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22 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson · Classic Adventure Books Collection

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Chapter twenty two. The flight in the heather the more. Some seven hours
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incessant hard traveling brought us early in the morning to the end of a range
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of mountains. In front of us there lay a piece of low, broken
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desert land, which we must now cross. The sun was not long up,
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and shone straight in our eyes. A little thin mist went up from
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the face of the moorland like a smoke, so that, as Alan said,
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there might have been twenty squadrons of dragoons there, and we none the
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wiser. We sat down therefore in a howl of the hillside, till the
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mist should have risen, and made ourselves a dish of dramach, and held
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a council of war. David said Alan, this is a kittle bit.
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Shall we lie here till it comes night? Or shall we risk it and
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stave on ahead? Well, said I I am tired, indeed, but
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I could walk as far again if that was all aye. But it isn't,
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said Allan, nor yet. The half this is how we stand appens
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fair death to us. To the south, it's all Campbell's and no to
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be thought of. To the north, well, there's no muckle to be
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gained by going north. Neither for you that wants to get the Queen's ferry,
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nor yet for me that wants to get to France. Well then we
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can strike east east be it, says I quite cheerily. But I was
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thinking in to myself, Oh man, if you would only take one point
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of the compass and let me take any other, it would be the best
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for both of us. Well then east, Ye see, we have the
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mers, said Allan. Once there, David, it's mere pitchin toss out
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on yon, bald, naked flat place where can a body turn to let
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the red coats come over a hill they can spy you miles away, and
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the sorrows in their horses heels they would soon ride you down. It's no
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good place, David. And I'm free to say it's worse by daylight than
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by dark. Allan said, I hear my way. Of it appens death
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for us. We have none too much money, nor yet meal. The
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longer they seek, the nearer they may guess where we are. It's all
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a risk, and I give my word to go ahead until we drop.
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Helen was delighted. There are wiles, said he. When you are altogether
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too canny and whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me. But there
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come other whiles when you show yourself a metal spark. And it's then,
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David, that I love you like a brother. The mist rose and died
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away, and showed us that country lying as waste as the sea, only
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the moor fowl and the peewee's crying upon it, and far over to the
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east a herd of deer moving like dots. Much of it was red with
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heather, much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty pools.
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Some had been burnt black in a heath fire. And in another place
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there was quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A wearier
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looking desert man never saw. But at least it was clear of troops,
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which was our point. We went down accordingly into the waste, and began
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to make our toilsome and devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the
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tops of mountains all round, you are to remember, from whence we might
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be spied at any moment. So it behooved us to keep in the hollow
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parts of the moor, and when these turned aside from our direction, to
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move upon its naked face with infinite care. Sometimes for half an hour.
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Together we must crawl from one heather bush to another, as hunters do when
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they are hard upon the deer. It was a clear day again, with
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a blazing sun. The water in the brandy bottle was soon gone, and
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altogether, if I had guessed what it would be to crawl half the time
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upon my belly, and to walk much of the rest, stooping nearly to
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the knees, I should certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise.
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Boiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning, and about
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noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took the
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first watch, and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before
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I was shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go
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by, and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead,
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so that as soon as the shadow of the bush should fall so far
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to the east, I might not to rouse him. But I was by
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this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch.
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I had the taste of sleep in my throat, my joints slept even when
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my mind was waking. The hot smell of the heather and the drone of
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the wild bees were like possets to me, and every now and again I
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would give a jump. Fine I had been dozing. The last time I
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awoke, I seemed to come back from farther away, and thought the sun
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had taken a great start in the heavens. I looked at the sprig of
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heath, and at that I could have cried aloud, for I saw I
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have betrayed my trust. My head was nearly burned with fear and shame.
