He returned the fire ineffectually, and his
comrades, starting up at the alarm, advanced alertly towards the spot
from which the first shot had issued. The Highlander, after giving them
a full view of his person, dived among the thickets, for his RUSE DE
GUERRE had now perfectly succeeded.
While the soldiers pursued the cause of their disturbance in one
direction, Waverley, adopting the hint of his remaining attendant, made
the best of his speed in that which his guide originally intended to
pursue, and which now (the attention of the soldiers being drawn to a
different quarter) was unobserved and unguarded. When they had run
about a quarter of a mile, the brow of a rising ground, which they had
surmounted, concealed them from further risk of observation. They
still heard, however, at a distance, the shouts of the soldiers as they
hallooed to each other upon the heath, and they could also hear the
distant roll of a drum beating to arms in the same direction. But these
hostile sounds were now far in their rear, and died away upon the breeze
as they rapidly proceeded.
When they had walked about half an hour, still along open and waste
ground of the same description, they came to the stump of an ancient
oak, which, from its relics, appeared to have been at one time a tree of
very large size.
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