Individual acts of valour were performed by these hardy fellows worthy of another age. Not content with firing upon the assailants from roof and window, they occasionally sallied forth, and then some most desperate encounters took place between them and Colonel Pitt's dismounted dragoons. Captain Douglas, who was a very powerful man, killed three dragoons with his own hand. In another sally Captain Hunter and half a dozen men with him advanced too far, and, being completely surrounded, must have been captured, or slain, had they not been rescued at great personal risk by Captain Douglas.
Some barns and small habitations, at the end of the Fishergate Avenue, occupied by the moss-troopers, were set fire to and burnt by Pitt's men, but no real damage was done.
At the same time several much larger houses were set on fire at the end of Church Street by order of Brigadier Honeywood, so as to drive out the Highlanders who occupied them, and compel them to take refuge in the churchyard. Fortunately, the wind being in the north at the time, the conflagration did not spread far. Had it blown from the opposite quarter, and the wind been strong, the whole town would probably have been destroyed. No efforts being made to extinguish the fires, the houses continued burning for several hours, and long after it became dark.
VII.—THE WINDMILL BARRICADE.
We must now repair to the Windmill barricade, situated at the end of the Lancaster Road, and commanded by Colonel Mackintosh, kinsman of the brigadier.
Brigadier Dormer with three hundred dismounted dragoons attempted to approach this barricade by a narrow street or lane called the Back Wynd, but they were thwarted in their design by the vigilant Highlanders, who, screened by garden walls, hedges, and ditches, killed nearly half their number, and forced the rest to retreat.
A direct attack was then made on the barricade, but with no better success. The Mackintoshes proved themselves splendid marksmen.
After a third ineffectual attack by a back road, during which he again sustained considerable loss, Brigadier Dormer ordered Sergeant Johnstone and Corporal Marlow, with a score of Stanhope's dragoons, to set on fife all the houses and out-buildings. While seeing the order executed Brigadier Dormer was shot in the leg, the sergeant and corporal were killed, and some of the men wounded, but the work of destruction proceeded—and the houses and cottages were burnt close up to the barricade.