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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two. The flight in the heather the more.
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  Speaker 1: Some seven hours incessant hard traveling brought us early in
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  Speaker 1: the morning to the end of a range of mountains.
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  Speaker 1: In front of us there lay a piece of low,
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  Speaker 1: broken desert land, which we must now cross. The sun
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  Speaker 1: was not long up, and shone straight in our eyes.
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  Speaker 1: A little thin mist went up from the face of
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  Speaker 1: the moorland like a smoke, so that, as Alan said,
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  Speaker 1: there might have been twenty squadrons of dragoons there, and
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  Speaker 1: we none the wiser. We sat down therefore in a
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  Speaker 1: howl of the hillside, till the mist should have risen,
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  Speaker 1: and made ourselves a dish of dramach, and held a
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  Speaker 1: council of war. David said Alan, this is a kittle bit.
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  Speaker 1: Shall we lie here till it comes night? Or shall
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  Speaker 1: we risk it and stave on ahead? Well, said I
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  Speaker 1: I am tired, indeed, but I could walk as far
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  Speaker 1: again if that was all aye. But it isn't, said Allan,
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  Speaker 1: nor yet. The half this is how we stand appens
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  Speaker 1: fair death to us. To the south, it's all Campbell's
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  Speaker 1: and no to be thought of. To the north, well,
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  Speaker 1: there's no muckle to be gained by going north. Neither
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  Speaker 1: for you that wants to get the Queen's ferry, nor
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  Speaker 1: yet for me that wants to get to France. Well
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  Speaker 1: then we can strike east east be it, says I
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  Speaker 1: quite cheerily. But I was thinking in to myself, Oh man,
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  Speaker 1: if you would only take one point of the compass
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  Speaker 1: and let me take any other, it would be the
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  Speaker 1: best for both of us. Well then east, Ye see,
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  Speaker 1: we have the mers, said Allan. Once there, David, it's
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  Speaker 1: mere pitchin toss out on yon, bald, naked flat place
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  Speaker 1: where can a body turn to let the red coats
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  Speaker 1: come over a hill they can spy you miles away,
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  Speaker 1: and the sorrows in their horses heels they would soon
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  Speaker 1: ride you down. It's no good place, David. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: free to say it's worse by daylight than by dark.
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  Speaker 1: Allan said, I hear my way. Of it appens death
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  Speaker 1: for us. We have none too much money, nor yet meal.
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  Speaker 1: The longer they seek, the nearer they may guess where
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  Speaker 1: we are. It's all a risk, and I give my
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  Speaker 1: word to go ahead until we drop. Helen was delighted.
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  Speaker 1: There are wiles, said he. When you are altogether too
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  Speaker 1: canny and whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me.
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  Speaker 1: But there come other whiles when you show yourself a
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  Speaker 1: metal spark. And it's then, David, that I love you
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  Speaker 1: like a brother. The mist rose and died away, and
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  Speaker 1: showed us that country lying as waste as the sea,
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  Speaker 1: only the moor fowl and the peewee's crying upon it,
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  Speaker 1: and far over to the east a herd of deer
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  Speaker 1: moving like dots. Much of it was red with heather,
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  Speaker 1: much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags
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  Speaker 1: and peaty pools. Some had been burnt black in a
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  Speaker 1: heath fire. And in another place there was quite a
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  Speaker 1: forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A wearier looking
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  Speaker 1: desert man never saw. But at least it was clear
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  Speaker 1: of troops, which was our point. We went down accordingly
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  Speaker 1: into the waste, and began to make our toilsome and
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  Speaker 1: devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops
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  Speaker 1: of mountains all round, you are to remember, from whence
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  Speaker 1: we might be spied at any moment. So it behooved
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  Speaker 1: us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor,
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  Speaker 1: and when these turned aside from our direction, to move
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  Speaker 1: upon its naked face with infinite care. Sometimes for half
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  Speaker 1: an hour. Together we must crawl from one heather bush
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  Speaker 1: to another, as hunters do when they are hard upon
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  Speaker 1: the deer. It was a clear day again, with a
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  Speaker 1: blazing sun. The water in the brandy bottle was soon gone,
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  Speaker 1: and altogether, if I had guessed what it would be
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  Speaker 1: to crawl half the time upon my belly, and to
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  Speaker 1: walk much of the rest, stooping nearly to the knees,
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  Speaker 1: I should certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise.
