urgently needed. What between the Papistical Highlanders of James Graham, sometime Marquis of Montrose,' and the great storm of snow which then covered the country, the members of the northern Presbyteries are sorely beset.* But worse fortune is in store for their leaders. Argyle, much perplexed in mind by the unaccountable eccentricities of this will-o'

*Here are a few extracts from the Minutes of the Presbytery of Strathbogie, during the period in question :

'1644, 29 May. The Marquis of Huntley, Irvine of Drum, and Gordon of Haddo, excommunicated for their rebellious conspiracy and insurrection against this kirk and kingdom.'

'1644, 12 June. Excommunication of the Earl of Montros and others, for their rebellious invading of their native kingdom with all hostility.'

1644, 25 Sept. The said day no doctrine, in respect the exerceeser was abstracted through the troubles of the time, and for fear of Irish armie was obliged to leave their houses.'

'1645, 18 Feb. No meeting, because of the enemy was for the time within the bounds of the presbytery, so that the brethren could not safely convene together.'

1645, 5 March. No meeting for the reason foresaid; and, besides, the whole brethren were forced to flee from their houses.'

1646. There could be no meeting in February by reason of the great storm; nor hitherto in March, by reason of continowale armies and parties of Highlanders remaining within the bounds of the presbytery.'

Next year all those who had been engaged in the rebellion are required to sign and acknowledge in sackcloth, 'to the shedding of the blood of the Lord's people;' and in the cases of church discipline, which occur for some time thereafter, the frail delinquents commonly attribute their misfortunes to 'the soldiers of James Grahame, his army,' who seem to have been somewhat rough wooers.

the-wisp enemy, is on his way to Perth, when he learns that his rival is on his trail. Seized with sudden panic, he precipitately disbands his army, and makes for the metropolis. Even there, however, he does not feel that he is safe; so rendering up his commission to the rebel government, he flies to his inaccessible stronghold on Loch Fyne. 'It's a far cry to Lochow,' and Gillespie Grumach may at length breathe freely; for his antagonist, wiry and virulent though he be, cannot follow him here. But he does not know his man yet. Montrose is inexorable. Through the wildest passes, in the bleak December storms, and it is a bitter winter,-he forces his way; and on the hill-side over against his own castle, Argyle again beholds the camp-fires of his foe. Craven always, and now sick with terror, he flies shamefully, and leaves the ruthless hunter to harry his lair.

Having sacked the country of the Campbells, Montrose plunges into Lochaber, and prepares to winter upon the desolate shores of Loch Ness. This is the critical moment, the turning-point, in the campaign. He is deserted by a large portion of his men, and on all sides surrounded by the enemy. Seaforth is in the North, at Inverness; Baillie at Perth; Argyle, recovering from his panic, raises his clan, and writes to his friends in Edinburgh that he has 'overtook the rogues at Lochaber.' A daring blow is required. Montrose doubles back; leads his men right across the precipitous spurs of Ben Nevis; and with startling suddenness, closes in on MacCallum More and his men, who are

camped round their Castle of Inverlochy, on the shore of Loch Eil. Argyle again, like a hunted stag, takes to the water, but he cannot carry his army with him; and Auchinleck, ‘a stout soldier, but a very vicious man,' as his covenanting allies describe him, is left in command. The winter morning dawns, still, clear, and frosty; the Campbells can hear distinctly the flourish of trumpets that salutes the royal standard on the mountain, and the wild war tune of the Camerons, as they quit their cover- Come to me, and I will give you flesh,'-a fierce challenge, that day amply redeemed. It was a splendid charge; a handful upon a host; the nearest thing in modern warfare to be compared with it is Charles Napier's charge at Meeanee.

Inverlochy was the most decisive of Montrose's victories-the Campbells being literally driven into the sea-and its effect was instantaneous. The prestige of Argyle is destroyed. The Gordon cavalry, headed by the noblest gentleman of their race, join the royal standard. The army of the northern rebels—a rope of sand, at the best, we may believe,-melts away in a night. Montrose marches through Aberdeenshire and Moray into the Mearns without seeing a foe. Neither Baillie nor Hurry will fight, and the Graham, in his rapid masterly way, pushes past them to sack Dundee ; from which town he effects a still more rapid and masterly retreat upon Glen Esk. The hills form a citadel where he knows that he is safe. These forlorn regions are his dépôts. The Lowland cavalry dare not follow him through the passes. Thenceforward, for

weeks and months, he becomes obscure, impalpable, veiled in darkness, a sort of terrible myth. Rumours may reach the covenanting generals from Athole, from Loch Katrine, from Ben Lomond—not to be relied on, however, for the Puritan spies are baffled and at fault. So Hurry marches towards Inverness, to join the Northmen, who are again in the field; but Montrose is forthwith upon his trail, and at Alderne, in a stiff and wellcontested fight, the veteran army perishes. Baillie, advancing cautiously along the southern bank of the Spey, keeps the royal force in sight for several days, till the Marquis again eludes him, and the scent is lost among the woods of Abernethy. At length, at Alford, in Strathdon, the two generals finally encounter, and though young Lord Gordon is slain-a heavy and disastrous blow-Baillie is utterly routed. Of all the covenanting armies, only one now remains to be dealt with; and, among the thickets of Kilsyth, Montrose wins his last, perhaps his most memorable victory. He has kept his word. From Inverness to the Border the royal authority is re-established, he has brought back Scotland to the King.

To do what Montrose did, to win successive victories over seven or eight trained armies, each of them superior in numbers, discipline, and organisation to that which he led, must be counted no small achievement : but the peculiar difficulty which he had to meet, and which a really great man only could have met with success, resulted from the peculiar constitution of his own force. The Highlander was brave, and he liked fighting. But

ne liked plunder better, and he liked to secure his plunder. So that the General was placed in a curious dilemma. Whenever he gained a battle, he lost his army. The victor, in the hour of victory, was left at the mercy of the vanquished. It is assuredly not the least remarkable fact in Montrose's career, that he contrived to secure permanent and enduring results; in effect, to subdue and pacify the whole of Scotland; with an army that continually melted away, and to which victory was in truth more fatal than defeat. Any energetic Celtic robber could issue from the passes, harry the plain, rive the black cattle of his Lowland neighbours, and then retire swiftly with the spoil to his mountain lair. He could do this; it was all that he could do. Montrose, by the felicity and daring of his genius, contrived to make these fickle and fitful elements work out a great scheme of national liberation. For, though the body dissolved like the snow, the spirit, the man, remained-a man who acted as a magnet, who drew soldiers out of every valley through which he passed, at whose cry the Redshanks gathered together from their remotest hills. Such a man was a centre, a nucleus, a rallying-point; and so long as their dreaded enemy lived—even after, on his way to England, he had been worsted by a foreign army-the rebel government knew that its supremacy in Scotland was not assured.

One sometimes wishes that Montrose had died in battle, wrapt, it may be, in the flag he had kept so bravely. But it was better not. A stormy death on the battle-field was fitter for Dundee. Montrose's was