"Waiting for us to do the work," said Glencoe bitterly, "and then blithe they'll be to hansel the profits. We can gang back to Scotland as quick as we like when we've ance got London for 'em!" There was a growl of assent from the chiefs, but silence fell again when the venerable Tullibardine, too racked with gout to stand, took up the word. He spoke as one who had grown old and weary and poor in the service of the exiled House. The conditions of success, he said, had always been the same: the Highland adherents of His Majesty could never hope to be more than the centre around which the real sources of strength, English support and French aid, might gather; and these had failed now as they had failed in '15. "I dare not," he concluded, "lift my voice to urge men to take risks which I am too feeble to share." Charles put up a stout fight, but it was no use. Chief after chief had his say, and then said it again and again. Maclachlan shifted from his place near the door to the corner of the hearth and, after whispering a while with the Duke of Perth, confusedly gave his opinion in favour of going back. He was no sort of a speaker, being ill at ease, and plainly occupied in rummaging about in his mind. Having wits, however, he stumbled on a new line of argument. "Then, sir," he said, "there is the great port of Glasgow to be taken in. There's more ready wealth there than in any other town in Scotland, and its moneys, public and peculiar, will give you the means of raising a great army for the spring." "Any port in a storm," said the Prince, scowling at him. Being a Stuart, Charles did not realize that every one of these chiefs was a king-in-little, accustomed to unfettered independence of action. There were curious contrasts in him, for he was as blundering and incapable in dealing with an assembly as he was sure and brilliant in dealing with a man by himself. Feeling began to run high. One of the chiefs jerked himself on to his feet and harangued the Prince like a master rating an apprentice. He was almost as long and thin as one of Jane's line-props, and had high, jutting cheek-bones and jaws that snapped on the ends of his sentences like a rat-trap. "I'm for gaein' back while the road's open behint us," he said. "If we dinna, and I get back at a', which is dootfu', I shall gae back wi' barely a dozen loons to my tail, an' the Cawmbells, be damned to every man o' the name, will ride on my back for the rest of my days." "Ye're in the right of it, Strowan," said my Lord Ogilvie. "There's too few of us for this work, but a little peat will boil a little pot. Let us gang back and raddle the Glasgow bodies. Ye hae my advice, sir!"