"Dashing on, and threading the mazes of the forest with the rapidity and activity of a true mountaineer, he contrived to baffle his pursuers, and reached what he supposed to be the inmost recesses of the wilderness. There, panting and breathless with exhaustion, he flung himself to rest on the green sward, cursing and deploring the hour when a son of the Gael had to flee from the arm of a stranger, and was hunted like a deer on his native hills by the soldiers of one he deemed a German despot and oppressor. "He rolled himself up in his plaid, and creeping close under the pine branches, lay listening with intense eagerness when the crash of a bramble or the rustle of leaves should announce that the Hessians were on his track. The night was calm and still. Not a heather-bell or blade of grass was stirring, and the pendent branches of the gloomy and gigantic pines hung down perfectly still and motionless. Not a sound was heard throughout all the immensity of the vast forest, save the hoarse murmurs of the foaming Spey, whose waters came hurrying down from the far-off hills of Badenoch, and swept through the recesses of Rothiemurchus on their course to the Moray Frith. There was no moon shining, but the night was clear and cloudless, and at times the red stars were seen twinkling through the dark foliage of the pines. "As my father (Evan of Tor-a-muilt,[*] as he was named) lay thus in concealment, he suddenly remembered that he was within the bounds of the place haunted by the terrible spirit of Glenmore and Rothiemurchus,—the _lham-dearg_, or bloody-hand, who compelled all who crossed his path during his nocturnal rambles to do battle with him, and none were ever known to survive the awful conflict. He would have started up and fled; but remembering that it was equally dangerous to avoid as to seek the company of evil spirits, he resolved to remain where he was, saying over his prayers like a good catholic, and imploring protection from Saint Colm of the Isles. Yet his blood ran cold with terror, perspiration burst forth from every pore, and he covered his head in his plaid to shut out any frightful sight or sound that might invade the stillness of the gloomy wood. He locked his hand in the basket-hilt of his claymore, and lay hearkening so intensely, that he might almost have heard the dew dropping from the leaves. [*] The Wedders-hill, an eminence at the foot of Loch-Archaig, in Kilmallie, Inverness-shire.