Hunted and Harried, Robert Michael Ballantyne [an ebook reader .TXT] 📗

large supply of provisions which he and his comrade had carried.

"I've brought this for ye frae Andrew Black," said Quentin, taking the wallet from his shoulder and presenting it to a man in clerical costume who advanced to welcome him. "He thought ye might stand in need o' victuals."

"Ever thoughtful of his friends; I thank him heartily," said the minister, accepting the wallet--as also that handed to him by Wallace. "Andrew is a true helper of the persecuted; and I thank the Lord who has put it into his heart to supply us at a time when our provisions are well-nigh exhausted. Our numbers have been unexpectedly increased by the arrival of some of the unfortunates recently expelled from Lanark."

"From Lanark!" echoed Wallace as he glanced eagerly round on the forlorn throng. "Can you tell me, sir, if a Mr. David Spence and a Mrs. Wallace have arrived from that quarter?"

"I have not heard of them," returned the minister, as he emptied the wallets and began to distribute their contents to those around him.--"Ah, here is milk--I'm glad our friend Black thought of that, for we have a poor dying woman here who can eat nothing solid. Here, Webster, take it to her."

With a sudden sinking at the heart Wallace followed the man to whom the milk had been given. Might not this dying woman, he thought, be his own mother? True, he had just been told that no one with her name had yet sought refuge there; but, there was a bare possibility and--anxiety does not reason! As he crossed to a spot where several persons were bending over a couch of straw, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the solid walls of the cavern. This was immediately followed by a torrent of rain, the plashing of which outside suggested that all the windows of heaven had been suddenly opened. The incident was natural enough in itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he had never before trembled at the disturbances of nature. One glance, however, sufficed to relieve his mind. The dying woman was young. Delicate of constitution by nature, long exposure to damp air in caves, and cold beds on the ground, with bad and insufficient food, had sealed her doom. Lying there, with hollow cheeks, eyes closed and lips deathly pale, it seemed as if the spirit had already fled.

"Oh, my ain Lizzie!" cried a poor woman who knelt beside her.

"Wheesht, mither," whispered the dying woman, slowly opening her eyes; "it is the Lord's doing--shall not the Judge of a' the earth do right? We'll understand it a' some day--for ever wi' the Lord!"

The last words were audible only to the mother's ear. Food for the body, even if it could have availed her, came too late. Another moment and she was in the land where hunger and thirst are unknown--where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

The mourners were still standing in silence gazing on the dead, when a loud noise and stamping of feet was heard at the entrance of the cave. Turning round they saw several drenched and haggard persons enter, among them a man supporting--almost carrying--a woman whose drooping figure betokened great exhaustion.

"Thank you, O thank you; I--I'm better now," said the woman, looking up with a weary yet grateful expression at her protector.

Will Wallace sprang forward as he heard the voice. "Mother! mother!" he cried, and, next moment, he had her in his arms.

The excitement coupled with extreme fatigue was almost too much for the poor woman. She could not speak, but, with a sigh of contentment, allowed her head to fall upon the broad bosom of her son.

Accustomed as those hunted people were to scenes of suffering, wild despair, and sometimes, though not often, to bursts of sudden joy, this incident drew general attention and sympathy--except, indeed, from the mother of the dead woman, whose poor heart was for the moment stunned. Several women--one of whom was evidently a lady of some position-- crowded to Will's assistance, and conveyed Mrs. Wallace to a recess in the cave which was curtained off. Here they gave her food, and changed her soaking garments. Meanwhile her brother, David Spence--a grand-looking old man of gentle manners and refined mind--gave his nephew an account of the manner in which they had been driven from their home.

"What is the matter with your hands, uncle?" asked Will, observing that both were bandaged.

"They tried the thumbscrews on me," said Spence with a pitiful smile, glancing at his injured members. "They wanted to force me to sign the Bond, which I declined to do--first, because it required me to perform impossibilities; and, second, because it was such as no Government in the world has a right to exact or freeman to sign. They were going to put the boot on me at first, but the officer in command ordered them to try the thumbscrews. This was lucky, for a man may get along with damaged thumbs, but it would have been hard to travel with crippled legs! I held out though, until the pain became so great that I couldn't help giving a tremendous yell. This seemed to touch the officer with pity, for he ordered his men to let me be. Soon afterwards your mother and I managed to give them the slip, and we came on here."

"But why came you here, uncle?" asked Will.

"Because I don't want to be taken to Edinburgh and hanged. Besides, after hearing of your temporary settlement with Black, I thought the safest place for your mother would be beside yourself."

