descended the slope much faster than they had climbed it. This was enough for Argyll. He withdrew his men beyond the Ythan, and Montrose marched back unmolested to Blair-Athole. This extraordinary campaign--this "strange coursing" as Baillie shrewdly called it--could not continue. It was now November. The rains of autumn were already turning into the snows of winter. The mountains would soon be passable only for wolves and eagles. Argyll turned from a pursuit for which he had no heart, led his men back to Edinburgh, and resigning his commission to the Estates retired to his own country. The road into the Lowlands lay open. Now was the time to put in practice that plan which Montrose had always kept steadily in view. This mountain warfare against irregular levies led by incompetent generals was but a waste of good powder and shot. If he could descend into the Lowlands with a force sufficient to bring Leven back over the Border, his promise to the King would be redeemed. Macdonald had rejoined him with the rest of the Irishmen and five hundred stout fellows of his name, Macdonalds of Glengarry, Clanronald, Keppoch, and Glencoe. Camerons from Lochaber, Stewarts from Appin, Farquharsons from Braemar, had also gathered to the Standard. Surely now he was strong enough to put his cherished design into practice. But his Lowland officers demurred. They were weary of a campaign where victory brought no solid fruits, and where the advance of one day seemed to be inevitably followed by the retreat of the next. The invitations and promises of Argyll had begun to work. They knew that pardon and preferment awaited every deserter from the royal cause, and though they had no design of betraying Montrose, they thought the time favourable for making their own peace. Under pretence of being unfit to face the hardships of a winter campaign, one after another took leave of his general. The brave Airlie, for all his sixty years, and his sons alone stood by him, and Nathaniel Gordon, who, though he left his leader, left him on the King's service. Montrose let the recreants go without a word, and turned to the Highlanders. They too deprecated a descent on the Lowlands, but for a different reason. These Macdonalds and Camerons were ready enough to fight under the royal banner, but they must fight against their own foe. They hated King Campbell more than they loved King Charles. Between all who bore the name of Macdonald and all who bore the name of Campbell there had been war to the knife for many generations. There was hardly, indeed, a clan in all the Highlands of Scotland which had not a grudge to pay against the Race of Diarmid. Beyond the great mountain barrier with which Nature had guarded the domains of Mac Callum More lay a land, rough indeed and sparsely cultivated, but rich in fat cattle and well-stocked homesteads. Argyll was used to say that he had rather lose a hundred thousand crowns than that any mortal man