the prevention of which design was afterwards gone about with success." They might have been contented with intercepting the letters, and have spared the unhappy messenger of Charles the First. But Montrose was not likely to retaliate, upon any in his hands, for the death of an obscure individual, and knowing this, the extraordinary thirst for the lives of their po litical opponents, which characterized the councils of the Covenant, was so far gratified by the cruel and cowardly act of the execution of this poor man. Was it possible the dominant clergy could have persuaded themselves that cruelty and anti-Christian feelings were the attributes only of their enemies? Or was it to blind the vulgar, or to drown the voice of conscience, or to keep their places, that they uttered those fearful execrations from the pulpit? At this time they had again got up the agitation of a fast, what Baillie called betaking themselves to their old rock-" turning to God."! One honest man, at least, in Aberdeen, was not mystified by these usurpers of the "chair of Verity." The portrait he draws is unquestionably faithful. He was an ear and an eye-witness, and, moreover, though he happened to be "malignant," a truly Christianhearted man. It is Spalding to whom we refer, and he has recorded the following description of the political fast, held in Aberdeen on the 6th of April 1645.

"Mr William Strathauchin, on this day of humiliation, cryit out against Montrose and his army, calling them bloody butchers, traitors, perfidious, and of the hellish crew, with many other detestable speeches, unmeet to be uttered by a minister out of the chair of Verity. Mr Andrew Cant, and Mr John Rew, with Mr William Robertson were as malicious; and large war against them [the royalists] in their pulpits,

Cant was heard to rail against the King's own commission granted to Montrose, and spared not to call him and his army murtherers, bloody butchers, rebels, and excommunicate traitors. Whereat some of well-disposed auditors did tremble, wondering at the railing of the ministry every where,-wicked counsellors, and evil instruments from the beginning of thir troubles. But no repentance for the mother sin, which is, ryving of the King's royal prerogatives from him, and his rents and living within this kingdom, which has bred this misery, and God's wrath,-pest and sword."

CHAPTER XV.

AULDERNE-ALFORD-KILSYTH.

Ir was now Montrose's turn to pursue. On the shores of Loch Katherine he learnt that Sir John Hurry, with an overwhelming force, was threatening Lord Gordon in the north, at Auchindoun, while Baillie with another army was burning the beautiful district of Athol, even up to the Castle of Blair, where Montrose kept his prisoners, and all the military stores of which he was possessed. Our hero's system of tactics, as we have elsewhere observed, was that which the greatest military geniuses are the most apt to adopt, and by whom alone it can be adopted with effect, namely, rapid movements, with his whole force, from point to point, so as to destroy a preponderating enemy in detail. It is re

markable how applicable to Montrose is the following description of Napoleon, who, (says Sir Walter Scott,) "was like lightning in the eyes of his enemies; and, when repeated experience had taught them to expect this rapidity of movement, it sometimes induced his opponents to wait in a dubious and hesitating posture for attacks, which, with less apprehension of their antagonist, they would have thought it more prudent to frustrate and to anticipate." When Hurry, anxiously on the look-out for his meteor-like enemy, had good reason to believe that the Grampians were still betwixt them, Montrose was within a few miles of his leaguer in Strathbogie. The latter started from Menteith in

pursuit of Hurry, with but a section of his small army, and this almost totally unprovided with ammunition. Retracing his steps to Balquhidder, and thence marching along the whole side of Loch Tay, he passed through Athol and Angus, until he came to the Grampians. Then climbing the mountains betwixt him and Glenmuck, and pressing onwards into the heart of Mar, he crossed the Dee at the Miln of Crathie, and was at Skene about the end of April. There he paused for want of ammunition, to procure which Lord Aboyne was despatched, with about eighty horse, to Aberdeen. That daring young nobleman took possession of the town, carefully set his watches, and then boarded two vessels lying in the harbour, out of which he took twenty barrels of gunpowder, and returned with the welcome plunder that same night to Montrose at Skene. This was on Thursday the 1st of May. Here, also, Montrose effected the re-union with Lord Gordon, who, from his father's place of Auchindoun, joined the Royal army on the Dee, with a thousand foot and two hundred horse. About the same time Macdonald returned with his division. And now Montrose was ready for Sir John Hurry.

Meanwhile that good, but not true, knight, having obtained intelligence of Montrose's approach, just in time for a start, made off in all haste for the Spey, which he crossed with the view of joining the northern Covenanters. Montrose chased him at the heels from Elgin to Forres, and from that to Inverness, where Hurry succeeded in his object, and was formidably reinforced by the Frazers and other Covenanters of Moray and Caithness, under the Earls of Seaforth and

"Seaforth was thought to be a perfidious traitor, who, after he was

Sutherland. Montrose encamped at the village of Aulderne, with a force variously estimated at from two to three thousand foot and horse,* but so far inferior to the combined forces of the Covenanters, that his desire now was not to risk a battle. Hurry, however, equally conscious of his present superiority, advanced upon the position of the Royalists, as if determined to press his advantage. The moment was a critical one, and perhaps upon no other occasion of his brilliant career did Montrose so eminently display his military genius. If he avoided the offered battle, Baillie, now hurrying to the Spey, would be up in the rear, before the Royalists could elude the enemy in front; therefore he instantly determined to accept the challenge. But he did so at great disadvantage. Besides being vastly out-numbered, the Royal army was deprived of half its value by standing on the defensive, a posture in which the usual effect of their im

deeply sworn by Montrose to the King's service, and upon his parole had got leave to go home, whereas Montrose might have kept him still in his company, yet, forgetting his oath made before God, his duty to his Prince, and this nobleman, his Majesty's General, he lap into the other side, as ye here see, where he came in and gave his oath."—Spalding.

* Dr Wishart says, that Montrose's army at this time consisted of fifteen hundred foot, and two hundred and fifty horse; and that Hurry had now with him three thousand five hundred foot, and two hundred and fifty horse. Spalding says, that Hurry was estimated at four thousand foot and five hundred horse, and that Montrose was estimated at about three thousand foot and horse. Dr Wishart has been accused of always understating Montrose's forces in order to increase his glory. But the discrepances in the various statements are not a feather in the scale of his actions. Unquestionably, he gained the most of his battles under every disadvantage of military resources (except his own genius and the courage of his men) and with fearful odds against him. But it is rash to reject the numbers, when precisely given by Wishart, who must have had his information from Montrose himself, and both Montrose and his chaplain knew well, that the record of those actions required not the aid of a false statement of numbers.