When Wallace explained the cause of his own journey, and the condition of the district around Black's farm, the plans of David Spence had to be altered. He resolved, after consideration and prayer, to take to the mountains and remain in hiding, while Mrs. Wallace should go to Edinburgh, as already planned, and live with Mrs. Black.

"But it will never do to take her along with yourself, Will," said Spence. "She cannot walk a step farther. We must try to get her a horse, and let her journey along with some o' the armed bands that attended the conventicle at Skeoch Hill. They will be sure to be returning this way in a day or two."

"You are right," said the minister who has already been introduced, and who overheard the concluding remark as he came forward. "The armed men will be passing this way in a day or two, and we will take good care of your mother, young sir, while she remains with us."

"Just so," rejoined Spence. "I'll see to that; so, nephew, you and your comrade Quentin may continue your journey with easy minds. You'll need all your caution to avoid being taken up and convicted, for the tyrants are in such a state of mind just now that if a man only _looks_ independent they suspect him, and there is but a short road between suspicion and the gallows now."

"Humph! we'll be as innocent-lookin' an' submissive as bairns," remarked Quentin Dick, with a grim smile on his lips and a frown on his brow that were the reverse of childlike.

Convinced that Spence's arrangement for his mother's safety was the best in the circumstances, Wallace left her, though somewhat reluctantly, in the care of the outlawed Covenanters, and resumed his journey with the shepherd after a few hours' rest.

Proceeding with great caution, they succeeded in avoiding the soldiers who scoured the country until, towards evening, while crossing a rising ground they were met suddenly by two troopers. A thicket and bend in the road had, up to that moment, concealed them from view. Level grass-fields bordered the road on either side, so that successful flight was impossible.

"Wull ye fecht?" asked Quentin, in a quick subdued voice.

"Of course I will," returned Wallace.

"Ca' canny at first, then. Be humble an' _awfu'_ meek, till I say `_Noo_!'"

The troopers were upon them almost as soon as this was uttered.

"Ho! my fine fellows," exclaimed one of them, riding up to Quentin with drawn sword, "fanatics, I'll be bound. Where from and where away now?"

"We come, honoured sir, frae Irongray, an' we're gaun to Ed'nbury t' buy cattle," answered Quentin with downcast eyes.

"Indeed, oho! then you must needs have the cash wherewith to buy the cattle. Where is it?"

"In ma pooch," said the shepherd with a deprecating glance at his pocket.

"Hand it over, then, my good fellow. Fanatics are not allowed to have money or to purchase cattle nowadays."

"But, honoured sir, we're no fannyteeks. We're honest shepherds."

The lamb-like expression of Quentin Dick's face as he said this was such that Wallace had considerable difficulty in restraining an outburst of laughter, despite their critical position. He maintained his gravity, however, and firmly grasped his staff, which, like that of his companion, was a blackthorn modelled somewhat on the pattern of the club of Hercules.

"Here, Melville," said the first trooper, "hold my horse while I ease this `honest shepherd' of his purse."

Sheathing his sword, he drew a pistol from its holster, and, handing the reins to his companion, dismounted.

"NOO!" exclaimed Quentin, bringing his staff down on the trooper's iron headpiece with a terrific thwack. Like a flash of lightning the club of Wallace rang and split upon that of the other horseman, who fell headlong to the ground.

Strong arms have seldom occasion to repeat a well-delivered blow. While the soldiers lay prone upon the road their startled horses galloped back the way they had come.

"That's unfort'nit," said Quentin. "Thae twa look like an advance-gaird, an' if so, the main body'll no be lang o' gallopin' up to see what's the maitter. It behoves us to rin!"

The only port of refuge that appeared to them as they looked quickly round was a clump of trees on a ridge out of which rose the spire of a church.

"The kirk's but a puir sanctuary nooadays," remarked the shepherd, as he set off across the fields at a quick run, "but it's oor only chance."

They had not quite gained the ridge referred to when the danger that Quentin feared overtook them. A small company of dragoons was seen galloping along the road.

"We may gain the wood before they see us," suggested Will Wallace.

"If it _was_ a wud I wadna care for the sodgers," replied his comrade, "but it's only a bit plantation. We'll jist mak' for the manse an' hide if we can i' the coal-hole or some place."

As he spoke a shout from the troopers told that they had been seen, and several of them leaving the road dashed across the field in pursuit.

Now, it chanced that at that quiet evening hour the young curate of the district, the Reverend Frank Selby, was enjoying a game of quoits with a neighbouring curate, the Reverend George Lawless, on a piece of ground at the rear of the manse. The Reverend Frank was a genial Lowlander of the muscular type. The Reverend George was a renegade Highland-man of the cadaverous order. The first was a harum-scarum young pastor with a be-as-jolly-as-you-can spirit, and had accepted his office at the recommendation