with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

138
With sword and terge into their hand,'
Wi' which they were nae slaw, man,
Wi' mony a fearful heavy sigh.
The lads began to claw, then.
commanded in person ; and their ponderous swords completed
the rout. Within a few minutes the victors and the vanquished
intermixed together in the field, in the pursuit, and in the river
disappeared from view : Mackay alone, when deserted by his
horse and surrounded, forced his way to the right wing, where
two regiments had maintained their ground. While the enemy
were intent on plundering the baggage, he conducted them in
silence and in obscurity across the river beneath the defile, and
continued his flight for two days through the mountains to Stir-
ling.
But Dundee, whose pursuit he dreaded, was himself no more.
After a desperate and successful charge on the artillery, which
he seized with his horse, he returned to restore the battle on the
left, and to renew the attack against the two regiments that re-
mained entire. At that moment, while his arms was extended
to his troops, and while his person was conspicuous to the enemy,
he received a shot in his side, through an opening in his armour,
and dropt from horseback as he rode off the field. He survived
to write a concise and dignified account of his victory to James,
With the loss of nine hundred of his men, two thousand of the
enemy were killed or taken ; and but for his untimely fate, not a
man would have escaped. Had he survived to improve this dis-
tinguished victory, little doubt can be entertained that he would
have recovered the whole of Scotland beyond the Forth. His
party were prepared to take arms on the borders, and his pro-
gress