ing force, and then to charge his left, while Colkitto should at length sally from his enclosures and assist in the decisive grapple. genius of the highest order, to wit, the inventive order, are apt to coincide. This battle was fought in May, 1645. After much marching and counter-marchÚrry ordered his battle exactly as ing, Baillie ventured to engage Montrose Montrose intended. His veteran troops at Alford, on the river Don in Aberdeenhe sent to charge on his left, where the shire. He was defeated, and his army Royal standard floating over Montrose's broken to pieces. There was now no right, marked, as he believed, the station force in the north of Scotland that could of the general and the key of the position. look Montrose in the face. Argyle, howColkitto, safe in his enclosures, defied ever, and the Edinburgh Convention of the attack. But the enemy galled him Estates, resolved upon a last great effort. with their reproaches, and the headstrong They raised a larger army than any of chief led out his men to fight in the open. those they had lost, and placed it under Here they soon had the worst of it. Baillie; but Argyle, Lanark, and CrawMontrose learned that the great strength ford-Lindsay were appointed to exercise massed by Urry on the Covenanting left over him a joint superintendence. They had broken Colkitto, and that the Irish forced him to bring Montrose, who had were recoiling in partial confusion. A now descended into the low countries and less resolute commander, or one whose crossed the Forth, to action. The battle self-possession was less calm, would have of Kilsyth was fought on the morning of sent help to Colkitto, and thus deprived the 15th of August. Seldom or never had himself of that superiority of force in the disproportion of strength been greater charging Urry's right, on which he had against Montrose, but none of his victocalculated for victory. Montrose was ries had been easier, and Baillie's army not disconcerted. He saw that the mo- was utterly destroyed. In the warm summent had come for putting his scheme mer morning, Montrose ordered his men into execution. He called out to Lord to strip to their shirts that the broadsword Gordon that Colkitto was conquering on might have unencumbered play, and that the right, and that, unless they made they might not fail in the expected purhaste, he would carry off the honours of suit. Accustomed to conquer, and placthe day. The Gordon gentlemen charged ing absolute confidence in their leader, and broke the Covenanting horse. The the clans vied with each other in the infantry of Urry's right fought bravely, headlong impetuosity of their charge, and but the main force of Montrose was op- drove the Covenanters, horse and foot, posed to them, and they gave way. He before them, in tumultuous flight. Baillie, then led his troops, flushed with vic- though smarting with defeat, seems as a tory, to support Colkitto. MacDonald, a soldier to have been struck with the splenman of colossal proportions and gigantic did courage and picturesque fierceness of strength, had defended his followers as the Highlanders. They came on, full they made good their retreat into the en-speed, targets aloft, heads and shoulders closures, engaging the pikemen hand to bent low, in the literal attitude of the hand, fixing their pike-heads, three or tiger when he springs. Montrose lost four at a time, in the tough bull-hide of scarce a dozen men; the Covenanters, his target, and cutting them short off at whom the swift-footed mountaineers purthe iron by the whistling sweep of his sued for ten miles, had four or five thoubroadsword. The combined force of sand slain. Montrose and Colkitto proved irresistible. All Scotland, except the national forUrry was defeated with great slaughter. tresses, was now in the hands of MontThe loss of the Royal army was almost rose. Neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow incredibly small. No battle won by Han-made any resistance, and having levied a nibal was more expressly the result of the contribution on Glasgow, he called a Pargenius of the commander. The idea of liament to meet in that town in the name throwing the enemy a bone to worry in of the King. But his dazzling success one part of the field, while the rest of his rendered only more conspicuous the fatal force is being annihilated and victory defects in, the system of warfare he was made sure elsewhere, was applied by pursuing. He had formed no body of Marlborough at Blenheim and was the spearmen on whom he could depend to efficient cause of that splendid victory. stand the charge of effective horse, and There is little probability that Marl-victory was, as at first, the signal for the borough had studied the battle of Auld- Highlanders to quit the ranks and return earn. but the expedients of military to their hills. The victory of Kilsyth had been fertile in plunder, and the season of | tember, 1645, General David Leslie, next harvest was now near; both circumstances to Montrose the most energetic and capatended to thin the following of Montrose. ble commander contributed by Scotland While King Charles was hoping that his to the civil war, having by a swift march irresistible Lieutenant would lead an from Newcastle along the East Coast and army across the border to his deliverance, then southward from Edinburgh, reached and sending Sir Robert Spottiswood with the vicinity, placed his men, principally a new commission and new orders, the horse, and numbering five or six thouRoyal army dwindled away, and Montrose sand, in and about Melrose. The Royfound himself at the head of no larger a alists were but four miles away, and