Claverhouse Part 9

Ballechin was strongly entrenched in Blair, and resolute not to budge an inch. The Athole men had gathered readily enough to their young lord's summons; but when they found he had summoned them to fight for King William they had gone off in a body shouting for King James.[92] And there was yet worse news. The fiery cross was speeding once more through the Western Highlands. There could be no doubt that Ballechin was acting under orders from Dundee. A few men had stayed with Murray, and with these he proposed to watch the castle and the pa.s.s till Mackay should come. But the clans were mustering fast. Dundee himself was said to be in the neighbourhood. Unless troops could be brought up at once, Blair would be irretrievably lost, and the key of the Highlands in the hands of Dundee.

Dundee was in the neighbourhood. He was at Struan, close to Blair, whence he wrote more than one letter to Murray, using every argument he could think likely to influence the interests or the prejudices of Athole's son. Professing to be convinced that Murray was really for James, though doubtful about the time for declaring himself, he declared that he had only sent help to Ballechin to keep the rebels at bay till Murray was able to act as his principles and education would naturally suggest. The King, he said, had seen the mistakes into which Melfort had hurried him. He had now given his word to secure the Protestant religion as by law established, to allow full liberty of conscience to all dissenters, and to grant a general pardon for all except those who had been actively engaged in dethroning him. What more might be necessary to satisfy the people, Dundee begged Murray to let him know.

The King was particularly anxious for advice on these points, and ready to go all reasonable lengths; and Murray, he well knew, would advise nothing unreasonable. No more was to be feared from Melfort, who had promised to forgive all old quarrels, and even to resign his office rather than force himself upon those who were unwilling to receive him.

Finally (keeping to the last the most powerful argument he could devise), he declared that it was now in Murray's power to "have the honour of the whole turn of the King's affairs." Murray would make no answer, refused to see Dundee's messengers, and sent all his letters on to Mackay.[93]

Dundee knew the importance of Blair as well as Mackay. As soon as he heard from Ballechin of Murray's action, he threw a garrison into the castle, and sent signal to the clans to join him at once. The time was short: too short even to muster all the outlying Camerons. Some days must elapse before he could expect to see round him such a force as he had commanded two months earlier, and every hour was precious. Lochiel urged him to march at once for Blair with such forces as were at hand, promising to follow with the rest. But Dundee was loth to advance without Lochiel. He relied much on the old chief's sagacity and experience, on his knowledge of the Highland character, and his tact in managing it: without his counsel and support he did not feel even now certain of his quarrelsome captains. He prayed Lochiel, therefore, to come with him, leaving his son to bring on the late musters.

As they marched through Badenoch they were joined by the long-promised succours from Ireland--three hundred ragged Irish recruits, half starved, badly armed, and entirely ignorant of war. Their leader was an officer named Cannon, who bore a commission from James giving him rank next to Dundee, a position which neither his abilities nor his experience ent.i.tled him to hold in such an army. Some stores of powder and food had been sent with them; but the vessels containing them had, through Cannon's negligence, been taken in the Hebrides by English cruisers. Dundee had neither powder nor food to spare. There had been no time to collect provisions; and for many days past his officers had eaten no bread and drunk nothing but water. The great promises of help on which the Highlanders had so confidently relied, on the a.s.surance of which they had taken the field, and for which their general had repeatedly given his own word, had shrunk to this--three hundred empty mouths to feed, and three hundred useless hands to arm.[94]

And now word came that Mackay was approaching. He had marched by way of Stirling to Perth, at which place he had appointed his muster. At Stirling he had found six troops of dragoons, which he had ordered to follow him to Perth. On July 26th he was at Dunkeld, where he received word from Murray of Dundee's arrival at Blair, but not the dragoons he was expecting from Stirling. His own cavalry consisted of but two troops, chiefly composed of new levies. He dared no longer trust Livingstone's dragoons in the face of the enemy. Half of the officers he had been obliged to send under guard to Edinburgh as traitors: the rest of the regiment was out of harm's way in quarters at Inverness. The horses of Colchester's men were in such a plight after their marches among the Grampians that they could not carry a saddle. Mackay knew well how important cavalry was to the work before him. A mounted soldier was the one antagonist a Highlander feared; and his fear was much the same superst.i.tious awe that a century and a half earlier the hordes of Montezuma had felt for the armoured hors.e.m.e.n of Cortez. But the messages from Murray were urgent, and he dared not delay. At break of day on Sat.u.r.day, the 27th, he marched out from Dunkeld for the glen of Killiecrankie.

