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Were we to go near these lads of the laird's belt, your letter would do you little good, and my pack would do me muckle black ill; they would tirl every steek of claithes from our back, fling us into a moss-hag with a stone at our heels, naked as the hour that brought us into this cumbered and sinful world, and neither Murray nor any other man ever the wiser.
I don't believe any one can catch him in his own land. He is off to find a moor-pony and will ride after us as soon as it is safe. If not, he will come home on foot, lying up in the daytime. He knows every farm and cothouse and is welcome at all. Sea-cave and moss-hag, wood-shelter and whin-bush, he knows every hidie-hole for forty mile."
Dead eyes, cold eyes, immovable and clear horribly clear they were eyes that simply stared, neither showing accusation nor denunciation; but there they were at every tuft of yellow grass, behind every moss-hag, and staring like pools of clear silent death, which struck horror to his heart.
He was not far engaged in the Waste, which was then, and is now, traversed only by such routes as are described in the text, when two or three fellows, disguised and variously armed, started from a moss-hag, while, by a glance behind him for, marching, as the Spaniard says, with his beard on his shoulder, he reconnoitred in every direction, Charlie instantly saw retreat was impossible, as other two stout men appeared behind him at some distance.
There are rough stepping-stones at some of the crossings, and the passage of these, after nightfall, resembles greatly that of a "shaking" bog, where the traveler has to leap from tussock to moss-hag with agile audacity; the consequences of a false step being, in both cases, about the same.
Those who had come in, soaked and surly, ate their dinner in silence and discomfort and took themselves away, leaving the freshly scrubbed floor as mucky as a moss-hag on the moor. Late in the afternoon a sergeant, risen from the ranks and cocky about it, came in and turned himself out of a dripping greatcoat, dapper and dry in his red tunic, pipe-clayed belt, and winking buttons.
They filled their creels, helped each other to get them on their backs, and were setting out on their weary tramp home, when up rose two of Mr. Palmer's men, who had been watching them, cut their ropes and took their loads, emptied the peats into a moss-hag full of water, and threw the creels after them.
They filled their creels, helped each other to get them on their backs, and were setting out on their weary tramp home, when up rose two of Mr. Palmer's men, who had been watching them, cut their ropes and took their loads, emptied the peats into a moss-hag full of water, and threw the creels after them.
Following the sound, he came to a moss-hag, where a group of Covenanters were worshiping God. A moss-hag is a cut on the hillside, formed by frost and rain; and overhung with moss, heather, and other growths. In such places the pursued Covenanters often hid themselves. The cold grotto was their house; the damp earth their bed; the hole cut out of the hill without hands their sanctuary.
At least Fergus and Agnew are. Stair I met on my way here. He was lurking in a moss-hag with his gun ready for the first red-coat or blue-jacket who should lift a hand to you." "Send him off to join the rest," said Patsy more seriously. "I never was in the least danger, and there is no doubt but that the man McClure has left some of his rascals to watch the bothy."
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