"
"Hush, hush, gentlemen," said Claverhouse, "these are untimely
repartees.--I should like your advice well, Major Allan, had our rascally
patrols (whom I will see duly punished) brought us timely notice of the
enemy's numbers and position. But having once presented ourselves before
them in line, the retreat of the Life-Guards would argue gross timidity,
and be the general signal for insurrection throughout the west. In which
case, so far from obtaining any assistance from my Lord Ross, I promise
you I should have great apprehensions of his being cut off before we can
join him, or he us. A retreat would have quite the same fatal effect upon
the king's cause as the loss of a battle--and as to the difference of
risk or of safety it might make with respect to ourselves, that, I am
sure, no gentleman thinks a moment about. There must be some gorges or
passes in the morass through which we can force our way; and, were we
once on firm ground, I trust there is no man in the Life-Guards who
supposes our squadrons, though so weak in numbers, are unable to trample
into dust twice the number of these unpractised clowns.--What say you, my
Lord Evandale?"
"I humbly think," said Lord Evandale, "that, go the day how it will, it
must be a bloody one; and that we shall lose many brave fellows, and
probably be obliged to slaughter a great number of these misguided men,
who, after all, are Scotchmen and subjects of King Charles as well as we
are.
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