For himself, he
might, if he chose, pick out among the glittering constellations a
shape like a scaffold.
When he dismounted he was brought past a bivouac fire and a coming and
going of men afoot and on horseback, into the farm-house, where two or
three officers sat at table. Questioned, threatened, and
re-questioned, he had of course nothing to divulge. The less pressure
was brought in that these troops were in possession of the facts which
the moment desired. His name and rank he gave, it being idle to
withhold them. In the end he was shut alone into a small room of the
farm-house, behind a guarded door. He saw that there was planned an
attack upon the detachment that with dawn would move from Shap. But
this force of Wade's or of the Duke's was itself a detachment and
apparently of no great mass. He could only hope that Lord George and
the Macdonalds would move warily and when the shock came be found
equal. All that was beyond his control. In the chill darkness he
turned to the consideration of his own affair, which seemed desperate
enough. He found, by groping, a bench against the wall. Wrapping
himself in his cloak, he lay down upon this and tried to sleep, but
could not. With all his will he closed off the future, and then as
best he might the immediately environing present. After all, these
armies--these struggles--these eery ambitions.
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