body of troops than had at first gathered we realize the intense hatred with which round him in the wilds of Athol. It may, they were regarded in the district when as was formerly said, have been impossi- we learn that not a whisper of the presble for him to change the habits of the ence of Leslie's army reached the Royal Highlanders, but he ought to have been camp. Mr. Napier tells us that more than alive to the extreme peril to which those once in the night the scouts came in and habits exposed him in the low country. reported all safe. Commanding only a He knew that the Scottish army in Eng- few hundred cavalry, and a mere skeleton land was well supplied with cavalry. A of his Highland host, Montrose, had he perfectly organized system of intelligence, been apprised of Leslie's approach, would keeping him informed as to the state of doubtless have attempted to escape by the country within twenty miles of his one of his extraordinary marches. Had camp, especially in the direction of Eng- his army been as large as before the_batland, was to him an absolute condition of tle of Kilsyth, he might, in spite of his existence. He had a sufficient force of surprise, have defeated Leslie; for the cavalry to enable him to organize such a Highlanders, nimble as leopards, were system, and this essential part of the duty formidable to cavalry, and his own invenof a commander was well understood in tiveness and dexterity in battle might that age. Oliver Cromwell, had he been have wrought one of the miracles which in the place of Montrose, would have are possible to genius. But with his diknown within a few hours everything that minished force he had no chance. Lestook place in the Scottish camp in Eng- lie's horsemen, emerging from the white land. Montrose's first thought, after the mist of a September morning, crashed in battle of Kilsyth, ought to have been, upon both his wings at once. Montrose 'Argyle and his friends are beaten was immediately in the field and disputed in Scotland, and infuriated beyond all the matter for some time, but his little bounds; their next thought will be to army was cut to pieces. At the head of strike a blow from England." How often about thirty troopers, he made good his have great men fallen by oversights which retreat to the Highlands. small men would not have committed! "O negligence, fit for a fool to fall by!" says Shakespeare's Wolsey; and even Shakespeare may have known by experience the bitterness of Wolsey's pang. Before the battle of Kilsyth the Royal cause in England had been hopelessly lost. Royalism, pure and simple, as professed by the English Cavaliers, perished on the field of Naseby. Had Montrose succeeded, after Kilsyth, in penetrating into England, he would have found the fragments of Charles's army too shattered to reunite, and would have encountered a force of English and Scots in the Parliamentary interest numbering at least fifty thousand men. After uselessly protracting hostilities for some time in the Highlands, he was commanded by the King to lay down his arms. He retired in disguise to Norway, and thence proceeded to join Prince Charles who, from various stations on the Continent, was watching the course of events in England. Montrose crept gradually southward with his diminished army, and in the second week of September was stationed at Selkirk, his cavalry being quartered with himself in the town, while the infantry occupied an elevated plateau called Philiphaugh, on the north. Between Philiphaugh and Selkirk flows the Ettrick; the infantry were on the left bank, the cavalry on the right. This disposition of the Royal forces has been pronounced faulty, but we must recollect that in the first half of September Scottish rivers are generally low, and that, if the Ettrick could be easily forded, a few minutes' Until the death of the King, Argyle trot would bring cavalry lying in Selkirk and his party in Scotland maintained upon the plain of Philiphaugh. On the their alliance with the English Puritan night between the 12th and 13th of Sep-leaders. Shortly before that event, Crom. a prisoner, even in retaliation of the coldblooded murder of his officers and friends nay, he had spared the lives of thousands in the very shock of battle." well, having destroyed Hamilton's army, marched to Edinburgh, and was received with "many honours and civilities." The death of the king at last overcame the profound reluctance of Argyle to quarrel His sentence was that he should be with the English Parliament. Negotia- hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, his tions commenced between the Estates of head fixed upon the tolbooth of EdinScotland and Charles II. Montrose, feel- burgh, his limbs placed over the gates of ing that there could be no real reconcilia- four Scottish towns. On the night betion between him and Argyle, and con- fore his execution he wrote with a diascious of an invincible repugnance to mond upon the window of his prison the hollowness of a league between those well-known lines which, in their Charles II. and the austerely moral Cove-pathetic dignity, attest, if nothing else, nanters, advised the young King to at- a composure of feeling, a serenity of intempt no arrangement with the latter. tellectual consciousness, a perfect selfCharles, perfectly false and perfectly possession, remarkable in the immediate heartless, gave Montrose a commission nearness of a cruel death. to land in Scotland in arms, but did not discontinue negotiations with his antagonist. A few hundred German mercenaries, a body of unwarlike fishermen whom he forced to join his standard in Orkney, and a considerable party of