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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