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  Speaker 1: Boiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning,
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  Speaker 1: and about noon lay down in a thick bush of
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  Speaker 1: heather to sleep. Alan took the first watch, and it
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before
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  Speaker 1: I was shaken up to take the second. We had
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  Speaker 1: no clock to go by, and Alan stuck a sprig
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  Speaker 1: of heath in the ground to serve instead, so that
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  Speaker 1: as soon as the shadow of the bush should fall
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  Speaker 1: so far to the east, I might not to rouse him.
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  Speaker 1: But I was by this time so weary that I
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  Speaker 1: could have slept twelve hours at a stretch. I had
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  Speaker 1: the taste of sleep in my throat, my joints slept
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  Speaker 1: even when my mind was waking. The hot smell of
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  Speaker 1: the heather and the drone of the wild bees were
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  Speaker 1: like possets to me, and every now and again I
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  Speaker 1: would give a jump. Fine I had been dozing. The
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  Speaker 1: last time I awoke, I seemed to come back from
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  Speaker 1: farther away, and thought the sun had taken a great
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  Speaker 1: start in the heavens. I looked at the sprig of heath,
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  Speaker 1: and at that I could have cried aloud, for I
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  Speaker 1: saw I have betrayed my trust. My head was nearly
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  Speaker 1: burned with fear and shame. And at what I saw
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  Speaker 1: when I looked out around me on the moor, my
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  Speaker 1: heart was like dying in my body. For sure enough,
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  Speaker 1: a body of horse soldiers had come down during my sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and were drawing near to us from the southeast, spread
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  Speaker 1: out in the shape of a fan, and riding their
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  Speaker 1: horses to and fro in the deep parts of the heather.
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  Speaker 1: When I waked all and he glanced first at the soldiers,
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  Speaker 1: then at the mark in the position of the sun,
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  Speaker 1: and knitted his brows with a sudden, quick look, both
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  Speaker 1: ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had
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  Speaker 1: of him. What are we to do now, I asked,
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  Speaker 1: We'll have to play it being Hares said he do
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  Speaker 1: ye see Yon mountain, pointing to one on the northeastern sky.
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  Speaker 1: Ay said I. Well, then, says he, let us strike
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  Speaker 1: for that. Its name is ben Alder. It is a
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  Speaker 1: wild desert mountain, full of hills and hollows. And if
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  Speaker 1: we can win to it before the morn, we may do. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: but Allan cried, I that will take us across the
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  Speaker 1: very coming of the soldiers. I ken that fine, said he.
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  Speaker 1: But if we are driven back on appin, we are
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  Speaker 1: two dead men. So now David man be brisk with that.
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  Speaker 1: He began to run forward on his hands and knees
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  Speaker 1: with an incredible quickness, as though it was his natural
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  Speaker 1: way of going all the time too. He kept winding
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  Speaker 1: in and out in the lower parts of the moorland,
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  Speaker 1: where we were the best concealed. Some of these have
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  Speaker 1: been burned, or at least scathed with fire, and there
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  Speaker 1: rose in our faces, which were close to the ground,
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  Speaker 1: a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke. The water
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  Speaker 1: was long out, and this posture of running on the
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  Speaker 1: hands and knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, so
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  Speaker 1: that the joints ache and the wrists faint under your weight.
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  Speaker 1: Now and then, indeed, where there was a big bush
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  Speaker 1: of heather, we lay awhile and panted, and, putting aside
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  Speaker 1: the leaves, looked back at the dragoons. They had not
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  Speaker 1: spied us, for they held straight on a half troop,
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  Speaker 1: I think, covering about two miles a ground, and beating
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  Speaker 1: it mighty thoroughly as they went. I had awakened just
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  Speaker 1: in time a little later, and we must have fled
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  Speaker 1: in front of them, instead of escaping on one side,
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  Speaker 1: even as it was the least misfortune might betray us.
