Billow on billow rushing on
Follows the path the first has gone.[E]
“Some of the horses that stickit were,” says Barbour, “rushed and reeled right rudely.” The fall of the horse in the pits was complete with hardly a blow from the Scotch. As yet Bruce’s line had not been touched; Bruce’s brain more than Scotch brawn had won thus far.
The grand charge of Edward’s body-guard, three thousand steel-clad knights, the pick of English chivalry, was now ordered to redeem the day. They charged the line of Scotch spearmen and axmen with great fury and effect—“Sae that mony fell down all dead; the grass waxed with the blude all red.”
The Scotch knights, until now held in reserve, were led by Bruce himself, and a most desperate struggle took place, all the forces left on both sides being engaged. “And slaughter revelled round.”
Just at the moment when the victory hung trembling in the balance, a strange apparition turned the English pause into a panic. The Scotch wagoners and camp-followers, impatient of inactivity, had hastily armed themselves with such knives, clubs, and rejected weapons as were at hand, improvised banners of tent cloth and plaids, and came marching over the hill, fifteen thousand strong. They made a “splurge” and a racket, in inverse ratio to their real formidableness; but coming directly after the staggering attack of Bruce’s reserves, they had all the appearance to the English of large reinforcements.
“When they marked the seeming show
Of fresh, and fierce, and marshaled foe,
The boldest broke away.”
Thus the cooks and hostlers precipitated the English defeat and panic. Edward would have thrown himself away in a personal effort to turn the defeat, but Sir Giles de Argentine seized his horse’s bridle and led him out of the fight. Having despatched him and a few faithful comrades toward the coast, De Argentine said, “As for me, retreating is not part of my business;” and plunging into the fight, hopelessly and uselessly, was slain. The king by hard riding reached Dunbar and escaped by sea to London.