His force, according to his own calculation, was between three and four thousand strong; but barely one half of these were seasoned troops.

There was the Scots Brigade, indeed, of three regiments, his own, Balfour's, and Ramsay's. But before despatching them to Scotland William had ordered them to be carefully weeded of all Dutch soldiers, that the patriotism of the natives might be offended by no hint of a foreign invasion; and the gaps thus made had been hastily filled up in Edinburgh. Besides this brigade were three other regiments of infantry: the one lately raised by Lord Leven (now the Twenty-fifth of the Line, and still recognizing its origin in its t.i.tle of The Borderers), Hastings' (now the Thirteenth of the Line), and Lord Kenmure's.[95] Of these, Hastings' was manned chiefly by Englishmen, and seems to have been the only one of the three that had had any real experience of war.

One troop of horse was commanded by Lord Belhaven: the other should have been commanded by Lord Annandale, whose name it bore, but Mackay could persuade neither him nor Lord Ross to take the field. Some feeling of compunction may have kept the latter from drawing his sword against an old comrade in arms; but Lord Annandale had always been fonder of wrangling than fighting. Mackay makes no mention of any artillery; but it appears that he had a few small field-pieces of the kind known as Sandy's Stoups from the name of their inventor.[96]

It is only possible to guess at Dundee's numbers. When he broke up his army early in June he seems to have had about three thousand claymores under him. The second muster was, we know, much smaller than the first; and though it was slightly increased on the march, and while he waited at Blair, the whole force he led at Killiecrankie cannot have much exceeded two thousand men. Over and above the claymores he had not four hundred. The Irish were three hundred, and his cavalry mustered about fifty sabres. Highland tradition puts the claymores at nineteen hundred; and this is probably much about the truth. Artillery, of course, he had none.

As soon as it was known that Mackay was at the mouth of the pa.s.s, Dundee called a council of war. Three courses, he told his officers, were before them: to hara.s.s Mackay's advance with frequent skirmishes, avoiding a general engagement till the reinforcements a few days would certainly bring had made the numbers more equal: to attack him in the pa.s.s; or to wait till he had reached the level ground above it. His own officers, and the Lowland gentlemen generally, were in favour of the first plan. Some of the chiefs were in favour of the second. Dundee listened courteously to all, and then turned to the old chief of the Camerons who had not yet spoken. What, he asked, did Lochiel advise?

Lochiel had no doubt. They must fight and fight at once, were the enemy three to one. Their men were in heart: they would have all the advantage of the ground: let Mackay get fairly through the pa.s.s that the Highlanders might see their foes, and then charge home. He had no fear for the result; but he would answer for nothing were the claymores to be kept back now the Saxons were fairly at their feet.

Those who watched Dundee saw his eye brighten. He answered that he agreed with every word Lochiel had spoken. Delay would bring reinforcements to Mackay as well as to them, and Mackay's reinforcements would almost certainly include more cavalry. To fight them in the pa.s.s was useless. In that narrow way the weight of the Highland onset would be lost. The claymores would not have room for their work, and half the column would escape. They must fight on open ground and on fair terms, as Montrose would have fought.[97]

There was no more opposition. The word for battle went through the clans, and was hailed with universal delight. Then Lochiel spoke again.

