The Desperate Journey by Kathleen Fidler Read Free Book Online

stunning him, and the porridge streamed out over Matt’s head and eyes.
    “Well done, Mother!” Davie yelled. Kate leaped from the cart and snatched up the whip.
    “Now you shall have a taste of your own medicine!” she cried, and ran at the man still sitting on the horse and lashed at him. One blow of the whip was sufficient. The second gipsy dug his spurs into his horse and shot off down the road. James ran to Davie, who was struggling with the fighting, kicking man on the ground.
    In the excitement none of them heard the thud of hoofs coming along the drove road from the opposite direction. Two men galloped up, one of them with Kirsty clinging to him, her arms round his waist. They reined in sharply.
    “What’s going on here?” the elder man cried. James spun round, still keeping his grip on Matt the gipsy.
    “Oh, it’s you, Donald Rae!” he cried in relief at the sight of the drover, whom he knew well. “We’ve been set upon by a couple of tinker vagabonds. Here’s one of the rascals!”
    Donald Rae laughed out loud at the sight of Kate Murray with the whip in her hand, and the gipsy cowering before her on the ground.
    “Your wee lassie here said ye were in desperate need o’ help, but it seems to me ye’ve no’ been managing badly on your ain. Where’s the other rascal?”
    James pointed away down the road where the second gipsy was urging his horse along as fast as it would go. Donald chuckled again and peered at the recumbent form of Matt. He got down from his horse and lifted Kirsty down too.
    “Let’s take a look at this fellow.” He stooped over Matt. “Guid sakes, man! Ye’re crowned wi’ porridge!” He grinned at the sightof the porridge pot lying beside Matt on the ground. “Matt McFie! I could scarcely recognise you!”
    Matt McFie struggled to his feet, muttering curses under his breath and scraping the porridge from his face.
    “Weel, weel!” the old drover exclaimed. “Up to your wicked tricks, are ye? I was hearing there was a warrant out for your arrest up to Ullapool. Highway robbery, is it no’? Ye ken what the penalty is for that?” Donald Rae stroked his throat moaningly. Matt McFie went pale. He well knew that death by hanging was the judgement on a convicted highway robber.
    “Aye, ye’d be weel advised no’ to go to Ullapool,” Donald Rae told him. “Maybe, though, I should tak’ ye wi’ me to the cattle fair at the Muir of Ord. I could hand ye over to the justices there, for this time ye’ve been caught i’ the very act.”
    Suddenly McFie twisted round like an eel and escaped from James Murray’s hands. He went away leaping like a roe deer over the low bushes and growing heather, streaking after the other gipsy on his horse, shouting, “Wait for me! Wait for me!” to him. The second man paused, looked round to see if he were being pursued, then reined in his horse. Matt McFie leaped up behind him, clinging to his waist, and then the horse galloped off in the direction of the gipsy women waiting with the donkey and cart.
    “Did they steal anything from ye, James?” the old drover asked.
    “No, Donald, thanks be that they did not, though had it no’ been for Davie here wi’ his catapult and Kate wi’ her porridge pot, things might no’ have gone so weel for us. I was right glad to see you, man.”
    “It wasna much I did for ye,” Donald said. He began to laugh. “I must say, Mistress Murray, ye’re a grand hand in a fight! Oh, the way ye wielded yon porridge pot! We were just in time to see it. Wumman, they should enlist ye in the British army to fight the French!”
    They all laughed heartily, as much that the strain was over as atthe joke.
    “Tell me though, James, what ye’re doing so far from Golspie and journeying west?”
    The two men had often met at cattle fairs in the east and knew each other well. James recounted to Donald how he had been turned out from his croft and the house fired.
    “Aye, ‘tis happening all up and down the