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our hearts when we got to Glen Nevis, but the glen was empty of people, and the second night fell ere we broke fast. I have hungered many times on weary marches, but yon was the most cruel hunger of my life. And though the pain of the starving could be dulled a little by draughts of water from the wayside springs, what there was no remede for was the weakness that turned the flesh in every part of me to a nerveless pulp. I went down Nevis Glen a man in a delirium. My head swam with vapours, so that the hillside seemed to dance round and before me. If I had fallen in the snow I should assuredly have lain there and died, and the thought of how simple and sweet it would be to stretch out my heavy limbs and sleep the sleep for ever, more than once robbed me of my will. Some of the Stewarts and Camerons, late recruits to the army, and as yet not inured to its toils, fell on the wayside halfway down the glen. Mac Donald was for leaving them--"We have no need for weaklings," he said, cruelly, fuming at the delay; but their lairds gave him a sharp answer, and said they would bide bye them till they had recovered. Thus a third of our force fell behind us in the march, and I would have been behind too, but for M'Iver's encouragement. His songs were long done; his stories chilled on his lip. The hunger had him at the heart, but he had a lion's will and a lion's vigour. "For the love of God!" he said to me, "do not let them think we are so much of the Covenanter that we cannot keep up! For a Scots Cavalier you are giving in over early." "Campaigning with Mackay was never like this," I pleaded, wearily; "give me the open road and an enemy before me, and I would tramp gaily to the world's end. Here's but a choked ravine the very deer abhor in such weather, and before us but a battle we must not share in." He said never a word for a few moments, but trudged on. My low-heeled shoon were less fitted for the excursion than his close-thonged brogues that clung to the feet like a dry glove, and I walked lamely. Ever and anon he would look askance at me, and I was annoyed that he should think me a poorer mountaineer than those unwearied knaves who hurried us. I must have shown my feeling in my face, for in a little he let-on to fall lame too, and made the most grievous complaint of ache and weariness. His pretence deceived me but for a little. He was only at his old quirk of keeping me in good repaie with myself, but he played the p
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