When he had finished the song, he was barely suffered to take breath before being compelled to begin again; even the prisoner, who lay resting, still bound, within sight of the soldiers, listened, laughing into his red beard. But suddenly he stopped, rising to his feet:
"A lang-leggit deevil wi' his hand upon the gate, An' aye the Guidwife cries to him----"
Wattie's voice fell, cutting the line short, for a rush of steps was bursting through the trees--was close on them, dulled by the pine-needles underfoot--sweeping over the stumps and the naked roots. The beggar stared, clutching at the bank. His three companions sprang up.
The wood rang with shots, and one of the soldiers rolled over on his face, gasping as he tried to rise, struggling and snatching at the ground with convulsed fingers. The remaining two ran, one towards the prisoner, and one towards the horses which were plunging against each other in terror; the latter man dropped midway, with a bullet through his head.
The swiftness of the undreamed-of misfortune struck panic into Wattie, as he sat alone, helpless, incapable either of flight or of resistance. One of his dogs was caught by the leaden hail and lay fighting its life out a couple of paces from where he was left, a defenceless thing in this sudden storm of death. Two of the remaining three went rushing through the trees, yelping as the stampeding horses added their share to the danger and riot. These had torn up their heel-pegs, which, wrenched easily from a resistance made for the most part of moss and pine-needles, swung and whipped at the ends of the flying ropes behind the crazy animals as they dashed about. The surviving trooper had contrived to catch his own horse, and was riding for his life towards the road by which they had come from Edzell. The only quiet thing besides the beggar was the yellow cur who stood at his master's side, stiff and stubborn and ugly, the coarse hair rising on his back.
Wattie's panic grew as the drumming of hoofs increased and the horses dashed hither and thither. He was more afraid of them than of the ragged enemy that had descended on the wood. The dead troopers lay huddled, one on his face and the other on his side; the wounded dog's last struggles had ceased. Half a dozen men were pursuing the horses with outstretched arms, and Callandar's charger had broken loose with its comrades, and was thundering this way and that, snorting and leaping, with cocked ears and flying mane.