"We've got him!" cried Charles gleefully as the door closed behind him. "Now, gentlemen, I crave your attendance on a progress round the town. Mr. Wheatman, bear our compliments to my Lord Elcho, and bid him call out some score or so of our guards to escort us." We made a gallant show as we walked the streets of Derby in the early grey of that December evening. Ahead of us went a dozen dismounted life-guards to clear the causeways. Then followed Mr. Secretary with a brace or two of town notables unwillingly yoked to the task of giving an appearance of local support; then followed the Prince, between O'Sullivan and the Colonel, with young Clanranald and me at their heels; and another dozen life-guards in the rear. As we passed along the causeways, a score or so of mounted guards, with Lord Elcho at their head, kept level with us in the roadways. Volleys of slogans greeted us wherever we went, for the town was full to bursting of the clansmen. The townsmen crowded to doors and windows to watch us pass. The Prince doffed to them every other yard, but he and all of us were mere curiosities to most of them. The progress was stayed at the "White Horse" in Sadler-gate, and the Prince, with us, his immediate attendants, turned into the inn-yard, with its long uneven lines of stables and coach-houses, all packed with Camerons. At the news of the Prince's coming they trooped out, yelling lustily. Some sort of order was formed, and the Prince walked up and down among the swaying, uncouth masses, with a cheery smile on his face, and with now and again a phrase of their own Gaelic on his lips. "The men are keen enough," he said to the Colonel apart. "Let us go within and see what mood young Lochiel is in now." Lochiel, 'young' only by way of distinction from a Lochiel still older, wanted no digging out, for, the news having been carried to him, he ran out bareheaded and breathless. He was, in fact, a middle-aged gentleman, broody and melancholy at times, as these men of the mountains are apt to be when they've got brains. At the Council he had been silently set on going back. "Your men are in fine fettle, Lochiel," said Charles, "and as keen as their claymores to be at it." "They dinnae see the hoodie-craws gathering for the feast," said Lochiel sombrely. "They see the battle won and the spoils of victory, after the usual way with the Camerons," replied the Prince. "They havenae the gift of far-seeing," said the Chief, gloomily proud of his own prophetic powers. Charles started impatiently, and there would have been a wrangle but for the Colonel. "Sir," said he, addressing the Prince, "you will forgive an old campaigner for being a stickler for the rules and procedures of military operations. An inn-yard, with soldiery around and townsfolk gaping through doors and windows, is no place for a council of war. The gentleman is pleased to dream, of birds, as I gather. Let him back to the fireside and dream of them in peace."