The soldiers sung Gaelic songs to while away the time, and each shared with his comrade the contents of his canteen and havresack; for, having just left their homes in Strathspey, all were amply provided with bread and cheese, beef, venison, and plenty of good usquebaugh; thus, though the place of their halt was weird, wild, and--all save the little runnel that trickled down the heather slope--unholy, the night seemed likely to pass merrily enough. Apart from all his men lay Evan MacPherson, of Ballychroan, who on this night was unusually sullen, gloomy, and taciturn; so much so, that the soldiers, all of whom knew him well, remarked that a _tarnecoill_, or black cloud, was upon him; for at times he had his dark or melancholy hour. "And how could he be otherwise?" said old Sergeant Hamish, in a whisper, as he took a huge _sneishen_ from the silver-mounted mull of Corporal Shon Grant, his own cousin, "only seventeen times removed," as Bailie Jarvie has it. "Oich! oich! who but he would have halted in the Forest of Gaich, and at night too?" "I'll sleep with one eye open, at all events," replied the corporal, impressively, with a wink. "And I with both my ears," said Duncan Bane, the piper; "for, by the horns of the devil--" "Whisht! Oich, don't name him here, for he is, perhaps, nearer than we know of; but what were you about to say?" "That we shall be lucky if we pass the night without hearing the scream of Comyn's eagles as they fly towards the Tarff." "It is said, they pass through the forest from Benoch Corrie Va always at midnight," said Donald Bane Grant, or Fair-haired Donald the piper, in a whisper. Some of the younger soldiers laughed; but the older shrugged their shoulders, and took an additional dram and sneishen, as they thought of all the Forest of Gaich had witnessed in other times. In a previous legend, the fate of the Red Comyn has been mentioned; but this forest was the death-scene of his father, the equally traitorous Black Comyn; and it was to the story of his terrible death the soldiers referred. "He was killed," said one, "by a fall from his horse, which a weird woman had bewitched." "Not at all," said the sergeant, bluntly; for he was well versed in all the oral literature of his native hills. "How then--how?" asked several.