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  Speaker 1: And now and again, when a grouse rose out of
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  Speaker 1: the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as
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  Speaker 1: still as the dead, and were afraid to breathe. The
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  Speaker 1: aching and faintness of my body, the laboring of my heart,
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  Speaker 1: the soreness of my hands, and the smarting of my
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  Speaker 1: throat and eyes in the continual smoke of dust and ashes,
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  Speaker 1: had soon grown to be so unbearable that I would
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  Speaker 1: gladly have given up nothing. But the fear of Alan
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  Speaker 1: lent me enough of a false kind of courage to
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  Speaker 1: continue as for himself. And you are to bear in
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  Speaker 1: mind that he was cumbered with a greatcoat. He had
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  Speaker 1: first turned crimson, But as time went on the redness
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  Speaker 1: began to be mingled with patches of white. His breath
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  Speaker 1: cried and whistled as it came, and his voice, when
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  Speaker 1: he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts,
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  Speaker 1: sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way
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  Speaker 1: dashed in spirits, nor did he at all abate in
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  Speaker 1: his activity, so that I was driven to marvel at
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  Speaker 1: the man's endurance. At length, in the first gloaming of
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  Speaker 1: the night, we heard a trumpet sound, and looking back
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  Speaker 1: from among the heather, saw the troop beginning to collect
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  Speaker 1: a little after they had built a fire and camped
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  Speaker 1: for the night about the middle of the waste. At
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  Speaker 1: this I begged and besought that we might lie down
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  Speaker 1: in sleep. There shall be no sleep the night, said Allan.
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  Speaker 1: From now on, these weary dragoons of yours will keep
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  Speaker 1: the crown of the meure land, and none will get
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  Speaker 1: out of appin but winged fowls. We got through in
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  Speaker 1: the nick of time, And shall we jeopard what we've gained? Nah? Nah,
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  Speaker 1: when the day comes, it shall find you and me
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  Speaker 1: in a fast place on ben Alder. Allan, I said,
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  Speaker 1: it's not the want of will, it's the strength that
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  Speaker 1: I want. If I could, I would, But as sure
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  Speaker 1: as I'm alive, I cannot. Very well, then said Allan,
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  Speaker 1: I'll carry ye. I look to see if he were jesting,
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  Speaker 1: but no. The little man was in dead earnest, and
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  Speaker 1: the sight of so much resolution shamed me. Lead away,
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  Speaker 1: said I I'll follow. He gave me one look as
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  Speaker 1: much as to say well done, David, and off he
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  Speaker 1: set again at his top speed. It grew cooler and
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  Speaker 1: even a little darker, but not much with the coming
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  Speaker 1: of the night. The sky was cloudless. It was still
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  Speaker 1: early in July, and pretty far north. In the darkest
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  Speaker 1: part of that night, you would have needed pretty good
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  Speaker 1: eyes to read. But for all that, I have often
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  Speaker 1: seen it darker in a winter midday, heavy dew fell
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  Speaker 1: and drenched the moor like rain, and this refreshed me
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  Speaker 1: for a while. When we stopped to breathe, and I
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  Speaker 1: had time to see all about me, the clearness and
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  Speaker 1: sweetness of the night, the shapes of the hills like
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  Speaker 1: things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behind us like
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  Speaker 1: a bright spot in the midst of the moor. Anger
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  Speaker 1: would come upon me in a clap, that I must
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  Speaker 1: still drag myself in agony and eat the dust like
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  Speaker 1: a worm. By what I have read in books, I
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  Speaker 1: think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied,
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  Speaker 1: or they would write of it more strongly. I had
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  Speaker 1: no care of my life, neither past nor future, and
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  Speaker 1: I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour.
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  Speaker 1: I did not think of myself, but just of each
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  Speaker 1: fresh step, which I was sure would be my last,
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  Speaker 1: with despair, and of Allan, who was the cause of it,
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  Speaker 1: with hatred. Allan was in the right trade as a soldier.
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  Speaker 1: This is the officer's part, to make men continue to
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  Speaker 1: do things they know not wherefore and when, if the
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  Speaker 1: choice was offered, they would lie down where they were
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  Speaker 1: and be killed. And I dare say I would have
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  Speaker 1: made a good enough private for in these last hours
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  Speaker 1: it never occurred to me that I had any choice
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  Speaker 1: but just to obey as long as I was able
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  Speaker 1: and die obeying. Day began to come in after years,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, and by that time we were past the
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  Speaker 1: greatest danger and could walk upon our feet like men,
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  Speaker 1: instead of crawling like brutes. But dear heart, have mercy,
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  Speaker 1: what a pair we must have made, going double like
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  Speaker 1: old grandfathers, stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk.
