CHAPTER XXV.—THE ANGRY EAVESDROPPER.
It may seem, in my recounting of these cold wanderings, of days and nights with nothing but snow and rain, and always the hounds of fear on every hand, that I had forgotten to exercise my mind upon the blunder and the shame of Argile’s defeat at Inverlochy. So far is this from the fact that M’Iver and I on many available occasions disputed—as old men at the trade of arms will do—the reasons of a reverse so much unexpected, so little to be condoned, considering the advantage we had in numbers compared with the fragments of clans Alasdair MacDonald brought down from the gorges of Lochaber to the waters of Loch Linnhe and Locheil. It was useless to bring either the baron-bailie or Sonachan into our deliberations; neither of them had any idea of how the thing had happened, though they were very well informed indeed about certain trivial departures from strict forms of Highland procedure in the hurried marshalling of the troops.
“Cheap trash of pennyland men from Lochow-side were put on the right of gentlemen cadets of the castle and Loch Finne-side lairds,” was the baron-bailie’s bitter protestation.
Sonachan, who was naturally possessed of a warm side to the people, even common quality, of his own part of the country, would sniff at this with some scorn.
“Pennyland here, pennyland there, they were closer in blood on Black Duncan than any of your shore-side par-tans, who may be gentrice by sheepskin right but never by the glaive.”
So the two would be off again into the tanglements of Highland pedigree.
The mind of the man with the want was, of course, a vacant tablet, washed clean of every recollection by the copious tears he had wept in his silliness since ever the shock of the battle came on him; Stewart was so much of an unscrupulous liar that no word of his could be trusted; and the minister alone could give us any idea of what had been the sentiment in the army when the men of Montrose (who were really the men of Sir Alas-dair, his major-general) came on them. But, for reasons every true Gael need not even have a hint of, we were averse from querying this dour, sour, Lowland cleric on points affecting a Highland retreat.
So it was, I say, that the deliberations of M’Iver and myself were without any outside light in somewhat dark quarters: we had to guide us only yon momentary glimpse of the stricken field with its flying men, seen in a stupid blur of the senses,—as one lying by a dark hill tarn at night, waiting for mallard or teal, sees the birds wheeling above the water ere he has appreciated the whirr of their presence, lets bang his piece at the midst of them, and is in a dense stillness again before he comprehends that what he has waited for in the cold night has happened.
“The plan of old Gustavus did it, I’ll wager my share of the silver-mine,” would John insist; “and who in heaven’s name would think Alasdair mosach knew the trick of it? I saw his horsemen fire one pistol-shot and fall on at full speed. That’s old Gustavus for you, isn’t it? And yet,” he would continue, reflecting, “Auchin-breac knew the Swedish tactics too. He had his musketeers and pikemen separate, as the later laws demand; he had even a hint from myself of the due proportion of two pikes to three muskets.”
“But never a platoon fired a volley,” I recalled. “It was steel and targe from the onset.” And then I would add, “What’s to be said for MacCailein?”