the announcement, that he was, on the contrary, surprised by a large army.

Previous to setting out upon the charge, Strachan, according to the well-known custom of officers of his stamp, planted himself under the standard, in the midst of his men, and endeavoured to edify their resolution by singing psalms, reading passages of Scripture, and praying to the Almighty for success. He then cried to them, "Gentlemen, yonder are your enemies, and they are not only your enemies, but they are the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ; I have been dealing this last night with Almighty God, to know the event of the affair, and I have gotten it; as sure as God is in Heaven, they are delivered into our hands, and there shall not a man of us fall to the ground."

The ruse which he had thus calculated for Montrose's destruction was completely successful. That unfortunate general no sooner observed the real strength of the advancing Presbyterians, than, alarmed to the last degree for the safety of his foot against so many horse, he ordered them to retire, with all possible expedition, to a craggy and woody hill, which lay at no great distance behind his position. Had they succeeded in attaining the place he indicated, before Strachan came up, they would have no doubt been secure from the charge of the cavalry, and might have even contrived, by firing from behind the rocks and trees, to put the enemy, charging over such rough ground, to confusion, and perhaps to flight. Unfortunately for them, Strachan made such haste, that, although the ascent of the hill was, in the words of Sir Robert Gordon, " verrie ill riding ground," he overtook the retiring loyalists before they could reach their place of refuge. As he, accordingly, made the

attack at a moment when, both from their retrograde movement, and the depression of spirit occa sioned by retreat, they were in the worst possible condition to meet it, he gained the victory almost at a stroke. The Dutch and other foreigners, alone, with that instinct of duty which is generally shown by mercenaries, made any vigorous resistance. The rest dispersed, and threw away their arms, without firing a shot.12

In this unhappy state of his affairs, Montrose himself fought for some time with desperate but unavailing valour; till at length, his horse being shot under him, and his army to all appearance broken beyond recovery, he was obliged to think of preserving his own life by flight. His noble young friend, Lord Frendraught, observing him at that dreadful moment to be destitute of a horse to bear him off the field, generously yielded up his own, observing, that "it was little matter what became of himself, so long as his majesty's lieutenantgeneral was well."13 Montrose, thus remounted, succeeded in getting clear of the wreck of the battle, being accompanied in his flight by the Earl of Kinnoul, (brother to the late earl,) and by various other principal officers.

Strachan's troopers, with the assistance of the Monroes and Rosses, continued to chase and slay the fugitive loyalists for the space of two hours, the approach of night alone preventing them at last from prosecuting their dreadful task any farther. Ten of the best loyalist officers were killed, along with several hundred common soldiers. Among the former was Menzies, younger of Pitfoddles, a brave young gentleman, who, being bearer of the standard on which were the drawing and inscription mentioned, refused every offer of quarter, and

was at last killed while fighting fiercely in defence of his charge. Two hundred of the loyalists were drowned in crossing the river near which the battle took place. Four hundred were taken prisoners, including Sir John Hurry and other thirty officers. Lord Frendraught, who had so generously yielded his horse to Montrose, had two wounds, and was taken. As for the victorious party, only two men were wounded, and one drowned. Strachan himself was hit on the belly by a musket bullet; but it was prevented from hurting him by the double plies of his buff-belt, upon which it alighted. The principal standard of the enemy, together with all Montrose's papers, fell into the hands of the victors, who, before quitting the field of battle, rendered thanks to God for their success. They soon after returned to Tain; but the country people of Ross and Sutherland continued to harass and kill the broken loyalists for several days.15 So many of the Orkney levies were slain, that it was afterwards discovered that there was not a family of gentry in that country which had not lost a son or a brother,"

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CHAPTER XI.

MONTROSE'S CAPTURE AND EXECUTION.

With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,
In open market-place produced they me,
To be a public spectacle.

Henry VI.

WHEN the unfortunate general retired from the field where he had seen his hopes finally and for ever blasted, he directed his route, either by acci dent or design, along the wild and uninhabited valley, at the mouth of which he had halted before the battle. At first he pursued his way on horseback, accompanied by the friends who had got away with him; but, the ground becoming speedily unfit for his horse, and it being represented to him that he ran the less risk of capture by travelling without a retinue and in a humbler guise, he abandoned in succession his horse and his friends, threw away his cloak, star, and sword, exchanged clothes with a Highland rustic, and toiled along the valley on foot. The whole of that night, and of the next day, and of the next night again, he pursued his lonely and difficult path, his body exhausted by hunger and fatigue, and his mind in all

probability a prey to the most agonizing sensations. When at length almost famished, "he fortuned," says the author of the Sutherland Memoirs, "to light in his miserie upon a small cottage in the wilderness, where he was supplied with some bread and milk." It must have been a strange sight to see the man who, two days before, seemed to have three kingdoms at his disposal, now reduced to implore the hospitality of the meanest shed which these three kingdoms contained. He was soon after, as he continued his flight, obliged by the extremity of hunger, to devour his gloves.1

His first wish or intention after the battle, seems to have been to get north to Caithness, where he had still a party, and from whence, if no hope remained of renewing the war, he could easily get over to Orkney, or to the Continent. Unfortunately, his want of acquaintance with the country, and the real difficulties of travelling at all through such a mountainous region, prevented him from attaining his object. He could only wander wildly on, in famine and despair, amongst the immense hills which encumber the west of Sutherland, ignorant of almost every local circumstance, except that he believed himself to be leaving his enemies behind him.

Even in this satisfactory notion he was fatally disappointed. His enemies, apprised of the direction he had taken, by finding, in succession, his cloak, his sword, and his horse, and conjecturing that he might get into the country of Assynt, the western extremity of Sutherland, dispatched information to that effect, to Neil Macleod, the proprietor of the district, with a strict injunction that he should apprehend whatever stranger of a sus