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And at what I saw when I looked out around me on the moor,
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my heart was like dying in my body. For sure enough, a body
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of horse soldiers had come down during my sleep, and were drawing near to
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us from the southeast, spread out in the shape of a fan, and
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riding their horses to and fro in the deep parts of the heather. When
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I waked all and he glanced first at the soldiers, then at the mark
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in the position of the sun, and knitted his brows with a sudden,
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quick look, both ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had
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of him. What are we to do now, I asked, We'll have
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to play it being Hares said he do ye see Yon mountain, pointing to
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one on the northeastern sky. Ay said I. Well, then, says
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he, let us strike for that. Its name is ben Alder. It
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is a wild desert mountain, full of hills and hollows. And if we
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can win to it before the morn, we may do. Yet, but
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Allan cried, I that will take us across the very coming of the soldiers.
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I ken that fine, said he. But if we are driven back
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on appin, we are two dead men. So now David man be brisk
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with that. He began to run forward on his hands and knees with an
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incredible quickness, as though it was his natural way of going all the time
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too. He kept winding in and out in the lower parts of the moorland,
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where we were the best concealed. Some of these have been burned,
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or at least scathed with fire, and there rose in our faces, which
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were close to the ground, a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke.
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The water was long out, and this posture of running on the hands
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and knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, so that the joints ache and
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the wrists faint under your weight. Now and then, indeed, where there
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was a big bush of heather, we lay awhile and panted, and,
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putting aside the leaves, looked back at the dragoons. They had not spied
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us, for they held straight on a half troop, I think, covering
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about two miles a ground, and beating it mighty thoroughly as they went.
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I had awakened just in time a little later, and we must have fled
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in front of them, instead of escaping on one side, even as it
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was the least misfortune might betray us. And now and again, when a
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grouse rose out of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as
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still as the dead, and were afraid to breathe. The aching and faintness
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of my body, the laboring of my heart, the soreness of my hands,
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and the smarting of my throat and eyes in the continual smoke of dust
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and ashes, had soon grown to be so unbearable that I would gladly have
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given up nothing. But the fear of Alan lent me enough of a false
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kind of courage to continue as for himself. And you are to bear in
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mind that he was cumbered with a greatcoat. He had first turned crimson,
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But as time went on the redness began to be mingled with patches of white.
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His breath cried and whistled as it came, and his voice, when
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he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts, sounded like nothing human.
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Yet he seemed in no way dashed in spirits, nor did he at
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all abate in his activity, so that I was driven to marvel at the
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man's endurance. At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we
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heard a trumpet sound, and looking back from among the heather, saw the
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troop beginning to collect a little after they had built a fire and camped for
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the night about the middle of the waste. At this I begged and besought
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that we might lie down in sleep. There shall be no sleep the night,
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said Allan. From now on, these weary dragoons of yours will keep
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the crown of the meure land, and none will get out of appin but
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winged fowls. We got through in the nick of time, And shall we
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jeopard what we've gained? Nah? Nah, when the day comes, it
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shall find you and me in a fast place on ben Alder. Allan,
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I said, it's not the want of will, it's the strength that I
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want. If I could, I would, But as sure as I'm alive,
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I cannot. Very well, then said Allan, I'll carry ye.
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I look to see if he were jesting, but no. The little man
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was in dead earnest, and the sight of so much resolution shamed me.
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Lead away, said I I'll follow. He gave me one look as much
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as to say well done, David, and off he set again at his
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top speed. It grew cooler and even a little darker, but not much
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with the coming of the night. The sky was cloudless. It was still
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early in July, and pretty far north. In the darkest part of that
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night, you would have needed pretty good eyes to read. But for all
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that, I have often seen it darker in a winter midday, heavy dew
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fell and drenched the moor like rain, and this refreshed me for a while.
