Frederick Watson

“ Miss Macpherson was very tall and exceedingly gaunt. Her countenance was as bleak as a wind-swept hillside, and there was a stony glare in her grey eyes which seemed to turn the very atmosphere to frost. Her figure was all points and angles—jutting out where her shoulders rose towards her neck, and seeming to extend indefinitely into her arms. Rob knew those long, sinewy arms with their thin, gnarled hands ever ready to swoop. Miss Macpherson's customary attitude was like that of a great bird of prey, mightily beaked and clawed, pouncing swiftly, and rising again to sit and watch upon a crag. ”

“ Indeed, had he not passed so close leading a Shetland pony very carefully and yet urging it to its fullest speed, Rob would never have remembered the landing of that mysterious cargo and consequently never have been mixed up in the tragedy of gold. But to Rob there was something enormously mystifying about the character of this solitary traveller, with his anxious manner, and the rattling casks ranged high upon the pony's flanks. It was like an old wife's tale of the fairies and their secret kegs of heather ale. ”

“ To sit watching muirfowl for hours together was more than any sensible body could tolerate. And that was Rob all over. He knew where the two-pound trout lay in the burn up in the hills. He could bring a curlew from the next glen in a perfect frenzy of agitation to learn what was the matter. He would spend nights together watching fox cubs playing under the moon. ”

“ THE WHISTLE OF THE BANSHEE
In the greyness of the dawn Muckle John called a halt.
"Rob," he said, "here is the day and only a mile covered since last night. Ye ken what that means? Within a few hours reinforcements will arrive from Fort Augustus, they will find the body of Strange—what must follow then?"
Rob shook his head. Escape seemed impossible.
"And yet," said Muckle John, "there must be a way—there's always a way, Rob, if you give your mind to it. There is no prison that cannot be broken, no wall that cannot be scaled—with luck and a cool head. ”

“ There comes a time when you can't beat a boy larger than yourself. Not that Rob would have complained or refused to submit. He was indifferent to such things. He had plenty of spirit of a dogged and inflammatory character, but it did not lie that way. If it consoled his aunt to beat him, then let her do so by all means. For all he knew it might be the time-honoured custom of maiden aunts.
Miss Macpherson was, above all, a practical woman, and it was Rob's dreamy obliviousness to facts that fretted her. ”

“ It was a narrow escape, but fortune had apparently come to his aid in the nick of time. With a gasp of relief he sprang to his feet, when out of the darkness a voice said: "Stand, or I fire!" and the cold barrel of a pistol was rammed against his cheek.
He had forgotten the man upon the shore.
"I am unarmed," gasped Rob; "and it is the man upon the ground whom you should guard against, not me."
At that the pistol was lowered, and seating himself the newcomer laid it upon his knee and ordered him to relate his account of the fight, to which he listened with the closest interest. ”

“ The preparations for this expedition were under discussion when Muckle John and Rob came into the main street. For a while they walked along in silence, Muckle John grown suddenly gravely absorbed, and taking such great strides that Rob was hard put to it to keep up. The dawn was come, and with it the town of Inverness began to hum and buzz like a hive of bees. Men, quartered in every house along the narrow street, commenced to pour out upon the highway, some putting on their sword-belts as they came, others wiping sleep out of their tired eyes with their knuckled hands. ”

“ The clatter of Macaulay's flying form and his muffled cries drew the newcomers past the place where they lay, and then springing to his hands and feet Muckle John made off in the opposite direction into the heart of the swirling mist. There was a brief silence and then far away, came a shrill yell taken up again and again until every crag seemed alive with voices, and the faint glow of the rising sun made their escape seem impossible.
"They've found him," cried Muckle John, mounting the hillside at a great pace with Rob at his heels, "so it's save your breath and follow me." ”

“ It is better that we should take different roads, Rob, we've travelled too long together. Make you for the south, Rob, and if all goes well wait news for me outside Leith. There is a gibbet there—shall we say this day month, and if I do not come then just go your ways and never say what took you there. And, Rob, change that kilt and for mercy's sake cover your legs with breeks and decent hose, for the like of you would be recognized from end to end of Scotland. They want you, Rob, never forget that—they want you as a rebel, but that's havers ”

“ Twice during the brief halt a man had crept out of the encircling darkness and scrutinized them narrowly. There was no sound beyond the wind sighing amongst the corries, but each time Muckle John had seen the heather quiver before something noiseless and stealthy that disappeared as softly as it had come. Once from far up the hill he heard a long whistle like a curlew on the wing.
At last he turned his head and let his eyes rest on Rob, and then again upon the grey horse with its drooping head. With a faint shrug of his shoulders he shook the boy. ”

“ They were shaggy as cattle beasts, dirty, smoke-blackened fellows, below the average size, active as wild cats, and chattering in whispers like a crew of unwashed monkeys. Even in the remnants of the Chevalier's army Rob had not encountered such as these. Only in Lochaber and Rannoch could such scourings of the clans be found until one met the red Macgregors which Providence forfend.
The innkeeper had his back turned to the stairway, but by the motion of his hands Rob read what he said like an open page. He was telling them of the silver that he, in his rashness, had exposed. ”

“ There will be a bonny ending for you, sir, when it is known in Lochaber."
"Lochaber," sneered Muckle John. "While there is a guineapiece buried in Lochaber neither you nor the Prince himself would raise a Cameron to his side."
"Braw words for a nameless man," cried Cameron bitterly, but very red about the neck. "Hark, Rob, for maybe ye will never hear the like again."
"I am no nameless man!" roared Muckle John; "and well ye know it."
Cameron smiled quietly to himself.
"Then the greater the smirch on your clan—though I'm no just remembering the tartan," he said. ”