THE LEAGUER OF DUNKELD
The leaders of the Highland army knew not for a while whether most to
rejoice in the victory which the clans had won for the king, or to
grieve for the terrible price which had been paid for it. The army of
General Mackay had indeed been swept out of existence. The succors from
the distant clans were daily pouring in. Scarlett had arrived with four
hundred more of Lochiell's claymores. Ardnamurchan and Morven sent
stalwart levies. The way seemed clear to Edinburgh, from whence there
came tidings of stricken dismay among the followers of Hamilton, that
mighty prince, and where only the Wild Whigs of the West stood firm,
patrolling the city and keeping ill-doers in such fear as they had not
known since Cromwell encamped betwixt the braes of Canaan and the swamp
of Little Egypt.
But Great Dundee was dead, and that balanced all.
For able as were many of the chiefs, and well exercised in their clan
warfare, there was not one of them, save it might be Lochiell, who was
not jealous of every other.
And Colonel Cannon of the Irish levies, who by virtue of the king's
commission held the nominal command, was a man who possessed the
confidence of none.
So Wat Gordon, going from clan to clan on the morning after the battle,
found nothing but bickering and envies among the victors--how this one
had obtained a greater share of the spoil than another, how Glengarry
was threatening to cut off Lochiell for the ancient soreness betwixt
them, and also because of some supposed favor of position on the day of
battle.
"Tut, man," said Lochiell to his vaporing adversary, good-naturedly
clapping him on the shoulder, "if you lads of the Garryside are so
fighting keen, and as full of hot blood as you say, I doubt not but
that a day or two will give you another opportunity of letting out a
little of it against the common enemy."
Wat, eager as ever to put the great controversy to the arbitrament of
battle, raged impotently, while Major Cannon wheeled and manoeuvred the
Irishmen through their drills, and carried on his miserable squabblings
with the chiefs--whom, in spite of their mutual dislikes and clan
jealousies, Dundee had held in leash with such a firm yet delicate hand.
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.
It was a very considerable army which gathered about the devoted
Cameronians--not less than five thousand victorious clansmen--under a
leader of experience, if not of well-proven parts.
Wat was still with Lochiell, and Scarlett, in deep disgust at Keppoch's
miscellaneous plunderings, drew his sword also with the same chief.
By early morning the town was completely surrounded and the attack
began. But the brave band of Wild Whigs of the West stuck dourly to
their outposts, and for an hour or more their little handfuls defied
behind the walls of town-yards and ruinous petty enclosures, all the
assaults of the clansmen. At last these inconsiderable outer defences
were driven in, the whole regiment was shut up in the cathedral and in
an adjoining house of many unglazed windows, which was standing roofed
but unfinished close at hand.
Here the grim men of the South, doggedly saying their prayers behind
their clinched teeth, met and turned every assault, taking aim at their
assailants with the utmost composure and certainty.
[Illustration: "HE FELL INWARD AMONG THE WOUNDED"]
Clan after clan charged down upon those crumbling walls. Rush after
rush of plaided men melted before that deadly storm of bullets. Thrice
Wat, in the thick of Lochiell's men, dashed at the defences. Thrice
was he carried back by the wave of tartan which recoiled from the
reeking muskets of the men of the Covenant.
Glengarry fell wounded. The McDonalds broke. Then, in the nick of
time, the McLeans dashed into the thick of the fight and had almost
won the wall when young Cleland, rushing across the court to meet them
in person, was struck by two bullets--one through his head, the other
in his side. In spite of his agony, he set his hand to his brow and
staggered towards the interior of the church, crying, "Have at them,
lads! all is well with me!" This he said in order to conceal his wound
from his men. But he fell dead or ever he reached the door.
The lead for the muskets began to give out. But in a moment there were
men on the roof of the new building stripping off the metal, while
others beneath were melting it and thrusting the bullets, yet warm from
the "cams," into their hotter barrels, or cutting the sheets of lead
into rough slugs to fire at the enemy.
So, relentlessly, hour by hour the struggle went on. Ever, as the
attacks failed, fresh clans tried their fierce courage in emulous
assault, firing once, throwing away their guns, and then charging home
with the claymore.
But these Cameronians were no levies roughly disciplined and driven
in chains to the battlefield. Men of the moors and the moss-hags were
they--good at the prayer, better at the musket, best of all with the
steady eye which directed the unshaken hand, and the quiet heart within
dourly certain of victory and of the righteousness of its cause.
Clan by clan, the very men who had swept Mackay's troops into the
Garry fell back shattered and dismayed from the broken defences of the
Hill Folk. In vain the war-pipes brayed; in vain a thousand throats
cried "Claymore!" In vain Lochiell's men drove for the fourth time
desperately at the wall. From within came no noise, save the clatter
of the musket-shots running the circuit of the defences, or the dull
thud as a man fell over in the ranks or collapsed like a shut telescope
in his place--not a groan from the wounded, as men stricken to death
drew themselves desperately up to get a last shot at the enemies of
Christ's Cause and Covenant, that they might face God contentedly with
their duty done and all their powder spent.
Left almost alone in the fierce ebb of the fourth assault, Wat had
gained the top of the wall when a sudden blow on the head stunned him.
He fell inward among the wounded and dying men of the defenders and
there lay motionless, while outside the last charge of the baffled
clansmen broke on the stubborn hodden gray of the Cameronian regiment,
vainly as the water of the ninth wave breaks on the cliffs that look
out to the Atlantic.
The chiefs still tried to rally their men. Cannon offered to lead them
again to the assault in person. But it might not be.
"We can fight men," they said, as they fell back, sullenly, "but these
are devils incarnate."