He had always, he said, promised implicit obedience to Dundee, and he had kept his promise; but for once he should command. "It is the voice of your Council," he went on, "and their orders are that you do not engage personally. Your Lordship's business is to have an eye on all parts, and to issue out your commands as you shall think proper. It is ours to execute them with prompt.i.tude and courage. On you depends the fate not only of this little brave army, but also of our King and country." He finished by threatening that neither he nor any of his clan should draw sword that day unless his request were granted. Dundee answered that he knew his life to be at that moment of some importance, but he could not on that day of all days refuse to hazard it. The Highlanders would never again obey in council a general whom they thought afraid to lead them in war. Hereafter he would do as Lochiel advised, but he must charge at the head of his men in their first battle. "Give me," he concluded, "one _Shear-Darg_ (harvest-day's work) for the King, my master, that I may show the brave clans that I can hazard my life in that service as freely as the meanest of them."[98]

Mackay had reached the mouth of the pa.s.s at ten in the morning. Here he found Murray and his little band, who had not judged it prudent to remain longer in the neighbourhood of Blair. Two hundred picked men were accordingly sent forward to reconnoitre under Colonel Lauder; and at noon, the ground having been reported clear in front, the whole column advanced.

The pa.s.s of Killiecrankie is now almost as familiar to the Southron as to the Highlander. It forms the highest and narrowest part of a magnificent wooded defile in which the waters of the Tummel flowing eastward from Loch Rannoch meet the waters of the Garry as it plunges down from the Grampians. Along one of the best roads in the kingdom, or by the swift and comfortable service of the Highland railway, the traveller ascends by easy gradations from Pitlochrie, through the beautiful grounds of Faskally to the little village and station of Killiecrankie, where a guide earns an unlaborious livelihood by conducting the panting Saxon over the famous battle-field and to various commanding points of the defile. How the scene must have looked in those days, and what thoughts it must have suggested to men either ignorant of war or accustomed to pursue it in civilised countries, has been described by Macaulay in a pa.s.sage which it were superfluous to quote and impertinent to paraphrase. Near sixty years later, when some Hessian troops were marching to the relief of Blair Castle, then besieged by the forces of Prince Charles, the stolid Germans turned from the desperate sight and, vowing that they had reached the limits of the world, marched resolutely back to Perth. The only road that then led through this Valley of the Shadow of Death was a rugged path, so narrow that not more than three men could walk abreast, winding along the edge of a precipitous cliff at the foot of which thundered the black waters of the Garry. Balfour's regiment led the van of this perilous march: the baggage was in the centre, guarded by Mackay's own battalion: Annandale's horse and Hastings' foot brought up the rear.

For about the last mile and a half the pa.s.s runs due north and south; but at the summit the river bends westward, and the mountains sweep back to the right. As the head of the column emerged into open air it found itself on a small table-land, flanked on the left by the Garry, and on the right by a tier of low hills sparely dotted with dwarf trees and underwood. Above these hills to the north and east rose the lofty chain of the Grampians crowned by the towering peaks of Ben Gloe and Ben Vrackie. In front the valley gradually opened out towards Blair Castle, about three miles distant, and along this valley Mackay naturally looked for the Highland advance. He sent some pioneers forward to entrench his position, and as each regiment came up on to the level ground, he formed it in line three deep. Balfour's regiment thus made the left wing resting on the Garry, while Hastings was on the right where the ground began to slope upwards to the hills. Next to Balfour stood Ramsay's men, and then Kenmure's, Leven's, and the general's own regiment. The guns were in the centre, and the two troops of horse in the rear of the guns.

In the meantime Dundee had not been idle. Sending a few men straight down the valley, he led his main body across the Tilt, which joins the Garry just below the castle, round at the back of the hills till he had reached the English right. Mackay was in front with his skirmishers, watching what he supposed to be the approach of Dundee's van, when word was brought to him that the enemy were occupying the hills on the right in force. Mackay saw his danger at a glance. The Highlanders would be down like one of their own rivers in flood on his right flank, and roll the whole line up into the Garry. On one of the hills overlooking his position stood what is now known as Urrard House, but was then called by its proper name of Renrorie.[99] Immediately below this stretched a piece of ground large and level enough in Mackay's judgment for his army to receive, though not to give, the attack. He made no change in his line, but wheeling it as it stood upon the right wing, he marched it up the slope on to this new ground in the face of the enemy.[100] His position was now better than it had been; but it was bad enough. The river was in his rear, and behind the river the inhospitable mountains.