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When we stopped to breathe, and I had time to see all about
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me, the clearness and sweetness of the night, the shapes of the hills
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like things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behind us like a bright spot
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in the midst of the moor. Anger would come upon me in a clap,
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that I must still drag myself in agony and eat the dust like a
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worm. By what I have read in books, I think few that have
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held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more
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strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future,
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and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I did
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not think of myself, but just of each fresh step, which I was
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sure would be my last, with despair, and of Allan, who was
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the cause of it, with hatred. Allan was in the right trade as
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a soldier. This is the officer's part, to make men continue to do
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things they know not wherefore and when, if the choice was offered, they
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would lie down where they were and be killed. And I dare say I
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would have made a good enough private for in these last hours it never occurred
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to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I
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was able and die obeying. Day began to come in after years, I
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thought, and by that time we were past the greatest danger and could walk
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upon our feet like men, instead of crawling like brutes. But dear heart,
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have mercy, what a pair we must have made, going double like
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old grandfathers, stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk. Never
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a word passed between us. Each set his mouth and kept his eyes in
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front of him, and lifted up his foot and set it down again,
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like people lifting weights at a country play, all the while with a more
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fowl crying peep in the heather, and the light coming slowly clearer in the
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east. I say, Alan did as I did. Not that ever I
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looked at him, for I had enough ado to keep my feet. But
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because it is plain, he must have been as stupid with weariness as myself,
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and looked as little where we were going, or we should not have
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walked into an ambush like blind men. It fell in this way. We
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were going down a heathery bray, Alan leading, and I following a pace
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or two behind, like a fiddler and his wife. When upon a sudden
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the heather gave a rustle. Three or four ragged men leaped out, and
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the next moment we were lying on our backs, each with a dirk at
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his throat. I don't think I cared. The pain of this rough handling
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was quite swallowed up by the pains of which I was already full. And
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I was too glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I
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lay looking up in the face of the man that held me, and I
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mind his face was black with the sun, and his eyes very light.
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But I was not afraid of him. I heard Allan and another whispering in
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the Gaelic, and what they said was all one to me. Then the
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dirks were put up, our weapons were taken away, and we were set
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face to face, sitting in the heather. They are Clooney's men, said
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Allan. But couldn't have fallen better, or just abide here with these which
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are his out sentries, till they can get word to the chief of my
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arrival. Now Clooney Macpherson, the chief of the Clan Vourich, had been
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one of the leaders of the Great Rebellion six years before. There was a
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price on his life, and I had supposed him long ago in France with
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the rest of the heads of that desperate party. Even tired as I was,
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the surprise of what I heard half wakened me. What I cried,
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is Clooney still here? I is? He? So said, Allan,
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still in his own country and kept by his own clan. King George can
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do no more. I think I would have asked farther, but Alan gave
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me the put off. I am rather wearied, he said, and I
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would like find to get asleep. And without more words, he rolled on
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his face in a deep heather bush and seemed to sleep at once. There
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was no such thing possible for me. You have heard grasshoppers whirring in the
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grass in the summer time. Well, I had no sooner closed my eyes
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than my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists seemed
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to be filled with whirring grasshoppers. And I must open my eyes again at
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once, and tumble and toss, and sit up and lie down and look
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at the sky which dazzled me. Where at Clooney's wild and dirty sentries peering
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out over the top of the bray and chattering to each other in the Gaelic.
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That was all the rest I had until the messenger returned, When,
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as it appeared that Clooney would be glad to receive us, we must get
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once more upon our feet and set forward. Alan was in excellent good spirits,
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much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry and looking pleasantly forward to a
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dram and a dish of hot collops, of which it seems the messenger had
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brought him word. For my part, it made me sick to hear of
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eating. I had been dead heavy before, and now I felt a kind
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of dreadful lightness which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a
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gossamer. The ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a featherweight,
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the air to have a current like a running burn, which carried me to
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and fro. With all that, a sort of horror of despair sat on
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my mind, so that I could have wept at my own helplessness. I
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saw Allan knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in anger,
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and that gave me a pang of light headed fear, like what a child
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may have. I remember too, that I was smiling, and could not
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stop smiling, hard as I tried, for I thought it was out of
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place at such a time. But my good companion had nothing in his mind
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but kindness, And the next moment two of the Gillies had me by the
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arms, and I began to be carried forward with great swiftness, or so
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it appeared to me, although I dare say it was slowly. In truth,
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threw a labyrinth of dreary glens and hollows, and into the heart of
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that dismal mountain of Ben Alder. End of chapter