Then when I had stripped him, I cast about in my mind for some means to give him burial. Not far away I knew there was a gash in the hill-side where once some primeval tarn had been. Reverently I lifted his body and bore it thither. Gently I laid it down, and standing with bowed head under the starlit sky, I pronounced over that noble dust all I could remember of the English burial service. Did ever Covenanter have a stranger burial? I trow not. Then reverently I happed him over with heather and brackens and turf which I tore from the hill-side, and laboured on until the trench was filled and I had built a cairn of stones over it.
So I left him sleeping there, and, as I turned away, I was overwhelmed by a sense of loss and loneliness.
I gathered up the clothing which I had taken from his body, and bore it to the side of the loch. There, from the coat, I washed the stains of blood, and laid it on the sward to dry.
Occupied as I had been, I was unconscious of the flight of time; but I was reminded by a sudden access of hunger. A problem faced me, for I had no food of my own. For days I had been depending on the charity of my friend; and I did not know where his store lay hidden. In that wilderness it was well secreted lest any questing bird or four-footed creature of the moorlands might find it. A sudden apprehension seized me, and, with its coming, my hunger disappeared. I hurried to the place where we were wont to take our evening meal together, and then I walked in the direction which he had usually taken when he went to fetch the provender. I sought beneath likely tussocks of heather and under the shadow of boulders and beneath the shelves of overhanging turf, where some sheep, aforetime, had had a rubbing place. But nowhere could I find a trace of his store. Baffled, I determined that I would seek my hiding-place and lie down to sleep for the rest of the night. In the morning, with the help of the light, perhaps my quest would be rewarded. So I betook myself to my heather bed, and as I crawled under the bracken--and laid myself down, I thought how, but for the divine charity of my dead friend, I should at that hour have been sleeping the sleep of death.
Morning came, clear and bright, and as I stepped out from my hiding-place I was conscious that the air of the dawn had served to whet my hunger. I hurried to the other side of the loch and renewed my search. Crouching down I ferreted in every likely nook and corner, but found nothing. Was it that there was nothing to find? Was the larder already empty, or had the troopers discovered it after they had done their deed of blood, and rifled it of its poor contents? Whatever the case, my search, repeated over and over again during the course of the morning--till I knew every blade of grass and bracken-frond on that side of the loch--revealed nothing. While I searched, my hunger abated; when I paused I was painfully conscious of it, and then, suddenly, I remembered the little trickling stream and in a moment I was bending over it seeking for trout. My search was rewarded and ere long I had caught enough to make a meal. Hunger made me forget discretion, and I lit a fire to cook them.