Chapter XXII. The Flight in the Heather: The Moor

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　Some seven hours' incessant, hard travelling brought us early inthe morning to the end of a range of mountains. In front of usthere lay a piece of low, broken, desert land, which we must nowcross. The sun was not long up, and shone straight in our eyes;a little, thin mist went up from the face of the moorland like asmoke; so that (as Alan said) there might have been twentysquadron of dragoons there and we none the wiser.We sat down, therefore, in a howe of the hill-side till the mistshould have risen, and made ourselves a dish of drammach, andheld a council of war."David," said Alan, "this is the kittle bit. Shall we lie heretill it comes night, or shall we risk it, and stave on ahead?""Well," said I, "I am tired indeed, but I could walk as faragain, if that was all.""Ay, but it isnae," said Alan, "nor yet the half. This is how westand: Appin's fair death to us. To the south it's allCampbells, and no to be thought of. To the north; well, there'sno muckle to be gained by going north; neither for you, thatwants to get to Queensferry, nor yet for me, that wants to get toFrance. Well, then, we'll can strike east.""East be it!" says I, quite cheerily; but I was thinking" in tomyself: "O, man, if you would only take one point of the compassand let me take any other, it would be the best for both of us.""Well, then, east, ye see, we have the muirs," said Alan. "Oncethere, David, it's mere pitch-and-toss. Out on yon bald, naked,flat place, where can a body turn to? Let the red-coats come overa hill, they can spy you miles away; and the sorrow's in theirhorses' heels, they would soon ride you down. It's no goodplace, David; and I'm free to say, it's worse by daylight than bydark.""Alan," said I, "hear my way of it. Appin's death for us; wehave none too much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, thenearer they may guess where we are; it's all a risk; and I givemy word to go ahead until we drop."Alan was delighted. "There are whiles," said he, "when ye arealtogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentlemanlike me; but there come other whiles when ye show yoursel' amettle spark; and it's then, David, that I love ye like abrother."The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying aswaste as the sea; only the moorfowl and the pewees crying uponit, and far over to the east, a herd of deer, moving like dots.Much of it was red with heather; much of the rest broken up withbogs and hags and peaty pools; some had been burnt black in aheath fire; and in another place there was quite a forest of deadfirs, standing like skeletons. A wearier-looking desert mannever saw; but at least it was clear of troops, which was ourpoint.We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make ourtoilsome and devious travel towards the eastern verge. Therewere the tops of mountains all round (you are to remember) fromwhence we might be spied at any moment; so it behoved us to keepin the hollow parts of the moor, and when these turned aside fromour direction to move upon its naked face with infinite care.Sometimes, for half an hour together, we must crawl from oneheather bush to another, as hunters do when they are hard uponthe deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun; thewater in the brandy bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if Ihad guessed what it would be to crawl half the time upon my bellyand to walk much of the rest stooping nearly to the knees, Ishould certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise.Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away the morning;and about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep.Alan took the first watch; and it seemed to me I had scarceclosed my eyes before I was shaken up to take the second. We hadno clock to go by; and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the groundto serve instead; so that as soon as the shadow of the bushshould fall so far to the east, I might know to rouse him. But Iwas by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours ata stretch; I had the taste of sleep in my throat; my joints slepteven when my mind was waking; the hot smell of the heather, andthe drone of the wild bees, were like possets to me; and everynow and again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing.The last time I woke I seemed to come back from farther away, andthought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens. I lookedat the sprig of heath, and at that I could have cried aloud: forI saw I had betrayed my trust. My head was nearly turned withfear and shame; and at what I saw, when I looked out around me onthe moor, my heart was like dying in my body. For sure enough, abody of horse-soldiers had come down during my sleep, and weredrawing near to us from the south-east, spread out in the shapeof a fan and riding their horses to and fro in the deep parts ofthe heather.When I waked Alan, he glanced first at the soldiers, then at themark and the position of the sun, and knitted his brows with asudden, quick look, both ugly and anxious, which was all thereproach I had of him."What are we to do now?" I asked."We'll have to play at being hares," said he. "Do ye see yonmountain?" pointing to one on the north-eastern sky."Ay," said I."Well, then," says he, "let us strike for that. Its name is BenAlder. it is a wild, desert mountain full of hills and hollows,and if we can win to it before the morn, we may do yet.""But, Alan," cried I, "that will take us across the very comingof the soldiers!""I ken that fine," said he; "but if we are driven back on Appin,we are two dead men. So now, David man, be brisk!"With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with anincredible quickness, as though it were his natural way of going.All the time, too, he kept winding in and out in the lower partsof the moorland where we were the best concealed. Some of thesehad been burned or at least scathed with fire; and there rose inour faces (which were close to the ground) a blinding, chokingdust as fine as smoke. The water was long out; and this postureof running on the hands and knees brings an overmasteringweakness and weariness, so that the joints ache and the wristsfaint under your weight.Now and then, indeed, where was a big bush of heather, we layawhile, and panted, and putting aside the leaves, looked back atthe dragoons. They had not spied us, for they held straight on;a half-troop, I think, covering about two miles of ground, andbeating it mighty thoroughly as they went. I had awakened justin time; a little later, and we must have fled in front of them,instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was, the leastmisfortune might betray us; and now and again, when a grouse roseout of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as still as thedead and were afraid to breathe.The aching and faintness of my body, the labouring of my heart,the soreness of my hands, and the smarting of my throat and eyesin the continual smoke of dust and ashes, had soon grown to be sounbearable that I would gladly have given up. Nothing but thefear of Alan lent me enough of a false kind of courage tocontinue. As for himself (and you are to bear in mind that hewas cumbered with a great-coat) he had first turned crimson, butas time went on the redness began to be mingled with patches ofwhite; his breath cried