The inhabitants had waited with breathless expectation the event of this day’s battle, and had in some measure made up their minds in case of Aboyne’s failure. But the anticipation fell far short of the reality. The town was in the possession of the enemy. At every turning of the streets there were parties engaged in desperate combat, while the troops of cavalry that occasionally passed sometimes trampled down both friend and foe, never more to rise. The poor citizens were endeavouring to escape from the place with whatever of their effects they could lay hands on. The aged were feebly endeavouring to leave the resting-place of their youth. Wives, mothers, and sisters were searching in tears for their friends, while a loud and piercing shriek announced the agony of the maidens when informed of the death of their betrothed. The innocent children in the confusion were left to wander, neglected by their guardians,—and the records from which this tale is compiled say, that a little boy and girl, who were twins, while wandering hand-in-hand in the streets, unconscious of danger, were crushed by the coursers’ hoofs, while their mother was hastening to remove them from danger. But why dwell upon the horrors of this scene?
On a signal given, Basil forded the Dee with his followers, and advanced to the city. Having taken possession of his post, he kept himself on the alert, to restrain any irregularity among his men, which the scene before them was but too well calculated to superinduce. The town was given up to be pillaged. It had been set on fire in different places; therefore it required the utmost attention to prevent his followers from mingling with their companions. He had remained at his post a considerable time, when he heard a piercing shriek in a voice well known to him. He sprang to the place whence it seemed to come, and beheld Mary Leslie struggling with a Covenanter, who was plundering her of the trinkets that adorned her dress. “Villain!” said he, drawing his sword; but the exclamation put the Covenanter on his guard. He aimed a fearful blow at him, but the Covenanter’s blade, being of better temper than Basil’s, stood the blow, while the other was shivered into a thousand pieces. The Covenanter’s weapon was now within a few inches of his breast, when Basil, in a state of desperation, enveloped his hand in his cloak, and seizing the blade suddenly, bent it with such force that it snapped at the hilt—when, seizing a partisan that lay near him, he dealt the Covenanter such a blow with it as felled him to the earth. Basil then hastily asked Mary what she did here.
She informed him that the soldiers had broken into the house in search of plunder, and that she had been obliged to fly when she met with the Covenanter. He asked her where her father was. She told him, weeping, that forty-eight of the principal citizens, along with her father, had been bound, and cast into the common prison.
“Then,” said he, “you must allow me to conduct you to a place of safety.”
“No, Basil, I cannot. My dear father”——
“He is in no danger; and this is no place for maidens;” and running speedily for his horse, he placed her, more dead than alive, behind him, and galloped out of the town.
When he returned, which was about eight, the confusion had in a great measure ceased; the magistrates, by a largess of 7000 merks, having prevailed on Montrose to put a stop to the pillage. When Basil came near to his post, he discovered that the house had been plundered, and that an attempt had been made to set it on fire. Montrose and his suite were standing before it; his father was also there, and ran to meet him.
“Thank God, my son, that thou art come. This,” looking round him, “this looks not like treason.”
“Come hither, Basil Rolland,” said Montrose, “and answer me truly. My bowels yearn for thee; yet if what is testified against thee be true, though thou wert my mother’s son, God do so to me, and more also, if thou shalt not die the death. Why—why, young man, didst thou desert the important trust assigned to thee?”
Basil told the naked truth.