His only way of escape, should the day go against him, lay through that terrible pa.s.s up which, with no enemy to hara.s.s him, he had just climbed with infinite toil. He could hardly hope to make good his retreat down such a road with a victorious army maddening in his rear. In the preliminary game of tactics he had been completely out-manoeuvred by his old comrade.

The clans were now forming for battle. The Macleans of Duart held the post of honour on the right wing. Next to the Macleans stood Cannon with his Irish. Then came the men of Clanra.n.a.ld, the men of Glengarry, and the Camerons. The left wing was composed of the Macdonalds of Sleat and some more Macleans. In the centre was the cavalry, commanded not as. .h.i.therto by the gallant Dunfermline, but by a gentleman bearing the ill.u.s.trious name of Wallace. He had crossed from Ireland with Cannon; but nothing is heard of him till apparently on the very morning of the day he produced a commission from James superseding the Earl of Dunfermline in favour of Sir William Wallace of Craigie. What would otherwise appear one of those inexplicable freaks by which James ever delighted to confound his affairs at their crisis, is amply explained by the fact that the new captain was the brother of Melfort's second wife.

Fortunately Dunfermline was too good a soldier and too loyal a gentleman to resent the slight. As Mackay's line was much longer than his, Dundee was compelled to widen the s.p.a.ces between the clans for fear of being outflanked, which left for his centre only this little cl.u.s.ter of sabres. Lochiel's eldest son, John, was with his father, but Allan, the second, held a commission in Mackay's own regiment. As the general saw each clan take up its ground, he turned to young Cameron and said, pointing to the standard of Lochiel, "There is your father with his wild savages; how would you like to be with him?" "It signifies little what I would like," was the spirited answer; "but I recommend you to be prepared, or perhaps my father and his wild savages may be nearer to you before night than you would like!"[101]

Each general spoke a few words to his men. Dundee reminded his captains that they were a.s.sembled that day to fight in the best of causes, in the cause of their King, their religion and their country, against rebels and usurpers. He urged them to behave like true Scotchmen, and to redeem their country from the disgrace cast on it by the treachery and cowardice of others. He asked nothing of them but what they should see him do before them all. Those who fell would fall honourably like true and brave soldiers: those who lived and conquered would have the reward of a gracious King and the praise of all good men. Let them charge home then, in the name of King James and the Church of Scotland. Mackay urged the same honourable duty on his battalions; but he added one very practical consideration which suggests that he was not so confident of the issue as he afterwards professes to have been, and which was perhaps not very wisely offered. They must fight, he said, for they could not fly. The enemy was much quicker afoot than they, and there were the Athole men waiting to pounce on all runaways. Such thoughts would hardly furnish the best tonic to a doubtful spirit. Nevertheless the troops answered cheerfully that they would stand by their general to the last; which, adds the brave old fellow ruefully in his despatch, "most of them belied shortly after."[102]

A dropping fire of musketry had for some time been maintained between the two lines, and on the English left there had been some closer skirmishing between Lauder's sharpshooters and the Macleans. Mackay was anxious to engage before the sun set. He doubted how his raw troops would stand a night-attack from a foe to whom night and day were one: still more did he fear what might happen in the darkness during the confusion of a retreat down that awful pa.s.s. But he could not attack, and Dundee would not, till his moment came. The darkness the other feared would be all in his favour. A very short time he knew would be enough to decide the issue of the battle. Should that issue be favourable to King James, as he felt confident it would be, he had determined that before the next morning dawned there should be no army left to King William in the Highlands.

