her hand; and, while Rob Roy had a rest and a mouthful in the hour or two she might have to wait for Gilbert, her friend should run to the Crown and tell Jimmy where she was to be found. With a pang she renounced the joy of meeting the Laird; her place would be behind the locked door with her horse.
Past hedge and field they went, by gates and stone-heaps. Her head was whirling and she was growing exhausted. She could no more hear the wheels behind for the roaring of the wind and the rattle of her own cart. She had never driven behind Rob Roy on any errand but a slow one and it was long years since she had been supreme on the road; but old practice told her that it would take a better than the hairy-heeled bay to have lived with them for the last two miles. A crooked tree that stood over the first milestone out of Blackport was far behind them and the gable end of the turnpike cottage cut the sky not twenty yards ahead.