Stewarts, Grants, Frasers, Macleans, Macneils, had joined Dundee in Lochaber, when the royal standard was unfurled. They had cleared the hill-country, and now they were prepared to sweep the plain,-not, however, until Mackay, presuming on Dundee's forced inaction, had reached the gate of the Highlands.

The

That July morning must have repaid Dundee for many dull and stagnant years. Life, hitherto, had gone somewhat tamely with him: but to-day he has gathered the clans, and hangs like a hawk above the pass. joy of the falcon, as its wings quiver in the sunlight, before it falls upon its prey, is, perhaps, comparable to the thrill which Dundee felt that summer morning, ere he hurled his claymores at Mackay. The fair kingdom of Scotland-lying, as it were, at his feet—was the immediate prize of victory; how many kingdoms, thereafter, who can tell ?*

The Presbyterian general, with 5,000 men, horse and

* That Killiecrankie, had Dundee lived, would have made him master of all Scotland cannot be doubted. The day after the news of the battle had reached Edinburgh, Duke Hamilton wrote: 'We have got no notice of Dundee's motion since the action, and we fear all Perthshire and Angus will be in arms for him generally; so what resolution the King takes should not be delayed, for if he carries Stirling he has all Scotland.' Sir John Dalrymple, the lord-advocate, writing on the previous day, calls the news 'sorry, sad, and surprising. I think the other side of Tay is lost, and Fife is in very ill tune. The Lord help us, and send you good news of your son.' And Sir William Lockhart, the solicitor-general, writes: 'All we can do is to entreat the King will send force with all expedition here; for we have nothing to hinder Dundee to overrun the whole country.

foot soldiers, passed unmolested through the pass of Killiecrankie on the morning of the 27th July, and took up a position on the north bank of the Garry. Dundee, whose head-quarters were at Blair-of-Athol, around which the clans were encamped, waited until Mackay had put the pass fairly between his army and the Low Country. Leaving a small force in the enemy's front to engage his attention, he crossed the Tilt with the remainder of his men above Blair, marched round the back of the Hill of Lude, and, cresting the heights of Renroy, descended on Mackay's right flank. This move not only obliged Mackay to change his front, but, in the event of the day going against him, left him in a position of imminent peril,—the steep banks of the flooded Garry lying directly in his rear. The hill-men, however, did not immediately attack,-Dundee holding them back until the sun had left the hill.' Thenhimself in the van-he threw them upon the enemy's line. He had barely 2,000 men: but the impetuous charge of the Highlanders was irresistible. They had to advance across a level plain of some extent, and many fell in the advance: but Mackay's men, the moment the claymores were among them, wavered and gave way. Many fell on the field. Many were driven into the Garry. More than five hundred were captured and brought in prisoners next day by the Athole men, who had taken no part in the fight. The rout of the Presbyterian army was complete. It was, in fact, utterly annihilated,-only a few fugitive horsemen reaching the Low Country in safety.

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There are one or two points in the conduct of this battle which deserve to be particularly noticed.

Dundee allowed Mackay to take his army through the pass, and then threw himself between the Presbyterian general and his line of retreat. He adopted this course to make defeat decisive. At the council-of-war held on the morning of the battle, it was suggested that Mackay should be attacked on his passage through the pass. But Dundee refused to adopt this suggestion. 'No,' he said, 'it is not enough to drive them back : they must be destroyed. Give us a decisive victory, and Scotland is ours in a week. Let Mackay and his troopers enter this cul-de-sac, and not a man of them escapes.' The move was at once daring and politic: and the issue of the day's fight fully vindicated the sagacious and far-seeing hardihood of Dundee.

It is noticeable, also, that thus early, Dundee had won the confidence of the clans. They had recognised at once the hand of a master. Nothing proves this more conclusively than the well-ascertained fact that the two armies faced each other in order of battle for more than three hours before the charge was made. It was difficult to restrain the hillmen at any time; and it must have been doubly difficult when they were being galled by the cannon which Mackay had brought with him. But the declining sun shone full in the faces of the clans; and Dundee resolutely declined battle until it had sunk behind the hills. The battle of Killiecrankie was fought in the summer twilight. These wild mountaineers, had they had their will, would have drawn

their claymores, whenever, emerging from the hazel woods of Lude, they caught sight of the foe; but their chief had said that it was needful to wait, and without a murmur they obeyed.

Daring and vigilant, cautious and far-seeing, prompt and resolute, Dundee undoubtedly possessed the qualities of a great commander. Throughout the whole of the campaign he appears to have committed only one blunder. But it was a fatal one. He led his men at Killiecrankie. Yet it was a calculated rashness. At the council-of-war, held on the morning of the battle, Lochiel had declared that he would quit the camp if the general put himself in the front. The life of Dundee was more valuable to the monarchy than even a victory at Killiecrankie. But Dundee had resisted. Would the clans trust him thereafter, if they saw him seeking safety in the rear? For the future he would be prudent; but to win the confidence of his men-he must be permitted to give one harvest-day's work to the King his master. Lochiel yielded; and when the charge was made, Dundee was in the van.

'And if any of us shall fall upon this occasion,' he had said to his men before the battle, 'we shall have the honour of dying in our duty, and as becomes true men of valour and conscience.' He himself fell early, pierced in the right side by a musket-ball. But he lived to know that he had won a great victory. As he fell from his horse, one of his officers, a Johnstone, caught him in his arms. 'How goes the day?' asked the dying Viscount; and being answered, 'It goes well

for the King, but I am sorry for your lordship;' he replied, 'It the less matters for me, seeing that it goes well for my master.'

It is said that Dundee lived long enough to dictate a letter to the King: and the assertion is not unauthenticated. This is the letter which has been preserved :

Lord Dundee's Letter to King James, after the Fight.

'SIR,-It has pleased God to give your forces a great victory over the rebels, in which three-fourths of them have fallen under the weight of our swords. I might say much of the action, if I had not the honour to command in it but of 5,000, which was the best computation I could make of the rebels, it is certain that there cannot have escaped above 1,200 men. We have not lost full out 900. This absolute victory made us masters of the field and the enemy's baggage, which I gave to the soldiers, who, to do them all right, officers and common men, Highlands, Lowlands, and Irish, behaved themselves with equal gallantry to whatever I saw in the hottest battles fought abroad by disciplined armies; and this Mackay's old soldiers felt on this occasion. I cannot now, sir, be more particular; but take leave to assure your Majesty the kingdom is generally disposed for your service, and impatiently wait for your coming : and this success will bring in the rest of the nobility and gentry, having all their assurances for it, except the notorious rebels. Therefore, sir, for God's sake assist us, though it be with such another detachment of your Irish forces as you sent us before, especially of horse