Four days later, orders came for the troops to embark on the Thames. On that day about a hundred and fifty of the men failed to answer the morning roll call. They had not only disappeared, but with them their arms and several rounds of ball cartridge. ‘They did not care to go,’ says Walpole, in one of his May letters, ‘where it would not be equivocal for what King they fought.’ Sir Robert Munro, their Lieutenant-Colonel, before their leaving Scotland, asked some of the Ministry, ‘But suppose there should be any rebellion in Scotland, what should we do for these eight hundred men?’ It was answered, ‘Why, there would be eight hundred fewer rebels there!’ They were evidently mistrusted. The deserters, who justified the mistrust, had conceived that the review, for which they had marched to London, being over, they had a right to march back again. They concerted together, kept their own secret, were not betrayed by comrades who looked upon their military duty in another light, and they quietly left the camp at Highgate in the dead of night. They were under the command of a fine stalwart corporal named Macpherson, the corporal’s brother, and an intelligent private, Shaw. For what purpose they set out for Scotland was probably best known by the Jacobites of the metropolis. The object must have been far more serious than simply to return, because they conceived such action was within the limits of their legal right. This would have been the wildest folly, and the Macphersons and their men were neither fools nor savages. ◆[Sidenote: _MARCH OF THE DESERTERS._]◆ However this may be, London was in uncontrollable alarm, and expected a record of plunder, murder, and incendiarism along the line of march, till the retreat was stopped and the deserters captured. On the contrary, the Highlanders, as they proceeded northward, injured neither man, woman, nor child――neither in person nor property. The most active measures were taken to pursue, meet, envelope, and destroy this most disloyal and yet much admired body. They were heard of everywhere; were scarcely seen anywhere. The reward for catching a single straggler was forty shillings; but there were no stragglers. The men understood the uses of solidarity, and kept compact in body as they were united in sentiment. Corporal Macpherson seemed to know the country perfectly, and to have a map of it ever under his eyes. Infantry, cavalry, volunteer mobs, and posses of constables scoured the districts on the line of march, but could not meet with those who were nearly successfully accomplishing this Xenophonian retreat. Macpherson, in fact, constantly changed his line. He led his men across country by night, always encamping in woods, by day, behind hastily constructed defences. Sometimes they made rapid marches by day, and took food and repose at night. ◆[Sidenote: _THE HIGHLANDERS AT OUNDLE._]◆ On the morning of the 22nd, a Mr. Justice Creed heard of them as being encamped near his residence, about four