“Be it so, colonel, since you desire it,” said Mar. “But I have a more important command for your brave kinsman. Tell Brigadier Mackintosh that I desire to speak to him,” he added to Colonel Hay.
On hearing this order, those who were grouped around retired to a little distance, and a vacant space was thus left for the old Highland warrior.
II.—BRIGADIER MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM.
A VERY remarkable person was Brigadier Mackintosh, Laird of Borlum, and since he is destined to play a conspicuous part in our story, it may be proper to describe him.
The redoubted Laird of Borlum, then, was an old campaigner, having served in Holland years ago, in Ireland under James the Second, where he gained laurels, but little pay, and in France, where he had attained the rank of brigadier, which he still held. Devotedly attached to James the Second, on the death of that monarch, he had transferred all his loyalty to his son. The Chevalier de Saint George had no more zealous adherent than the brave Laird of Borlum.
Brigadier Mackintosh, when we first behold him, standing beside the Earl of Mar, who had quitted his elevated position on the rock to talk to him, could not be far from sixty. Yet despite the hardships he had undergone, he had few traces of age about him. His step was free, his glance piercing, his muscular power prodigious, and he could still run as fleetly, and endure as much fatigue as the youngest of his clan.
His personal appearance was very striking—features strongly marked and prominent, high cheek bones, a very firmly set mouth, and square chin. His eyes were grey and keen, and shaded by black brows, though his locks were blanched. His close-shaven cheeks were marked by many a scar.
The brigadier's expression was cautious, perhaps crafty, and sometimes so grim as to inspire terror. But on occasions his habitual sternness disappeared, and gave way to a winning bonhomie. Though a rigorous disciplinarian, he had always been liked by those who served under him. His enemies said that the brigadier did not object to plunder, and that his maxim was that war should pay its own expenses; but this was a principle pretty generally recognised by the Highlanders of the period.