I did not think of myself , but just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last , with despair -- and of Alan , who was the cause of it , with hatred . Alan was in the right trade as a soldier ; this is the officer 's part to make men continue to do things , they know not wherefore , and when , if the choice was offered , they would lie down where they were and be killed . And I dare say I would have made a good enough private ; for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able , and die obeying . Day began to come in , after years , I thought ; and by that time we were past the greatest danger , and could walk upon our feet like men , instead of crawling like brutes . But , dear heart have mercy ! what a pair we must have made , going double like old grandfathers , stumbling like babes , and as white as dead folk . Never a word passed between us ; each set his mouth and kept his eyes in front of him , and lifted up his foot and set it down again , like people lifting weights at a country play ; * all the while , with the moorfowl crying `` peep ! '' in the heather , and the light coming slowly clearer in the east . * Village fair . I say Alan did as I did . Not that ever I looked at him , for I had enough ado to keep my feet ; but because it is plain he must have been as stupid with weariness as myself , and looked as little where we were going , or we should not have walked into an ambush like blind men . It fell in this way . We were going down a heathery brae , Alan leading and I following a pace or two behind , like a fiddler and his wife ; when upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle , three or four ragged men leaped out , and the next moment we were lying on our backs , each with a dirk at his throat . I do n't think I cared ; the pain of this rough handling was quite swallowed up by the pains of which I was already full ; and I was too glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk . I lay looking up in the face of the man that held me ; and I mind his face was black with the sun , and his eyes very light , but I was not afraid of him . I heard Alan and another whispering in the Gaelic ; and what they said was all one to me . Then the dirks were put up , our weapons were taken away , and we were set face to face , sitting in the heather . `` They are Cluny 's men , '' said Alan . `` We couldnae have fallen better . We 're just to bide here with these , which are his out-sentries , till they can get word to the chief of my arrival . ''
Now Cluny Macpherson , the chief of the clan Vourich , had been one of the leaders of the great rebellion six XXXXX before ; there was a price on his life ; and I had supposed him long ago in France , with the rest of the heads of that desperate party .
Alan Day brutes dirk dirks fiddler moorfowl out-sentries right years