Royalist officers, among them his old opponent Colonel Urry, constituted the force with which Montrose made a descent upon Scotland in the spring of 1650. He was suddenly attacked, on the borders of Ross-shire, by Colonel Strahan, a Covenanter of the straightest sect. The Germans surrendered; the Orkney fishermen made little resistance; the Scottish companies of Montrose were overpowered. Soon after the battle, he was taken and led in triumph to Edinburgh, The Estates of Scotland, avoiding question as to the legality of the expedition in which, under commission of that Charles II. whose title they were then undertaking to vindicate, he had been last engaged, treated him as already condemned to die under sentence of attainder passed against him whilst ravaging the territory of Argyle in 1644. Let them bestow on every airt * a limb, atoms are, I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust, The majesty of his demeanour, both while being drawn into Edinburgh on a cart, and as he walked in scarlet cloak trimmed with gold lace to the place of execution, so impressed the multitude, that not a taunt was uttered, and many an eye was wet. All that is told of him when in prison tends to exalt our conception of his character. When the clergy remind him that he has been excommunicated, and urge him to repent in order that the Church may remove her censures, he answers that the thought of his excommunication causes him pain, and that he would gladly have it removed by confessing his sins as a man, but that he has nothing to repent of in his conduct to his king and his country. He can more sharply check the officiousness of His bearing in presence of the Parlia- the non-professional zealot. Johnston of ment was as calmly dauntless as on the Warriston finds him, the day before his battlefield in the moment of victory. He death, combing out his beautiful locks of exulted in his loyalty. It had indeed hair, and murmurs some suggestion that been with him a pure and lofty feeling, the hour is too solemn for such work. and by rare good fortune he never knew "I will arrange my head as I please toCharles I. well enough to be disen- day while it is still my own,' answers chanted. "I never had passion on Montrose; "to-morrow it will be yours, earth," he wrote to Charles II., "so great and you may deal with it as you list." as that to do the king your father ser- He is not a Pagan, proud and self-cenvice." He asserted the faithfulness of tred; but neither is he quite a Puritan. his adherence to the National Covenant, He rises into a more genial atmosphere, and avowed that he had neither taken he approaches a higher Christian type, nor approved of the Solemn League and than those of his age. He does not Covenant. He indignantly denied that crouch before his Maker; he stands he had countenanced acts of military violence." He had never spilt the blood of and t *Point of the compass. When George came home of an evening, after having gone round the timberyards and saw-mills, the young fellow turned his head away to avoid seeing what was going on within. The father and son behaved as if they did not know each other, and the mother, whose eyes were now always red, carried her boy's meals up-stairs to him. Once only did Monsieur Jacques say, with great bitterness, "Florent, I have two brother Jeans now! one in-doors, one out; this house is no longer mine, I am no longer master here." His misery and sorrow oozed out in spite of his will. "Ah," " he would say, "if I did but sleep on the hill-side, with the others, by our old church! They are at rest and know nothing of the troubles of this world." LOUISE became gradually worse and worse from the day this notice was hung up at the Mairie. The wedding had to be delayed. Physicians were sent for in all directions; they came and held consultations. There were Monsieur Bourgard from Saarbourg, a man of great fame and But if Monsieur Jacques was wretched experience, he was well known all over on one side of the street, Monsieur Jean the country; there was Monsieur Péqui- was just as miserable on the other. gnot from Lorquin, Monsieur Heitz from Each time I went by the bare hedges at Fénétrange, Monsieur Weber from Boux- the bottom of his garden I saw Monsieur willer, and, finally, all the medical author- Jean walking up and down, bareheaded, ities to be had for ten leagues round Chaumes. They were to be seen continually coming and going, but no one knew the result of their deliberations. The head-keeper had obtained a leave of absence and had gone, it was said, to fetch the legal certificates required for his marriage. His place was filled during his absence by Caille, the horseguard from St. Quirin. Autumn had returned with its deep melancholy and cold winds which always heralded winter in. I went to Monsieur le Maire's every day after school, to fill the duties of secretary of the commune. I found him a great sufferer from rheumatism; but he suffered in silence, sitting with his leg stretched out on a stool, his elbow on his desk, and his eyes turned towards the windows, against the panes of which withered vine-leaves fell from off the gable branches, while the wind blew pieces of straw all about from the loft. Everything seemed to be dying away, and the tall poplars along the roadside kept up a constant moan. I used to sit writing, while he remained quiet, always in deep thought. "I am getting old, Florent," said he one day to me; "I have worked too hard - and what for?" "Monsieur le Maire," I replied, "there are still happy days in store for you." "Never," said he, "never; it is all over!" in nothing but his greyish-blue knitted jacket, in