It was Miss Macpherson.
"Come, Castleleathers," she said, "here is the man Macpherson, he is letting a rope over the wall, and he has arranged all. The Duke expects a visitor from the west this very night or maybe to-morrow and he will be alone. Things are no so strict as they were, and there is a rumour that he goes south soon. He thinks the Highlands are crushed...."
"The German loon," snapped Castleleathers with much contempt, "he cannot tell the difference between a Hessian and a Macdonald."
"Come," said Miss Macpherson, "and say ye do not think hardly of me if anything goes wrong."
He took her hand and gave it a crunch.
"Tuts!" he said. "I'm no easy to move, but I like a ploy at a time. I feel younger to-night than I've felt this ten years. He's only a wee bit German after all."
Without another word they reached the Fort, and Macpherson, who seemed a capable man though silent as a dyke, passed through the gateway and disappeared.
They skirted the outer rampart noiselessly and taking up their stand some hundred yards beyond the entrance gates, awaited the rope.
A few minutes later and down it came, and steadying Miss Macpherson for fear she grew giddy and fell, they began to mount together, and reached the top. There all was very dark and quiet, and the mist obscured everything outside the reach of a man's arm.
The garrison had long since grown careless now that the Highland forces had been utterly dispersed and crushed. Even the Duke was growing lukewarm in persecution and anxious to bid farewell to the land of snow and mist and hear what London had to say to him for his brave doings. At that very moment he sat toasting his toes before a grand peat fire with a log or two to give it flame, a glass of mulled wine at his elbow.