"To the mountains! to the mountains!" on which the Grants, with the whole left wing, gave way, and retired en masse towards the hills. Thus Kenneth Logie, who had long curbed his impatience, found himself alone, and in one moment more was involved among the advancing tide of Huntly's desperate horsemen, who, fighting every foot of the way, with the earl's torn banner fluttering above them, were hewing a passage over a field strewed with clansmen, whose tartans were drenched in blood. Nothing could surpass the bravery on both sides; one fighting for glory—the other for their lives, honour, and religion.
In the heat of the conflict, Lord Huntly had his horse shot under him, and Halbert Gordon, who, with all his faults, was brave as a lion, quickly slew Campbell of Auchinbreck, and remounted the earl on that gentleman's steed. At that moment, Kenneth Logie, who, with the coolness of a spectator, had been watching the conflict, reserving his strength and his wrath for Gordon, uttered a wild yell of rage and grief, and rushed upon him. They both wore open helmets, and, recognising each other, encountered at once, bridle to bridle, and hand to hand, with a savage and sombre fury, which rendered them quite oblivious of the battle that raged like a storm around them. They had not a breath for insult or invective; their teeth were set; their eyes were full of fire; they both hovered on the brink of eternity, and each saw nothing but his enemy.
"For her sake, blessed Lord, direct my hand!" prayed Kenneth, and it seemed as if that voiceless prayer had been heard; for at the very moment his sword passed through the breast of Gordon, who fell forward across the saddle of his victor.
"Dog!" exclaimed the latter, seizing him relentlessly by the throat; "dog, and son of a dog, dost thou repent her death?"
"I do," gasped Gordon, almost choked in his blood; "sorely I do; but that fatal bullet was for thee—for thee—and not for her!"
"Would to Heaven thine aim had been more true! Lily," cried Kenneth, looking upward, "I have avenged thee."
"And thus I avenge myself!" exclaimed Gordon, as, with the last energy apparently of life, he twice buried his dagger in the body of Kenneth, and they fell together from their horses on the slippery field.
Gordon was supposed to be dead—but evil spirits do not pass so readily from among us.
Kenneth was borne away by a few of the Campbells; but he seemed to be in a dying state.
By this time Argyle, notwithstanding the vast superiority of his forces, had lost the battle, and Huntly was victorious. Disheartened by the treachery of the Grants and Lochnell, the Calvinists gave way in every direction; and though the brave M'Leans did all that mortal men could do to retrieve the falling fortune of the day, Huntly's horsemen drove them pell-mell beyond the rugged brook of Altconlachan, from whence the clansmen retreated to those steep mountains, up which mailed troopers could never pursue them. There, in the obscurity of the night, far down below in Glenlivat, they heard the trumpets sounding, as they summoned the Hays and the Gordons around their leaders, and all dismounted to kneel on that bloody field, where they solemnly sang Te Deum Laudamus.