Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his army was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner in which they ought to have been.  From thence the Marquis returned to Inverary, there, in full security, to govern his feudal vassals, and patriarchal followers, and to repose himself in safety on the faith of the Clan proverb already quoted—­“It is a far cry to Lochow.”

CHAPTER XVI.

     Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
     His army on one side enclose: 
     The other side, great griesly gills
     Did fence with fenny mire and moss.

     Which when the Earl understood,
     He council craved of captains all,
     Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
     And take such fortune as would fall. 
     —­Flodden field, an ancient poem.

Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could obtain the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and their independent chieftains.  The Lowlands lay open before him without an army adequate to check his career; for Argyle’s followers had left the Covenanters’ host when their master threw up his commission, and many other troops, tired of the war, had taken the same opportunity to disband themselves.  By descending Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from the Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands, in order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of loyalty which animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth.  The possession of these districts, with or without a victory, would give him the command of a wealthy and fertile part of the kingdom, and would enable him, by regular pay, to place his army on a permanent footing, to penetrate as far as the capital, perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed it possible to communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King Charles.

Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to be acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal cause.  Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring spirit of him whose services had already acquired him the title of the Great Marquis.  But other motives actuated many of his followers, and perhaps were not without their secret and unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.

The Western Chiefs in Montrose’s army, almost to a man, regarded the Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of hostilities.  Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all, in withdrawing their fencible men from their own glens, left their families and property exposed to his vengeance; all, without exception, were desirous of diminishing his sovereignty; and most of them lay so near his territories, that they might reasonably hope to be gratified by a share of his spoil.  To these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle was an event infinitely