Some three-quarters of an hour later Donald Cameron of Lochiel and Alexander MacDonald of Keppoch, he whose clansmen had held High Bridge, were talking together outside the front of Fassefern House. About an hour previously it had been arranged that the heavy baggage was to go forward that night along Loch Eil side with a strong convoy of Camerons; a large escort was required because at Corpach they would have to run the gauntlet of the neighbourhood of Fort William on the other side of the water—a danger which the Prince and the rest of the little force would avoid next day by taking a route through Glen Suilag impossible to the baggage train.
“And I am sending my young cousin Ardroy in command of it,” concluded Lochiel, “though the news was something of the suddenest to him. But he will be ready; he is a very punctual person, is Ewen.”
And they went on to speak of other matters: of Macleod of Macleod’s refusal to observe his solemn engagement to join the Prince (even if he came alone), which was still more resented than the withdrawal of Sir Alexander MacDonald of the Isles; and of what Sir John Cope would do, and where he would elect to give them battle. For that the English general would take his alarmed way up to Inverness without daring to face them had not occurred to the most sanguine.
Lochiel, indeed, was looking very grave. Keith Windham’s flash of insight had been correct; he was not deluded. His was the case of a man who was risking everything—life, fortune, lands, the future of his young family—against his better judgment because, more scrupulous of his plighted word than the Chief of Macleod or MacDonald of Sleat, he felt himself too deeply engaged to draw back without loss of honour. Yet, unlike Macleod’s, his engagement only pledged his support in the case that the Prince came with French assistance—and he had come without it. The fate of his whole clan lay on Lochiel’s shoulders—more, the fate of every man in the rising, for if he had held back the spark would have been quenched at the outset for lack of fuel. That knowledge was a heavy burden to be laid on a man who, far from being a freebooting chief, had striven all his life for the betterment of his people.
“Yes,” he was saying for the second time, “if we can reach and hold the pass over the Corryarrick before Cope——”
At that moment there was a rapid step behind the two men, Lochiel heard his own name uttered in sharp accents, and, turning quickly, beheld the young commander of the baggage convoy in a state of high discomposure.
“My dear Ewen, what is wrong?”
“He’s gone!” And so agitated was Ardroy’s tone, so black his brow, that Lochiel’s own colour changed. “Who—not the Prince!”
“The English officer—my prisoner . . . he’s escaped! His parole expired at half-past six this evening, and I, fool that I was, had forgot it over this business of the escort. He’ll go straight to Fort William with information of our numbers and our arms. . . . Oh, I deserve you should dismiss me, Lochiel! He’s been away near an hour, I suppose. Shall I ride after him? . . . No, I cannot, unless you give the convoy to someone else—and truly I think I am not fit——”