The sun set, and the moment he had chosen came. The Southrons saw Dundee, who had now changed his scarlet coat for one of less conspicuous colour, ride along the line, and as he pa.s.sed each clan they saw plaids and brogues flung off. They heard the shout with which the word to advance was hailed; but the cheer they sent back did not carry with it the conviction of victory. Lochiel turned to his Camerons with a smile.

"Courage!" he said, "the day is our own. I am the oldest commander in this army; and I tell you that feeble noise is the cry of men who are doomed to fall by our hands this night." Then the old warrior flung off his shoes with the rest of them, and took his place at the head of his men. Dundee rode to the front of his cavalry. The pipes sounded, and the clans came down the hill.

They advanced slowly at first, without firing a shot, while Mackay's right poured a hot volley into their ranks, and the leathern cannon discharged their harmless thunder from the centre. A gentleman of the Grants, who was fighting that day among the Macdonalds, was knocked over by a spent ball which struck his target. "Sure, the Boddachs are in earnest now!" he said, as he leaped to his feet with a laugh. It was not till they had reached the level ground that the Highlanders delivered their fire. One volley they poured in, and then, flinging their muskets away, bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell. The soldiers had not time to fix their bayonets in the smoking muzzles of their muskets before the claymores were among them and the battle was over.[103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled: the men broke and ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the example of flight. Their officers behaved like brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, till he was cut down by a young clergyman, Robert Stewart, a grandson of Ballechin. Eight officers of Mackay's own regiment were killed, including his brother, the colonel; and many of Ramsay's. In vain was the cavalry ordered to charge. In vain did Belhaven like a gallant gentleman gallop to the front. In vain did Mackay place himself at their head, and, calling on them to follow him, spur into the thick of the flashing claymores. Before his horse they fell back right and left in such a way as to justify his boast to Melville that with fifty stout troopers he could have changed the day even then; but one of his own servants alone followed him. A few of the dragoons discharged their carbines at random. Then all turned and spurred off among the crowd of footmen to the mouth of the pa.s.s. Some of the fugitives tried to cross the Garry, and were either drowned in its swift waters, or cut down as they scrambled drenched and unarmed through its fords. Down the pa.s.s to Pitlochrie the rout went. The men of Athole, no longer doubtful of the issue, pounced from their lair upon the easy prey; and even women lent their hands to the butchery.[104]

Well might Mackay bitterly complain, "There was no regiment or troop with me but behaved like the vilest cowards in nature except Hastings and my Lord Leven's."[105] For on the right matters had fared rather better with the Lowlanders. Many of Leven's Borderers had stood firm and Hastings' Englishmen; and where the Southrons stood firm the Highlanders wavered. But they were too few for Mackay to have any hopes of retrieving the fortune of the day. The Highlanders were now busy with the baggage, which offered a more tempting and less troublesome prize than the struggling ma.s.s of fugitives. Mackay therefore collected the few men he could get together, and led them across the Garry by a ford above the field of battle over the mountains towards Stirling. On his march he overtook some more of his runaways whom Ramsay was leading in the same direction. Mackay did all it was possible for a brave man to do to encourage his men and keep them together. But many were too frightened to heed his words, or even the pistol with which he threatened to shoot the first man he saw leaving his ranks. The news of his defeat had spread with marvellous rapidity: the whole country was up: every glen and mountain sent out its reapers to the rich harvest.

And where enemies did not exist, the fears of these poor wretches found them. Every drover with his herd, every shepherd with his flock, was magnified into a fresh array of the terrible Highlanders. On the evening of Monday, the 29th, Mackay reached Stirling with barely one-fifth of the force with which he had marched out of the town a week earlier.

The Highland loss was calculated at nine hundred men. The Macdonalds and Camerons were the princ.i.p.al sufferers, their position on the left and left-centre having brought them in contact with the battalions who had kept their ground. Glengarry's brother was among the killed, with Macdonald of Largo, and no less than five cousins of Macdonald of the Isles. Among the Lowlanders fell Hallyburton of Pitcur, and Gilbert Ramsay, Dundee's favourite officer, who had dreamed overnight of the victory and of his death. But though the battle had been won for James, he had suffered a greater loss than William. A fresh army could replace Mackay's broken battalions; but no one could replace Dundee, and Dundee was dead.

