During this retreat, there occurred an incident which helped to cheer Dundee; for it was not with a glad heart that he had turned away from the enemy, and, to add to the disappointment which he felt, he was so prostrate through illness, at this critical moment, that his rate of progress had to be reduced to a few miles a day—to less than six miles in all on the 7th and 8th of June. On the 9th of June, whilst Dundee, who had moved up the Spey, was in the neighbourhood of Abernethy, Mackay gave orders to Sir Thomas Livingstone to cross the river with a detachment of dragoons, for the purpose of supporting the Laird of Grant’s men, who had been hard pressed by parties of the Highlanders. Whilst on this mission, an advance guard of the troopers fell in with a body of three hundred Macleans, who, under Lochbery, were on their way to join Dundee. In the engagement that followed, the cavalry was completely routed, and the clansmen, elated with victory and laden with spoil stripped from the slain were enthusiastically welcomed in Dundee’s camp. It had been Dundee’s intention to take up a strong position in Rannoch, but, as he wrote in one of his despatches, finding that the Lochaber men were going away every night by forties and fifties, with droves of cattle, and that all the rest, who were laden with plunder of Grant’s land and others, were equally anxious to return home with it, he yielded to necessity, came into Lochaber with them, and dismissed them to their respective houses, with injunctions to be ready within a few days, if the enemy pursued. If he did not, they were to lay still till further orders. Mackay, on his side, seeing that Dundee had reached a district where there were no good roads, and where it would be impossible to buy the provisions without which no regular body of forces could subsist together, also resolved to retire from the field for a time. In a despatch forwarded to Ireland through Hay, the position at this time was described as follows: ‘My Lord Dundee hath continued in Lochaber, guarded only by two hundred, commanded by Sir Alexander Maclean. But, being in the heart of Glengarry and Lochiel’s lands, he thinks himself secure enough; though he had not, as he has, the Captain of Clanranald, with six hundred men within ten miles of him, and Maclean, Sir Donald, and Macleod marching towards him. So that he can march with near four thousand; or refresh in safety, till such time as the state of affairs of Ireland may allow the King to send forces to his relief: which if it please God shall fall out, there is all appearance of forming a considerable army, notwithstanding that the people are a little disheartened by the unexpected surrender of the Castle of Edinburgh, which, as said, was only by despair the Duke had of any relief, though he wanted not from my Lord Dundee, by a third hand, all the encouragement he could give.’ This brings the Highland campaign forward to about the middle of June.