“May God—reward them!” said Ewen savagely. “We are to march our companies back to the moor then?”
“Yes. And we and Atholl are to be on the right wing to-day.”
Ewen was surprised, the MacDonalds always claiming and being conceded this privilege. But he did not seek the reason for the change, and followed his Chief in silence down the stairs. The confusion in the hall had increased, and yet some officers were still lying on the floor without stirring, so spent were they.
“Find me Dungallon and Torcastle,” said Lochiel. “By the way, have you had anything to eat, Ewen, since noon yesterday?”
“Have you, which is more to the point?” asked Ewen.
Lochiel smiled and shook his head. “But fortunately a little bread and whisky was discovered for the Prince.”
Ewen found Ludovic Cameron of Torcastle, the Chief’s uncle, and Cameron of Dungallon, major of the regiment, and himself went out in a shower of sleet to rouse his men, having in several cases to pull them up from the ground. He had got them into some kind of stupefied order when he saw Lochiel and Dungallon come by. A body of MacDonalds was collecting near, and as the two Camerons passed—Ewen scarcely realised it then, but he remembered it afterwards—there were muttered words and a black look or two.
But he himself was thinking bitterly, “I wonder are we all fey? We had the advantage of a good natural barrier, the Spey, and we let Cumberland cross it like walking over a burn. Now we might put the Nairn water between him and us—and we will not!” An insistent question suddenly leapt up in his heart; he looked round, and by good fortune Lochiel came by again, alone. Ewen intercepted and stopped him.
“For God’s sake, one moment!” He drew his Chief a little apart towards the high wall which separated the house from the parks. “If the day should go against us, Lochiel, if we have all to take to the heather——”
“Yes?” said his cousin gravely, not repudiating the possibility.