Lairds of Glenlyon

THE LAIRDS OF GLENLYON. 247
the embarkation, weighed anchor ; but the wind was in
favour of the rebels, and the greater number landed on the
south coast. One boat with 40 men was captured, and
others were driven upon the Isle of May, from which they
got back to the coast of Fife next night. In all about
i,6oo effected the passage; and though but a small
body, the fame of the leader, the courage of his followers —
who were all picked men — and the success with which
they accomplished the passage of the Forth, augured well
for the cause in which they had embarked, and wonderfully
revived the hopes of the rebels, whose spirits had been
drooping under the inactivity of Mar, and the divided
councils in the camp at Perth.
The first night they rested at Haddington ; but next
day, instead of marching southward to join Denventwater
and his friends in the north of England, as intended by
their leaders, and expected by every person, they suddenly
faced about and marched for Edinburgh. It was one of
those moments in which the authority of the chiefs, far
less the military obedience to which they had never been
accustomed, failed to check the instinctive impulse of the
Highlanders.
Among the many causes conducive to the eccentric
movement, was the Highlanders' traditional respect for
Edinburgh as the capital of Scotland. What Delhi is, or
was, to the Hindus, " Auld Reekie " was to the rebels —
the city of sacred recollections, the seat of the tribunals,
which they feared even while they disobeyed them, the
abode of their ancient kings, from St. David downwards,
and until recently the place of the national legislative
assembly. It is not to be forgotten that the avowed object