houses
where the English garrisons were sleeping in security. Meanwhile Lord
George and Cluny, with five-and-twenty men and a few elderly gentlemen,
went straight to the Falls of Bruar. In the grey of the morning a man
from the village of Blair came up hastily with the news that Sir Andrew
Agnew had got the alarm, and with several hundred men was scouring the
neighbourhood and was now advancing towards the Falls! Lord George might
easily have escaped up the pass, but if he failed to be at the
rendezvous, each small body as it came in would be surrounded and
overpowered by the enemy. The skilful general employed precisely the
same ruse as had been so successful at the Rout of Moy.

[Illustration: The 'Rout of Moy']

He put his followers behind a turf wall at distant intervals, displayed
the colours in a conspicuous place, and placed his pipers to advantage.
As Sir Andrew came in sight, the sun rose, and was flashed back by
brandished broadswords behind the turf wall. All along the line plaids
seemed to be waving, and heads appeared and disappeared as if a large
body of men were behind; while the pipes blew up a clamorous pibroch,
and thirty men shouted for three hundred. Sir Andrew fell into the
snare, and promptly marched his men back again. One by one the other
parties came in: some thirty houses had yielded to them, and they
brought three hundred prisoners with them.

After this success Lord George actually attempted to take the House of
Blair. It was a hopeless enterprise; the walls of the house were seven
feet thick, and Lord George had only two small cannons. 'I daresay the
man's mad, knocking down his own brother's house,' said the stout old
commander, Sir Andrew, watching how little effect the shot had on the
walls. Lord George sent to Charles for reinforcements when it began to
seem probable that he could reduce the garrison by famine, but Charles,
embittered and resentful, and full of unjust suspicion against his
general, refused any help, and on March 31 Lord George had to abandon
the siege and withdraw his men. The Prince's suspicions, though unjust,
were not unnatural. Lord George had twice advised retreat, where
audacity was the only way to success.

IX

CULLODEN

IN the meantime the weeks were rolling on. The grey April of the North,
if it brought little warmth, was at least lengthening the daylight, and
melting the snow from the hills, and lowering the floods that had made
the rivers impassable.