My Lord Dundee smiled a tolerant smile, as a mother might at the ignorance of a wayward, fretful child.
"Bide ye, Keppoch," he said, kindly, "ye shall have your fill of that work—but we must not make two mouthfuls of this Orange. Our advantage is great enough. We shall meet them on plain field, and, ere we be done with them, ye shall walk across the Garry upon their dead bodies, bootless and in dry socks, if it please you."
Presently the Lowland army had dribbled itself completely out of the pass and stood ranked, regiment by regiment, awaiting the onset. Mackay had done all that skill and silence could do in such a desperate case, for the men of the mountains had all the choice of the ground and of the time for attack.
Clan by clan Dundee set his men on the hill crests, solidly phalanxed, but with wide gaps between the divisions—a noble array of great names and mighty chiefs—McLean, Clan Ranald, Clan Cameron, Glengarry, Stewarts of Athol and Appin, men of the king's name from east and west. Well might Dundee have forgotten his melancholy mood of the morning.
The sun touched the western hills, halved itself, and sank like a swiftly dying flame. The blue shadows strode eastward with a rush. The gray mist began to fill the deep glen of the Garry.
"Ready!" cried the general.
The war-pipes blared. The plaided men gave a shout that drowned the pibrochs, and the clans were ready for the charge.
From beneath arose a response, a faint, wavering cry, without faith or cohesion.
"Ah," cried Lochiell, "have at them now! That is not the cry of men who are going to conquer!"
Dundee raised his hand and the chiefs watched for it to fall. It fell.