CHAPTER XVI
BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE
On our way into the town a thing happened which greatly shook me, being,
as I was, nothing in the world but a small farmer who had never seen the
wars. At a point where the rough road cut across a fold in the moorlands
we saw, half a mile to our right, a herd of cattle being lashed and
chivvied away to the remoter crannies among the hills by a throng of
sweating hinds and fanners. Had it happened our way, thought I broodily,
Joe and I would be there among the like, saving our own stock from the
marauders. Donald looked at them longingly, but our haste brooked no
delay, and besides, as he put it to me later, "It's a puir town, but,
after a' said, better than a wheen lousy cattle, for I've come by a fine
pair o' progues for a twa-three bawbees."
Leek was as full of Highlanders as a wasp-cake is of maggots, and still
they were swarming in. Donald and the clansmen, indifferent to the crush
and hubbub, clave a way for us to the market-place, where, on the
Colonel's advice, they were dismissed to beat for billets. I then took
charge and led my companions across to the "Angel," where the throng was
so dense that they might have been giving the ale away.
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