The Black Colonel | Page 7

and I saw the Black Colonel slip oft the bridle, with its heavy iron
bit, to give him the uttermost chance. The rivulet of stones which his
hoofs had set going grew into a stream, telling me that, while ever he
lost a little on the treacherous ground, he more than made it good with
the next stride.
The sight so moved me that I nearly shouted in admiration and quite
forgot the pursuers. The soldiers in the hollow of the Pass had met and
were loading and shooting with a certain discipline. The Black
Colonel's real danger, however, was not from this fusilade but from the
intercepting soldiers at the top of the Pass. Theirs had been a longer and
rougher way to travel; would they, by the time he reached the summit,
if reach it he did, be near enough to capture or shoot him?
Up, up, still panted the noble Mack, almost exhausted, until, with a
final effort, he gained the last ridge and, oh, what a relief! His flanks
heaved, his beautiful head dropped to the heather, and I could see that
his forequarters had turned from black to a lather of white foam,
testimony to the great strain of the climb. The Black Colonel sprang
from the saddle, walked to the edge of the crag, took his dirk from his
garter and put it to his lips. He was vowing the oath of a "broken"
Highlander, to be revenged, or thanking Providence for his escape,
perhaps both.
He did all this, as I could follow, in the grey morning light, coolly, nay
disdainfully, seeming to regard the bullets from the converging
sharp-shooters as just so many bees buzzing harmlessly about him.
Next, he tightened the girth, which Mack's panting had loosened,
bridled the horse again, vaulted lightly into the saddle, touched his
bonnet in mock salutation, and rode over the hills for home.
There were those who saw a white horse go up the strath that morning
with, as they swore, the Black Colonel for rider, though all knew the
actual colour of Mack to be black. There were others who said it was
Death on his White Horse, and because a man died in the same small
hours those mongers of destiny were believed.

IV--The Opening Road
If this were a story invented, and not a tale of true happenings, there
would be an end when the Black Colonel rode triumphantly from the
Pass.
But, sitting alone and lonely a few days later in my room at Corgarff
Castle, and reflecting on the affair, I said to myself that it was only the
beginning. A drama of real life rarely closes with the hero in heroics,
the heroine a-swoon in her beauty, and the world a-clap with
admiration.
No doubt the Black Colonel had got away very well, almost as if he
had leapt through a lighted window, with a resounding crash of broken
glass. Well, there would be the fragments to gather up, for the
fragments have always to be remembered, or they may cause harm.
Here I was a fragment, and I asked myself into what basket I was to be
gathered, because, you should know, the hills give those of us who
dwell among them a sense of fate--of the inevitable.
I was awakened from these thoughts by the entrance of my lieutenant,
who said, "Still sighing that you were out of the chase after the Black
Colonel?"
I answered vaguely, "A soldier who is a real soldier, which I may or
may not be, is always sorry to miss an enterprise, whether it be duty or
merely an adventure."
"Well," he remarked, "you had not been long gone when word came
from Braemar Castle that the Black Colonel was to be in the Pass of
Ballater about midnight, meeting some unknown person, and asking us
to help capture him. We saw nothing of the other person, whether man
or woman."
He looked slyly at me, and I remembered having said to him that I had
had a tryst to keep among the hills. You must not, I think, mislead
people by telling what is untrue, but you need not tell everything if it is

going to make mischief. Mostly it is poor policy to try and ram the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, down a man's throat,
because your version of it may not be his, and, anyhow, it makes dry
eating.
My thoughts have a habit of wandering, of dreaming dreams, often
when they should be otherwise occupied, and isn't there a bunch of
manuscript verse somewhere in testimony of the same? Knowing this
the lieutenant lighted and smoked a pipe of American tobacco, then a
novelty and a luxury in the Scottish Highlands. With a wink