CHAPTER XXXV.
THE FOUR HORSEMEN.
"Look ye, sirs!
The breath of murder loads the air to-night—
Be watchful and be wary."
Old Play.
Under the Duke of Montrose, Lindesay his son, the Earls of Mar, Athole, and others, the main body of James's forces retired slowly through the Torwood, by the old Roman Way, still fighting with obstinate valour, and protracting the struggle until the long and lingering eve of June had faded into night, and darkness spread a veil over the horrors of the battle, when the royalists, as usual with all hastily collected levies, retired into the mountains, and disbanded.
The victorious lords, with the young prince still in their possession, passed that night near the field, and next day marched to the town and palace of Linlithgow.
The moon was shining in the summer sky, when Sir David Falconer freed himself from the bodies of three slain men, who lay heavily and coldly above him; rising from the field, he was able to look after his own safety—for many of the border prickers were hovering abroad in search of rings and jewels, or gold-handled daggers and embroidered belts. A body lay near him sheathed in bright armour; its gauntletted hands clutched the earth, the vizor of the casque was up, and the dead man's eyes glared horribly in the pale moonlight. Between his teeth were some blades of grass, which, when dying, he had bitten in his agony. On his breast sparkled the diamond jewel of the Thistle—for this was the corpse of Alexander Cunningham, the noble Earl of Glencairn. This brave warrior lay above the blue silk banner of his house, charged with its shakefork sable—the same pennon which his bride, fair Margaret of Hailes, had woven for his lance in their Castle of Kilmaurs.
Most of the wounded had been removed by their friends or by the merciful; others had been speared by the mosstroopers of Hailes, Home, and Buccleugh; thus, thick as grain on a harvest field, the bodies of the dead—white-visaged, and gleaming blue in their coats of mail—strewed all the plain; but they were quiet and still as the leafy woods or the azure sky of that sweet summer night.
Ignorant of where the royal forces had retreated, and anxious only to ascertain the fact of the King's safety—of which he had great doubts on beholding the number of the guard who were lying dead three and four deep, and whom he knew easily by their scarlet surcoats trimmed with yellow,—and being anxious to rejoin the frigate, Falconer arose with difficulty, and after refreshing himself by a draught of pure water from the Sauchieburn, at a place above where the dead lay in it, he took his way towards the north, and fortunately found a stray horse saddled and bridled grazing in a field, near the gate of which its rider, a trooper, with the laurel of the Grahams in his morion, lay dead. This animal with great docility permitted Falconer to seize the reins and leap on his back; thus mounted, he soon left the fatal field behind, and rode through the scattered oaks of the Torwood towards the ferry by which the Forth was crossed opposite Alloa.
The whole country appeared deserted; he saw no one, and heard not even a dog bark; thus the stillness became oppressive after the storm of war, the strife of wounds and agony, the carnage and horrors of the day that was past. He soon reached the boor-tree thickets at the Craig ward, and saw the beautiful river with the Clackmannan hills and old Alloa rise before him in the moonlight, with the King's ships at anchor in the stream, with courses loose and a spring upon their cables. Half a bow-shot from the beach were several well-oared boats, full of armed men, and by their garb Falconer recognised his own arquebussiera and the King's seamen, while the royal standard drooped from the boats' sterns, and swept the water.
"Ho—boat yoho!" cried he, leaping from his horse.
"David Falconer, at last!" cried a number of distant voices, as the oars dipped, and the boat shot in.