He had ridden at the head of his cavalry straight on Mackay's centre.

But for some unexplained reason his troopers had not followed him close; whether their new captain did not like the guns, or had misunderstood his orders, is not clear. Dunfermline, seeing his general's plumed hat waving above the smoke, had spurred out of the ranks with sixteen gentlemen, and with these sabres the guns were taken and silenced.

Dundee, seeing that all went well on the right wing, turned to the left where the Macdonalds were wavering before the firmer front of Hastings'

Englishmen. As he galloped across the field to bring them to the charge, a shot struck him in the right side immediately below his breastplate. For a few strides further he clung swaying to his saddle, and then sank from his horse into the arms of a soldier named Johnstone.

Like Wolfe on the heights of Abraham, he asked how the day went. "Well for the King," said the man, "but I am sorry for your Lordship." And like Wolfe, Dundee answered, "It is the less matter for me, seeing the day goes well for my master." As his officers returned from the pursuit they found him on the field, and it is said, though one would be glad to disbelieve it, stripped by the very men whom he had led to victory. By his side was found a bundle of papers. Among them was a letter from Melfort, bidding him be sure that both he and James would feel themselves bound by no promise of toleration circ.u.mstances had induced them to make. Well might Balcarres, who knew his friend's disposition better than Melfort, tell James how such foolish and disingenuous dealing had grieved Dundee and all who wished honestly to the cause.[106]

Dundee's body, wrapped in a plaid, was carried to the castle, and a few days later buried in the old church of Blair. In 1852 some bones, believed to be his, were removed from Blair to the Church of Saint Drostan in the parish of Old Deer, in Aberdeenshire; and eleven years later a window of stained gla.s.s was placed in the same church, bearing, on a bra.s.s plate in the window-sill, this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who died in the arms of victory, and whose battle-cry was 'King James and the Church of Scotland!'"

As no stone was ever known to mark his first grave; there is, of course, ample room for the incredulous to smile over this late tribute to his memory. But in truth the shadow of doubt broods over him in death as in life. It is certain only that he received his death-wound on the field of battle, and in the moment of victory. What else fell with him there was well expressed by William. When the news from Killiecrankie came down, the King was urged at once to send a large army into the Highlands. "It is needless," he answered, "the war ended with Dundee's life."

FOOTNOTES:

[90] See the sixth canto of "The Lady of the Lake."

"We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their tinchel cows the game."

The tinchel was the name given to the circle of hunters which, gradually narrowing, hemmed the deer into a small s.p.a.ce, where they could be easily slaughtered.

[91] Mackay complains bitterly in his Memoirs of "the unconcerned method of the Government in matters which touch them nearest as to their general safety, each being for his particular, and fixed upon his private projects, so as neither to see nor be concerned for anything else."

[92] "When in front of Blair Castle their real destination was disclosed to them by Lord Tullibardine [the heir of Athole did not a.s.sume this style till 1695]. Instantly they rushed from their ranks, ran to the adjoining stream of Banovy, and, filling their bonnets with water, drank to the health of King James; and then, with colours flying and pipes playing, 'fifteen hundred of the men of Athole, as reputable for arms as any in the kingdom' [Mackay's words], put themselves under the command of the Laird of Ballechin and marched off to join Lord Dundee."

Stewart's "Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland," i. 67. But this is not strictly true. They joined neither Ballechin nor Dundee, but went off on their own account to the mountains to watch the issue of events.

[93] Probably Dundee wrote more confidently than he felt. He owned that Murray might "have more to do to believe" Melfort's a.s.surance than James's; but, in fact, there was too good reason to disbelieve both.

