Lochinvar: A Novel

by S. R. Crockett

Oftentimes, as day after day was wasted, Lochinvar felt that if only he could throw himself on the enemy, in order, if it might be to cut a way single-handed towards his love—even though he should be slain in the first hundred yards—such an end would be better than this unceasing plundering among allies and bickering between friends.

Nevertheless, the numbers of the Highland army kept up, though the ranks were in a continual state of flux. As for Scarlett, the master-at-arms was driven to distraction by the hopelessness of teaching the clansmen anything.

Things were daily passed over which, had Dundee been above-ground, would in five minutes have brought out a firing party and ended a man's days against a stone dike.

Worst of all, while these precious days, when the whole force ought to have been advancing, were thus idly slipping by, the delay gave the government time to play its strongest card. The fury and enthusiasm of the clans was now for the first time to be brought face to face with an enthusiasm fiercer, because stiller, than their own—with a courage equally great, but graver, sterner, and, best of all, disciplined by years of trial and persecution.

The Cameronians, known throughout Scotland as the "Seven Thousand," had garrisoned Edinburgh during the fierce, troublous months of the Convention. When there was no other force in the country, they had stood between the kingdom and anarchy. And now, when at last the government of William was becoming better established, twelve hundred men of the Blue Banner formed themselves into a regiment—all stern, determined, much-enduring veterans, who had brought from their Westland homes a hatred of the Highlanders sharpened by memories of the Great Raid, when for months the most barbarous and savage clans had been quartered on the West and South, till the poor folk of Galloway and Ayr were fairly eaten up, and most of their hard-won gear vanished clean away into the trackless deserts of the North.

Now, in the anxious days that succeeded Killiekrankie, eight hundred of this Cameronian regiment had been ordered to Dunkeld, which was rightly supposed to be the post of danger. The other four hundred of the regiment had been sent to garrison Badenoch and to keep the West quiet; so that the young Covenanting commander, Cleland—a youth not yet in his twenty-eighth year—had but two-thirds of his regiment with him.

But such men as they were!—none like them had been seen under arms since, the Ironsides of Cromwell went back to their farm-steadings and forges.

It was no desirable stronghold which they were set to keep. Indeed, after a small experience of Dunkeld the other regiments which had been sent under Lord Cardross to assist in driving back the enemy gladly departed for Perth. The town, they said, was completely indefensible. It was commanded on all sides by heights, even as Killiekrankie had been. The streets could readily be forced at a dozen points, and then every man would die miserably, like rats in a hole.

"Even so," said Cleland, calmly, to my Lord Cardross, "but I was bidden to hold this town and no other, and here I and those with me will bide until we die."

And, as is not the case with many a valiant commander's boast, he made his words good.