midday
We had to leave the dead body of our friend , killed by the horse , on the hillside . He was a Knapdale man , a poor creature , who was as well done , perhaps , with a world that had no great happiness left for him , for his home had been put to the torch and his wife outraged and murdered . At as much speed as we could command , we threaded to the south , not along the valleys but in the braes , suffering anew the rigour of the frost and the snow . By midday we reached the shore of Loch Leven , and it seemed as if now our flight was hopelessly barred , for the ferry that could be compelled to take the army of Mac-Cailein over the brackish water at Lettermore was scarce likely to undertake the conveying back of seven fugitives of the clan that had come so high-handedly through their neighbourhood four days ago . On this side there was not a boat in sight ; indeed there was not a vestige on any side of human tenancy . Glencoe had taken with him every man who could carry a pike , not to our disadvantage perhaps , for it left the less danger of any strong attack . On the side of the loch , when we emerged from the hills , there was a cluster of whin-bushes spread out upon a machar of land that in a less rigorous season of the year , by the feel of the shoe-sole , must be velvet-piled with salty grass .