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They knew, moreover, that directly ahead of him in this direction there was a strong Covenanting power, under the Earl of Seaforth, and consisting of the garrison of Inverness and recruits from Moray, Ross, Sutherland and Caithness. Evidently it was Montrose's intention to meet this power and dispose of it, so as to have the country north of the Grampians wholly his own.
When Montrose's little troop was defeated and broken up at the Pass of Invercharron my brother had fled with the Marquis, and had shared his wanderings in Ross-shire for some days; but, as might only too surely have been expected, the exposure brought back his former illness, and he was obliged to take shelter in the cabin of a poor old Scotchwoman.
I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe.
Whatever might be Dalgetty's personal conceit, he understood his business sufficiently to guess at Montrose's meaning. He instantly interrupted his own prolix narration of the skirmish which had taken place, and the wound he had received in his retreat, and began to speak to the point which he saw interested his General.
Actually, on the 6th of September, Leslie passed the Tweed, with his 4,000 Scottish horse from Leven's army, and some 600 foot he had added from the Scottish garrison of Newcastle. He and Montrose were, therefore, in the Border counties together, watching each other's movements, but Leslie watching Montrose's movements more keenly than Montrose watched Leslie's.
There was a distinct cause for Montrose's entry into Scotland in this furtive manner.
"Montrose's foolish bravado is turned to nothing," Baillie was able to write early in May 1644. This was the general impression. True, in recognition of his bravery, a patent for his elevation to the Marquisate had been made out at Oxford. It was fitting that, if ever he did come to represent the King in Scotland, it should be a Marquis of Montrose that should contend with the Marquis of Argyle.
So when, on August 31, the covenanting captain at last appeared, and declared his ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days by which time, of course, Montrose's life would be forfeit he found his bird flown; for the exile and a friend had disguised themselves and put off one morning in a small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting for them, and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.
Then, like Montrose's, it will be 'Tull Edinburrow they led him thair, And on a gallows hong; They hong him high abone the rest, He was so trim a boy.
Isn't she used to walk up on velvet and dine upon silver; and hasn't she got marquises and barons, and all sorts of swells, in her train? I daren't ask her " Here his friend hummed Montrose's lines "He either fears his fate too much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch, and win or lose it all." "I own I dare not ask her.
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