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  Speaker 1: Never a word passed between us. Each set his mouth
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  Speaker 1: and kept his eyes in front of him, and lifted
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  Speaker 1: up his foot and set it down again, like people
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  Speaker 1: lifting weights at a country play, all the while with
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  Speaker 1: a more fowl crying peep in the heather, and the
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  Speaker 1: light coming slowly clearer in the east. I say, Alan
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  Speaker 1: did as I did. Not that ever I looked at him,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: for I had enough ado to keep my feet. But
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  Speaker 1: because it is plain, he must have been as stupid
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  Speaker 1: with weariness as myself, and looked as little where we
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  Speaker 1: were going, or we should not have walked into an
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  Speaker 1: ambush like blind men. It fell in this way. We
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: were going down a heathery bray, Alan leading, and I
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  Speaker 1: following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler and
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  Speaker 1: his wife. When upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle.
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  Speaker 1: Three or four ragged men leaped out, and the next
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  Speaker 1: moment we were lying on our backs, each with a
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  Speaker 1: dirk at his throat. I don't think I cared. The
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  Speaker 1: pain of this rough handling was quite swallowed up by
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  Speaker 1: the pains of which I was already full. And I
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  Speaker 1: was too glad to have stopped walking to mind about
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  Speaker 1: a dirk. I lay looking up in the face of
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  Speaker 1: the man that held me, and I mind his face
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  Speaker 1: was black with the sun, and his eyes very light.
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  Speaker 1: But I was not afraid of him. I heard Allan
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  Speaker 1: and another whispering in the Gaelic, and what they said
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  Speaker 1: was all one to me. Then the dirks were put up,
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  Speaker 1: our weapons were taken away, and we were set face
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  Speaker 1: to face, sitting in the heather. They are Clooney's men,
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  Speaker 1: said Allan. But couldn't have fallen better, or just abide
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  Speaker 1: here with these which are his out sentries, till they
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  Speaker 1: can get word to the chief of my arrival. Now
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Clooney Macpherson, the chief of the Clan Vourich, had been
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: one of the leaders of the Great Rebellion six years before.
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  Speaker 1: There was a price on his life, and I had
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: supposed him long ago in France with the rest of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the heads of that desperate party. Even tired as I was,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the surprise of what I heard half wakened me. What
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I cried, is Clooney still here? I is? He? So said, Allan,
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  Speaker 1: still in his own country and kept by his own clan.
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  Speaker 1: King George can do no more. I think I would
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: have asked farther, but Alan gave me the put off.
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  Speaker 1: I am rather wearied, he said, and I would like
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  Speaker 1: find to get asleep. And without more words, he rolled
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: on his face in a deep heather bush and seemed
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  Speaker 1: to sleep at once. There was no such thing possible
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  Speaker 1: for me. You have heard grasshoppers whirring in the grass
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: in the summer time. Well, I had no sooner closed
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  Speaker 1: my eyes than my body, and above all my head, belly,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and wrists seemed to be filled with whirring grasshoppers. And
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  Speaker 1: I must open my eyes again at once, and tumble
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  Speaker 1: and toss, and sit up and lie down and look
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: at the sky which dazzled me. Where at Clooney's wild
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and dirty sentries peering out over the top of the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: bray and chattering to each other in the Gaelic. That
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was all the rest I had until the messenger returned, When,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: as it appeared that Clooney would be glad to receive us,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: we must get once more upon our feet and set forward.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Alan was in excellent good spirits, much refreshed by his sleep,
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  Speaker 1: very hungry and looking pleasantly forward to a dram and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a dish of hot collops, of which it seems the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: messenger had brought him word. For my part, it made
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: me sick to hear of eating. I had been dead
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: lightness which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted
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  Speaker 1: like a gossamer. The ground seemed to me a cloud,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the hills a featherweight, the air to have a current
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: like a running burn, which carried me to and fro.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: With all that, a sort of horror of despair sat
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: on my mind, so that I could have wept at
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: my own helplessness. I saw Allan knitting his brows at me,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and supposed it was in anger, and that gave me
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: a pang of light headed fear, like what a child
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: may have. I remember too, that I was smiling, and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: could not stop smiling, hard as I tried, for I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: thought it was out of place at such a time.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And the next moment two of the Gillies had me
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: by the arms, and I began to be carried forward
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: with great swiftness, or so it appeared to me, although
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I dare say it was slowly. In truth, threw a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: labyrinth of dreary glens and hollows, and into the heart
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  Speaker 1: of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder. End of chapter