He halved his men in equal parts,
His purpose to fulfill;70
The one part kept the water side,
The other gaed round the hill.
The nether party fired brisk,
Then turn'd and seem'd to rin;
And then they a' came frae the trench,75
And cry'd, "The day's our ain!"
The rest then ran into the trench,
And loosed their cannons a':
And thus, between his armies twa,
He made them fast to fa'.80
Now let us a' for Lesly pray,
And his brave company,
For they hae vanquish'd great Montrose,
Our cruel enemy.
[13]. A small stream that joins the Ettrick near Selkirk, on the south side of the river. S.
[16]. Various reading: "That we should take a dram." S.
[17]. A brook which falls into the Ettrick, from the north, a little above the Shaw burn. S.
[37]. Montrose's forces amounted to twelve or fifteen hundred foot, and about a thousand cavalry. Lesly had five or six thousand men, mostly horse.
[55]. It is a strange anachronism, to make this aged father state himself to have been at the battle of Solway Flow, which was fought a hundred years before Philiphaugh; and a still stranger, to mention that of Dunbar, which did not take place till five years after Montrose's defeat. S.