Wade was to one side with his army, and now there loomed ahead the Duke of Cumberland and ten thousand English troops. Battle seemed imminent, yet again the Scots force pushed by. The 4th of December found this strange wedge, of no great mass, but of a tested, rapier-like keenness and hardness, at the town of Derby, with London not a hundred and thirty miles away. And still no English rising for the rightful King! Instead Whig armies, and a slow Whiggish buzzing beginning through all the country.
The Duke of Cumberland and Marshal Wade, two jaws opening for Jacobite destruction, had between them twenty thousand men. Spies brought report of thirty thousand drawn up before London, on Finchley Common. The Prince might have so many lions of the desert in his Highlanders, but multitude will make a net that lions cannot break. At Derby also they had news from that Scotland now so dangerously far behind them. Royal Scots had landed from France, the Irish brigade from the same country was on the seas, and French regiments besides. Lord John Drummond had in Scotland now at least three thousand men and good promise of more. The Prince held council with the Duke of Perth, Lord George Murray, Lord Nairn, the many chiefs and leading voices. Return to Scotland, make with these newly gathered troops and with others a greater army, expect aid from France, stand in a gained kingdom the onslaught from Hanoverian England? Or go on—go on toward London? Encounter, defeat, with half his number, the Duke of Cumberland's ten thousand, keep Wade from closing in behind them, meet the Finchley Common thousands, come to the enemy's capital of half a million souls? Return where there were friends? Go on where false-promising friends hugged safety? Go on to London, still hoping, trusting still to the glamour and outcry that ran before them, to extraordinary events called miracles? Hot was the debate! But on the 6th of December the Jacobite army turned back toward Scotland.
It began its homeward march long before dawn. Not all nor most had been told the decision. Even the changed direction, eyes upon slow-descending not upon climbing stars, did not at first enlighten. It might mean some détour, the Duke being out-maneuvered. But at last rose the winter dawn and lit remembered scene after scene. The news ran. The army was in retreat.
Ian Rullock, riding with a kinsman, Gordon, heard, up and down, an angry lamenting sound. "Little do the clans like turning back!"
"Hark! The chieftains are telling them it is for the best."
"Is it for the best? I do not like this month or aught that is done in it!"
A week later they were at Lancaster; three days after that at Kendal. Here Wade might have fallen upon them, but did not. A day or two and the main column approached Penrith. The no great amount of artillery was yet precious. Heavy to drag over heavy roads, the guns and straining horses were left in the rear. Four companies of Lowland infantry, Macdonald of Glengarry and his five hundred Highlanders, a few cavalrymen, and Lord George Murray himself tarried with the guns. The main column disappeared, lost among mountains and hills; this detached number had the wild country, the forbidding road, the December day to themselves. To get the guns and ammunition-wagons along proved a snail-and-tortoise business. Guns and escort fell farther and farther behind.
Ian Rullock, acting still as aide, rode from the Prince nearing Penrith to Lord George Murray, now miles to the rear. Why was the delay? and 'ware the Duke of Cumberland, certainly close at hand! The delay was greater, the distance between farther, than the Prince had supposed. Rullock rode through the late December afternoon by huge frozen waves of earth, under a roof of pallid blue, in his ears a small complaining wind like a wailing child. He rode till nightfall, and only then came to his objective, finding needed rest in the village of Shap. Here he sought Lord George Murray, gave information and was given it in turn, ate, drank, and then turned back through the December night to the Prince.
He rode and the huge winter stars seemed to watch him with at once a glittering intentness and a disdain of his pygmy being. Once he looked up to them with a gesture of his head. "Are we so far apart and so different?" he asked of Orion.
He was several miles upon his way to Penrith. Before him appeared a crossroad, noted by him in the afternoon. A great salient of a hill overhung it, and on the near side a fir wood crept close. He looked about him, and as he rode kept his hand upon his pistol. He did not think to meet an enemy in strength, but there might be lurkers, men of the countryside ready to fall upon stragglers from the army that had passed that way. He had left behind the crossroad when from in front, around the jut of the hill, came four horsemen. He turned his head. Others had started from the wood. He made to ride on as though he were of their kindred and cause, but hands were laid upon his bridle.