'Ayez la bonte d'alligner ces montagnards la, ainsi que la cavalerie, s'il vous plait, et de les remettre a la marche. Vous parlez si bien l'Anglois, cela ne vous donneroit pas beaucoup de peine.'
'Ah! pas de tout, Monseigneur,' replied Mons. le Comte de Beaujeu, his head bending down to the neck of his little prancing highly-managed charger. Accordingly he PIAFFED away, in high spirits and confidence, to the head of Fergus's regiment, although understanding not a word of Gaelic, and very little English.
'Messieurs les sauvages Ecossois—dat is—gentilmans savages, have the goodness d'arranger vous.'
The clan, comprehending the order more from the gesture than the words, and seeing the Prince himself present, hastened to dress their ranks.
'Ah! ver well! dat is fort bien!' said the Count de Beaujeu. 'Gentilmans sauvages—mais tres bien—Eh bien!—Qu'est-ce que vous appellez visage, Monsieur?' (to a lounging trooper who stood by him). 'Ah, oui! FACE—Je vous remercie, Monsieur.—Gentilshommes, have de goodness to make de face to de right par file, dat is, by files.—Marsh!—Mais tres bien—encore, Messieurs; il faut vous mettre a la marche...Marchez donc, au nom de Dieu, parceque j'ai oublie le mot Anglois—mais vous etes des braves gens, et me comprenez tres bien.'
The Count next hastened to put the cavalry in motion. 'Gentilmans cavalry, you must fall in—Ah! par ma foi, I did not say fall off! I am a fear de little gross fat gentilman is moche hurt. Ah, mon Dieu! c'est le Commissaire qui nous a apporte les premieres nouvelles de ce maudit fracas. Je suis trop fache, Monsieur!'
But poor Macwheeble, who, with a sword stuck across him, and a white cockade as large as a pancake, now figured in the character of a commissary, being overturned in the bustle occasioned by the troopers hastening to get themselves in order in the Prince's presence, before he could rally his galloway, slunk to the rear amid the unrestrained laughter of the spectators.
'Eh bien, Messieurs, wheel to de right—Ah! dat is it!—Eh, Monsieur de Bradwardine, ayez la bonte de vous mettre a la tete de votre regiment, car, par Dieu, je n'en puis plus!'
The Baron of Bradwardine was obliged to go to the assistance of Monsieur de Beaujeu, after he had fairly expended his few English military phrases. One purpose of the Chevalier was thus answered. The other he proposed was, that in the eagerness to hear and comprehend commands issued through such an indistinct medium in his own presence, the thoughts of the soldiers in both corps might get a current different from the angry channel in which they were flowing at the time.
Charles Edward was no sooner left with the Chieftain and Waverley, the rest of his attendants being at some distance, than he said, 'If I owed less to your disinterested friendship, I could be most seriously angry with both of you for this very extraordinary and causeless broil, at a moment when my father's service so decidedly demands the most perfect unanimity. But the worst of my situation is, that my very best friends hold they have liberty to ruin themselves, as well as the cause they are engaged in, upon the slightest caprice.'