greater distance, men had more difficulty in realising the
gravity of the situation. Conflicting rumours distracted the authorities
in Edinburgh; now it was declared that the Prince had landed with 10,000
French soldiers, at another time men ridiculed the idea of his getting a
single man to rise for him. Those who knew the country best took the
matter most seriously. The question of defence was not an easy one. At
that time almost all the available British troops were in Flanders,
fighting the French; the soldiers that were left in Scotland were either
old veterans, fit only for garrison duty, newly raised companies whose
mettle was untried, or local militias which were not to be trusted in
all cases. If the great lords who had raised and who commanded them
chose to declare for the Stuarts, they would carry their men with them.

The commander-in-chief, Sir John Cope, was not the man to meet so sudden
and so peculiar a crisis. He had nothing of a real general's love of
responsibility and power of decision. To escape blame and to conduct a
campaign according to the laws of war was all the old campaigner cared
for. When it was decided that he was to march with all the available
forces in Scotland into the Highlands he willingly obeyed, little
guessing what a campaign in the Highlands meant. Almost at once it was
found that it would be impossible to provide food for horses as well as
men. So the dragoons under Colonel Gardiner were left at Stirling. We
shall hear of them again. But his 1,500 infantry were weighted heavily
enough; a small herd of black cattle followed the army to provide them
with food, and more than 100 horses carried bread and biscuit. Confident
that the loyal clans would come in hundreds to join his standard, Cope
carried 700 stand of arms. By the time he reached Crieff, however, not a
single volunteer had come in, and the stand of arms was sent back. Cope
followed one of the great military roads which led straight to Fort
Augustus, and had been made thirty years before by General Wade. Now
across that road, some ten miles short of the fort, lies a high
precipitous hill, called Corryarack. Up this mountain wall the road is
carried in seventeen sharp zigzags; so steep is it that the country
people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the
pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of
Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to
rush d