nquired where I was going so fast? but I
waived my hand and hurried by.

I reached the Queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. I
embarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side I had fallen
asleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumber
unmolested. When I awoke I felt myself refreshed. I leapt on shore, and
went again impatiently on.

But my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when I reached Kinross I
bought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped it
in the water, and it was a savoury repast.

As I approached the Brigg of Earn I felt age in my limbs, and though the
spirit was willing, the body could not; and I sat down, and I mourned
that I was so frail and so feeble. But a marvellous vigour was soon
again given to me, and I rose refreshed from my resting-place on the
wall of the bridge, and the same night I reached Perth. I stopped in a
stabler's till the morning. At break of day, having hired a horse from
him, I hastened forward to Dunkeld, where he told me Mackay had encamped
the day before, on his way to defend the Pass of Killicrankie.

The road was thronged with women and children flocking into Perth in
terror of the Highlanders, but I heeded them not. I had but one thought,
and that was to reach the scene of war and Claverhouse.

On arriving at the ferry of Inver, the field in front of the Bishop of
Dunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. Mackay had
marched towards Blair-Athol, to drive Dundee and the Highlanders, if
possible, back into the glens and mosses of the North; for he had learnt
that his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's.

On hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, I halted at the
ferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that I
should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the
meeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came to
that turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into the
Tay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soon
after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink,
slowly and heavily, as the chariots of Pharaoh laboured through the
sands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the
many-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn.

On the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins of
the ramparts of some ancient world; and I thought of