It was a fatal move. Had he crushed Middleton first, he would have relieved Huntly from a present danger, and might have fixed the Gordons to his side. Now it was but the old story again. Aboyne was ordered by his father to return, and did not choose to disobey him. It is vain to speculate on Huntly's motives. Whether he acted from a sense of self-preservation, or from sheer jealousy of Montrose, he acted a part unworthy of the man who had once fearlessly professed his loyalty in the face of his enemies and was hereafter to seal it with his life. Montrose had now no choice but to leave the prisoners in Glasgow to their fate. Had he known that Digby was then actually at Dumfries with the long-promised reinforcements, he might have pushed on at all hazards, and shortened the story of his life by a chapter. But he never learned the news of Charles's desperate effort to keep faith with him till long after it had failed. With a heavy heart he turned back to the shelter of the friendly mountains, and Digby, a bolder general in council than in the field, took refuge in the Isle of Man. The clouds were now gathering fast round Montrose. As he re-entered Athole word was brought to him of his wife's death. To us she is but the shadow of a name, nor is there reason to suppose that she had ever shared her husband's feelings or shown any sympathy with his career. But she was the bride of his youth, the mother of the gallant boy who had fought at his side and who had been already snatched from him by an untimely fate. At the risk of his life he saw her buried in the town of Montrose, and was hunted back into Athole from the grave-side by Middleton's troopers. There a fresh sorrow awaited him. During his absence the aged Napier, worn out with the long struggle, had breathed his last, and was now carried to his well-earned rest in the church of Blair. The new year brought little comfort, though an interview with Huntly seemed for the moment likely to bear fruit. In the invigorating presence of Montrose the chief of the Gordons swore to hesitate no longer, and his sons, in Wishart's vigorous words, "wished damnation to themselves" if they were not true men for the future. If the Powers of Darkness took them at their word they were assuredly damned. The Gordons were indeed summoned to arms, and some languid operations commenced; but no arguments, no supplications even on Montrose's part, could induce Huntly to co-operate with him. Meanwhile, his friends met the fate from which he was powerless to save them. The Irish officers who had been brought alive from Philiphaugh had already been hanged without a trial in Edinburgh. Sir William Rollo, Sir Philip Nisbet, and young Ogilvy of Innerquharity, a handsome boy not eighteen years old, were beheaded at Glasgow.[21] Nathaniel Gordon, Alexander Guthrie, and William Murray now suffered the same fate at St. Andrews. Staunch Covenanter as he was, Tullibardine could not win his brother's