rain or in sunshine. He never ceased walking up and down, and could not stop in-doors, where the nurse Rosalie and the physicians were masters. This stony-hearted man was sinking. He stooped, and his nose lengthened visibly, like the beaks of certain eagles, which grow down so long that they cannot part them, and die for want of food; a proper retribution for their ferocity and love of prey. In my opinion Monsieur Jean had deserved all this; and I used to think, "You old sinner! you have not only brought all this on yourself for the past, but you deserve it all for the present, because you have obstinately made up your mind to sacrifice your own child, by forcing her to marry a man she cannot bear. I do not pity you-pride and hatred should be punished." I saw him one evening on his knees in church, praying with his whole heart, and apparently in great trouble of mind. Louise, I thought, must be in a very alarming state for such a man as this to be praying so fervently. I looked and saw there was no sham in him then; something extraordinary was certainly going on. I had gone up to fetch a book from off the organ-desk, and the sight of this terrible man all alone in the dark church, kneeling, with his head in his two hands, greatly struck me. I feared it would soon be over with poor Louise, and raised my soul to my Maker, imploring His help and mercy. I was not mistaken, for the first thing Marie-Barbe said when I reached home was, "Have you heard that all the doctors have given Louise up, Florent? A great physician, of the name of Ducondray, has been sent for from Nancy." No, I knew nothing about it," I replied; "but I had a kind of load here, a forewarning of some evil. That's what it was." I entered my study in a more solemn reverie than I had ever been in before. We did not mention Louise's name over supper, but we all thought of her, each sorrowing for the poor child we had seen so beautiful, so full of life and youth, so good to the poor, and now in a hopeless condition. into almost nothing. He speaks to nobody; people come and go without his minding. Come, in the name of heaven, Monsieur Florent!" I had not waited for all this, but had already put my hat on and was running down-stairs, neither did I slacken my pace until I got near the house. As Rosalie had said, the house-door was wide open, any one who liked could walk in and out. Servants were standing about their masters' carriages, and looked at me when I went in. The doctors were all assembled in the large pianoroom, which opened in the hall. Four or five of the older looking, in hooded cloaks, untied neckties, and with their hair in disorder, were quarrelling together, like all savants do, caring for no one's concerns but their own. When I entered, Monsieur Bourgard, from Saarbourg, who knew me, exclaimed, I prayed for her before I sought rest." There he is." The next day the medical men arrived, I bowed in some confusion to all of and met, under the presidence of Mon- them. One of the number, a tall man in sieur Ducondray, for a final consultation. a black coat and white necktie, with a It was now the end of autumn, the weather, after incessant rain, had set in fine again; the trees were leafless, and the flocks had ceased to be led out to pasture, the grass meadows being sodden; our schoolroom was, therefore, full of boys and girls. No one ignored what was going on at Monsieur Jean's, everybody felt uneasy about Louise. I had finished the morning lessons at about eleven, and had gone up-stairs, where the cloth was laid for dinner, when Rosalie, Monsieur Jean's servant, entered. long face, big nose, wide mouth, broad, high wrinkled forehead, and with as dignified a mien as one of our university inspectors, Monsieur Ducondray from Nancy, politely inquired,— "You are Monsieur Florent, the master at Chaumes, are you not?" "I am, Monsieur." "Well," said he, in a pleasant but very serious manner, we have a case of great responsibility in hand, and we believe you can enlighten us." 66 I protested that I was only a simple village master, and quite unfit to enlighten such clever men. "Quick, Monsieur Florent!" she cried, in a mournful voice; "come, you are "Wait a moment," said he, interruptwanted; Monsieur Ducondray, the doc-ing me. "Let me first tell you how we tor from Nancy, has sent for you." "Me?" I asked, in astonishment. "You must be making a mistake, Rosalie. What can a savant have to say to a village schoolmaster?" No, no; I am certain. All the gentlemen want to speak to you, Monsieur Florent." My surprise can be fancied. I took my hooded cloak down from its peg and threw it over my house-jacket. "Where are you going, Florent?" asked Marie-Barbe, coming in. "Be cautious, Monsieur Jean is there; remember how he treated you last time." "Ah! fear nothing now, Marie-Barbe," said Rosalie, 66 our Monsieur is no longer the same man. Since the last consultation he has dwindled down, all of a piece, are situated. You have doubtless been informed that my colleagues have several times been called to Chaumes for Mdlle. Rantzau; they have come separately and collectively." "I have been told so." "Well, these gentlemen have now recourse to my experience, and I have seen their invalid. I think she is in a deep decline, which will prove fatal unless we can discover its cause. I have pressed her to give us some clue as to the origin of her disease, but she is either too frightened or too modest, and we can draw nothing from her. After great persuasion, however, our interesting invalid hid her face, saying that she would never be able to tell what she had on her mind, but that we were to ask Monsieur Florent. |