and whistled as it came; and his voice,when he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts,sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way dashed inspirits, nor did he at all abate in his activity, so that I wasdriven, to marvel at the man's endurance.At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we heard a trumpetsound, and looking back from among the heather, saw the troopbeginning to collect. A little after, they had built a fire andcamped for the night, about the middle of the waste.At this I begged and besought that we might lie down and sleep."There shall be no sleep the night!" said Alan. "From now on,these weary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of themuirland, and none will get out of Appin but winged fowls. Wegot through in the nick of time, and shall we jeopard what we'vegained? Na, na, when the day comes, it shall find you and me ina fast place on Ben Alder.""Alan," I said, "it's not the want of will: it's the strengththat I want. If I could, I would; but as sure as I'm alive Icannot.""Very well, then," said Alan. "I'll carry ye."I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little man was indead earnest; and the sight of so much resolution shamed me."Lead away!" said I. "I'll follow."He gave me one look as much as to say, "Well done, David!" andoff he set again at his top speed.It grew cooler and even a little darker (but not much) with thecoming of the night. The sky was cloudless; it was still earlyin July, and pretty far north; in the darkest part of that night,you would have needed pretty good eyes to read, but for all that,I have often seen it darker in a winter mid-day. Heavy dew felland drenched the moor like rain; and this refreshed me for awhile. When we stopped to breathe, and I had time to see allabout me, the clearness and sweetness of the night, the shapes ofthe hills like things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behindus, like a bright spot in the midst of the moor, anger would comeupon me in a clap that I must still drag myself in agony and eatthe dust like a worm.By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a penwere ever really wearied, or they would write of it morestrongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, andI scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I didnot think of myself, but just of each fresh step which I was surewould be my last, with despair -- and of Alan, who was the causeof it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier;this is the officer's part to make men continue to do things,they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered,they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I daresay I would have made a good enough private; for in these lasthours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just toobey as long as I was able, and die obeying.Day began to come in, after years, I thought; and by that time wewere past the greatest danger, and could walk upon our feet likemen, instead of crawling like brutes. But, dear heart havemercy! what a pair we must have made, going double like oldgrandfathers, stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk.Never a word passed between us; each set his mouth and kept hiseyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and set it downagain, like people lifting weights at a country play;[27] all thewhile, with the moorfowl crying "peep!" in the heather, and thelight coming slowly clearer in the east.[27] Village fair.I say Alan did as I did. Not that ever I looked at him, for Ihad enough ado to keep my feet; but because it is plain he musthave been as stupid with weariness as myself, and looked aslittle where we were going, or we should not have walked into anambush like blind men.It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery brae, Alanleading and I following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler andhis wife; when upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle, three orfour ragged men leaped out, and the next moment we were lying onour backs, each with a dirk at his throat.I don't think I cared; the pain of this rough handling was quiteswallowed up by the pains of which I was already full; and I wastoo glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I laylooking up in the face of the man that held me; and I mind hisface was black with the sun, and his eyes very light, but I wasnot afraid of him. I heard Alan and another whispering in theGaelic; and what they said was all one to me.Then the dirks were put up, our weapons were taken away, and wewere set face to face, sitting in the heather."They are Cluny's men," said Alan. "We couldnae have fallenbetter. We're just to bide here with these, which are hisout-sentries, till they can get word to the chief of my arrival."Now Cluny Macpherson, the chief of the clan Vourich, had been oneof the leaders of the great rebellion six years before; there wasa price on his life; and I had supposed him long ago in France,with the rest of the heads of that desperate party. Even tiredas I was, the surprise of what I heard half wakened me."What," I cried, "is Cluny still here?""Ay, is he so!" said Alan. "Still in his own country and kept byhis own clan. King George can do no more."I think I would have asked farther, but Alan gave me the put-off."I am rather wearied," he said, "and I would like fine to get asleep." And without more words, he rolled on his face in a deepheather bush, and seemed to sleep at once.There was no such thing possible for me. You have heardgrasshoppers whirring in the grass in the summer time? Well, Ihad no sooner closed my eyes, than my body, and above all myhead, belly, and wrists, seemed to be filled with whirringgrasshoppers; and I must open my eyes again at once, and tumbleand toss, and sit up and lie down; and look at the sky whichdazzled me, or at Cluny's wild and dirty sentries, peering outover the top of the brae and chattering to each other in theGaelic.That was all the rest I had, until the messenger returned; when,as it appeared that Cluny would be glad to receive us, we mustget once more upon our feet and set forward. Alan was inexcellent good spirits, much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry,and looking pleasantly forward to a dram and a dish of hotcollops, of which, it seems, the messenger had brought him word.For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I had beendead-heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness,which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer;the ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, theair to have a current, like a running burn, which carried me toand fro. With all that, a sort of horror of despair sat on mymind, so that I could have wept at my own helplessness.I saw Alan knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was inanger; and that gave me a pang of light-headed fear, like what achild may have. I remember, too, that I was smiling, and couldnot stop smiling, hard as I tried; for I thought it was out ofplace at such a time. But my good companion had nothing in hismind but kindness; and the next moment, two of the gillies had meby the arms, and I began to be carried forward with greatswiftness (or so it appeared to me, although I dare say it wasslowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary glens andhollows and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder.