The Standard Bearer

mit spread out before me like an exercise g

ng heather, making a livelier purple amid the burnt brown of the short grass, which in its turn was diversi

et over the edge-two men in tattered, peat-stained clothing running f

this way and that among the{16} soft lairy places, and as many more whose steeds had stuck fast i

lads would make good their escape with such sorry marksmen. But even whilst I was putting up a prayer for them as I lay panting upon the manifest edge, a chance shot struck the smaller and more slender of the wanderers. He stumbled, p

and ran yet more determinedly after his companion. But close to the further verge his power went from him. His companion halted a

ly hear him through all the shouting and pother. "It will do no

not, for even then he spread out his arms an

himself, finally disappearing among the granite bou

here the green slimy moss wet with the peat-brew keeps all soft as a quicksand, so that neither hoof of a charger nor heavy military boot dare venture upon it, though the bare accustomed foot of one bred to the hills may carry him across easily enough. S

peace of our Kells hills, I saw a tall, dark soldier, one evidently of some authority among them, stride up to the fallen man. He strove to turn him over with his foot, but the moss clung, and he could not. So without a mom

the killing when at least they had a chance for their lives, seemed nothing to this stony-hear

n, black murderer that thou art!" I cried, shaking m

could load at the man who had escaped, also turned. I yelled at them that they were to show themselves brave soldiers, and shoot me also. The tall, dark buirdly man in the red coat who had fired into the wounded man cried to them

own on the turf and the murderer of the poor wanderer pouring shot after shot into my back. I felt my knees tremble, and it seemed (as it often does in a

he ground at all. I saw Ashie and Gray scouring far before me, with their tails clapped between their legs, for I suppose that their master's fear had communicated itself to them. Yet all the time

from a feeling of chagrin that they had let a more important victim escape them. I heard the whisk-whisk of the balls as they flew wide, and one whizzed past my ear and buried itself with a vicious spit in the

The wholesome green earth was spotted black with crime. Red motes danced in

s her custom to take out victual to the little craggy linn where my father was in hiding. So with a new access

s, and even as a child the relation of the cruelties of the Highland Host had impressed me so that the red glinting of a soldier's coat would send me into the deepest thickets o