“Just so! But when Montrose gave us the _congé_, I happened to turn an eye up Glen Nevis and I saw some tardy Stewarts (by their tartan) come running down the road. These were the lads Dol Ruadh left behind last night, and they could scarcely miss in daylight the corpse we left by the road, and their clansmen missed in the mirk. That was my notion at the first glance I got of them, and when we ran they ran too, and what do you make of that?” “What we should make of it,” I said in alarm, “is as good a pace into Lorn as we can: they may be on the heels of us now,”--for we were in a little dip of the ground from which the force we had just parted so gladly were not to be seen. On that point M’Iver speedily assured me. “No, no!” he said. “If Seumas Grahame himself were stretched out yonder instead of a Glenart cearnoch of no great importance to any one, Alasdair MacDonald would be scarcely zealous fool enough to spoil his battle order to prosecute a private feud. Look at that,” he proceeded, turning round on a little knowe he ran lightly up on and I after him-- “Look at that! the battle’s begun.” We stood on that knowe of Brae Lochaber, and I saw from thence a spectacle whose like, by the grace of God, I have never seen before nor since in its agony for any eye that was friendly to Diarmaid Clan. I need not here set down the sorry end of that day at Inverlochy. It has been written many times, though I harbour no book on my shelves that tells the story. We saw MacDonald’s charge; we saw the wings of Argile’s army--the rotten Lowland levies--break off and skurry along the shore; we saw the lads of the Diarmaid tartan hewn down on the edge of the tide till its waves ran red; but we were as helpless as the rush that waved at our feet. Between us and our friends lay the enemy and our parole--I daresay our parole was forgotten in that terrible hour. John M’Iver laid him down on the _tulaich_ and clawed with his nails the stunted grass that in wind-blown patches came through the snow. None of my words made any difference on his anguish. I was piping to the surrender of sorrow, nigh mad myself. The horses of Ogilvie--who himself fell in the brulzie--chased the Lowlanders along the side of Loch Linnhe, and so few of the flying had the tartan that we had no great interest in them, till we saw six men with their plaid-ing cast run unobserved up the plain, wade waist-deep through the Nevis, and come somewhat in our direction. We went down to join them, and ran hard and fast and came on them at a place called the Rhu at the water of Kiachnish. CHAPTER XXI.--SEVEN BROKEN MEN.