From the first letter written from Struan it appears that the despatch from James which had fallen into Hamilton's hands was much more temperate and conciliatory than the earlier one brought to the Convention by Crane. Dundee had not seen this despatch; and it is possible that he described it rather as his own good sense urged him to believe it must have been, than as it really was. The letters to himself, which he summarises for Murray's benefit, must have been those acknowledged in the postscript to Melfort of June 28th. It is, as we shall presently see, certain that about this time James was induced to a.s.sume, as he had before a.s.sumed when it was too late, the virtue of toleration. How much of these promises Dundee really believed, it is impossible to say. The history of our own time has shown, and is every day showing, that neither wisdom nor experience will always avail to prevent a man from believing that which it is his interest to believe.

[94] Memoirs of Balcarres and of Lochiel.

[95] I have given the modern style of these regiments as they were before the last freak of the War Office. What they may be now, I do not know; nor is the knowledge important, for the style I have used will probably be most familiar to my readers. "My Uncle Toby," it will be remembered, was of Leven's regiment. There exists a letter from Schomberg to Lord Leven, especially commending to the latter's care a gentleman of the name of Le Fevre. See the "Leven and Melville Papers."

[96] Mackay says in his Memoirs that he left Edinburgh with two troops of horse, and four of dragoons. It is certain that only the former were engaged at Killiecrankie. But the general's narrative is throughout extremely confused, and sometimes barely intelligible. Perhaps the larger force was that he had counted on having; or the four troops of dragoons may have been those he ordered to follow from Stirling.

Alexander Hamilton, who commanded the artillery in the Covenanter's army with which Leslie and Montrose made the famous pa.s.sage of the Tyne in 1640. From Burton's description of them they can hardly have been very dangerous, at least to the enemy. "They seem to have been made of tin for the bore, with a coating of leather, all secured by tight cordage. A horse could carry two of them, and it was their merit to stand a few discharges before they came to pieces." "History of Scotland," vi. 302.

[97] It is said that one of Dundee's arguments against attacking in the pa.s.s was, that it did not become brave soldiers to engage a foe at disadvantage, an argument which I should imagine Dundee was much too sensible a man to employ to Highlanders. Had his force been sufficient for him to close up the mouth of the pa.s.s after the Lowlanders had entered, it is hard to imagine he would have lost the chance of catching Mackay in such a trap. But his force was too small to divide: while the nature of the ground would of course have told as much against those who made as against those who met a charge, besides inevitably offending the jealous point of honour which forbad one clan to take precedence of another. It may be, too, that Dundee was not very well served by his scouts. Mackay certainly seems to have got well on his way through the pa.s.s before the other knew that he had entered it. See the "Life of Mackay," and the "Rebellions in Scotland."

[98] Memoirs of Lochiel.

[99] For long afterwards the battle was known among the Highlanders as the battle of Renrorie.

[100] Mackay's Memoirs: "a quart de conversion" is his own phrase for this change of front.

[101] "Sketches of the Highlanders."

[102] Among the Nairne Papers is what purports to be a copy of Dundee's speech. It has been contemptuously rejected by some writers as a manifest forgery, on the ground that no Highlander would have understood a word of it. But there were Dundee's own officers and men to be addressed; and, moreover, his language would have been perfectly intelligible to some, at least, of the chiefs, who would have conveyed its purpose to their men. It was still the fashion for a general to harangue his troops before leading them into action, and it was a fashion particularly in vogue among the Highlanders. I see no reason, therefore, to doubt the general authenticity of this speech. Exactly as it stands in the Nairne Papers probably Dundee did not deliver it; the style being somewhat more grandiloquent than he was in the habit of employing. But its general purpose, which I have endeavoured to give in a paraphrase, seems to be very much what such a man would have said at such a moment. The authority for Mackay's speech will be found in his own despatch to Lord Melville after the battle.

[103] It was the disastrous experience of this day that led Mackay to devise a plan of fixing the bayonet to the musket so that each could be used, as now, without interfering with the other.