Four companies of Lowland infantry, Macdonald of Glengarry and his five hundred Highlanders, a few cavalrymen, and Lord George Murray himself tarried with the guns.
The main column disappeared, lost among mountains and hills; this detached number had the wild country, the forbidding road, the December day to themselves.

To get the guns and ammunition-wagons along proved a snail-and-tortoise business.

Guns and escort fell farther and farther behind.
Ian Rullock, acting still as aide, rode from the Prince nearing Penrith to Lord George Murray, now miles to the rear.

Why was the delay?
and 'ware the Duke of Cumberland, certainly close at hand! The delay was greater, the distance between farther, than the Prince had supposed.

Rullock rode through the late December afternoon by huge frozen waves of earth, under a roof of pallid blue, in his ears a small complaining wind like a wailing child.