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