Weary days, full of hard riding and scouting, passed before I saw
Margaret again. I was always in the rear, generally far in the rear, while
she and the other ladies were, very properly, kept well ahead. She now
rode in the calash with Lady Ogilvie,--the two being inseparable,--and
Maclachlan was with them. My work was hard and anxious but it kept me from
thinking overmuch. I put all my soul into it so that it should.
"The lad does very well, as I told you he would," said the Colonel to
Murray one night when I rode in to make my report.
"I see no signs of my chance of breaking him," said his lordship grimly,
but he would have me sup with him that night, and was very unbending and
helpful.
There is nothing I need say about this stage of the retreat. It was well
managed, and is, I am told, a very creditable piece of soldiership. It
does not belong to my story but to history, to which I leave it.
Things did happen, however, that do concern me. The first was laughable
though vexatious. This was the manner of it.
While the Prince was making the stage from Macclesfield to Manchester,
and Murray and the Colonel were in force a few miles in his rear, I had to
keep the country behind them well observed.
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