CHAPTER XXV.

THE BATTLE OF GLENLIVAT--CONCLUSION OF THE COUNT'S STORY.

The result of this skirmish was deemed a sure prognostic of victory by the Catholic band, and so far encouraged the Lord Huntly, that, after knighting Captain Kerr on the field, he resolved to attack Argyle before that noble could be joined by his ally, John Lord Forbes, who, with a considerable force, was hovering on the Lowland frontier. At this very time Argyle was already on the march, and his 12,000 followers had poured through Glenlivat, whose mountains gave back with countless reverberations the wild notes of the Highland pipe, the Almayne fife, and Lowland drum, until he reached the rugged banks of a small brook named by the Celts of the district _Altconlachan_, when he could not conceal his astonishment on beholding Huntly's little band of only 1500 men, advancing resolutely through the lower grounds to attack him. These were chiefly horsemen, well armed on all points; their lances and helmets shone in the rising sun, and above their squadrons two great banners floated.

On the right was the azure standard of Huntly, charged with the three boars'-heads of Gordon; on the left waved a pennon argent, with the three escutcheons _gules_, the cognisance of the Hays, gained at Luncarty under Kenneth III. In the full blaze of light, poured over the dun mountains by the sun of a clear October morning, they were advancing, with horses neighing, kettle-drums beating, and all their burnished iron gleaming, Argyle became apprehensive that his numerical superiority in infantry might not avail him against so brilliant a band of mounted lairds and gentlemen.

The scene of these operations was a wild and pastoral glen; here and there a few tall Scottish firs reared their solemn outlines against the cloudless sky, with their dark and prickly foliage, and red trunks glittering in dew, as the sun shone on them.

Halting by the margin of the brook, Argyle held a council of war, to deliberate whether he should at once attack the Catholics, or keep upon the mountains, which were inaccessible to Huntly's horse, and remain there until Lord Forbes came up with his Lowland cavalry. John Stuart, Earl of Athole, a brave and upright peer, a privy councillor of James VI., and a lineal descendant of the high steward of Scotland, now said--

"I would advise your lordships to wait the arrival of his Majesty, who hath promised to join us with a large force; or at all events to tarry until we are joined by the Frazers and M'Kenzies from the north, and my Lord Forbes with the Forbeses, the Irvines, the Leslies, and other horsemen from the Lowlands. We shall then be certain of an almost bloodless victory."

This opinion, which was considered the most wise and judicious by the more experienced chiefs of Argyle's army, was overborne by the impetuosity of the young earl himself, and by old John Grant of Gartenbeg, a fierce and treacherous baron, who led a thousand Grants from Urquhart and the baronies of Corrimonie and Glenmorriston; and who, in a furious and ferocious speech, urged an immediate attack. The aspect of this venerable chieftain, in his shirt of mail and scarlet tartan, with long white hair flowing under his cap of steel, which had no other ornament than an eagle's feather and bunch of brambles, together with that energetic harangue which he delivered, with sword unsheathed and shield uplifted, bore all before it, and Argyle prepared to engage, by disposing his army in order of battle in two parallel columns, on the acclivity of a hill between Glenlivat and Glenrinnes.

The right wing was composed of the M'Intoshes and M'Leans, under M'Intosh and Sir Lauchlan M'Lean of Duairt.

The left was formed by the Grants, M'Neils, and M'Gregors, under Grant of Gartenbeg, near whom rode Kenneth Logie as an aid, or esquire. He contemplated the coming strife with gloomy joy, for his dreams of death and revenge were about to be fulfilled.

"My heart is empty now," thought he; "and the sooner it is cold the better." He had no desire to live, and, after seeking and slaying Gordon, had resolved to perish on the battle-field. The centre and vanguard was composed of 4000 Campbells, under Argyle's kinsman, the Laird of Auchinbreck. They carried the earl's banner, and his badges as Great Master of the Household and High Justiciar of the kingdom. Half of these Campbells carried arquebusses; the remainder carried bows, targets, and two-handed claymores.

Argyle in person led the reserve, which consisted of 5000 warriors of the Ebudæ and western tribes of Lorn, all clad in their native tartans, with targets of burnished brass, battle-axes of steel, and short Highland bows. More than a hundred war-pipes were pouring the wild _piobrachds_ of the various clans from flank to flank, as Huntly's little band approached them.

_His_ vanguard consisted of 300 gentlemen on horseback, clad in bright armour, led by the Earl of Errol, Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoune, the Lairds of Gicht and Bonnitoun, Sir Thomas Kerr, and Halbert Gordon of the Moated Tower. In front of this small column were three fieldpieces under Sir Andrew Gray, afterwards colonel of the Scottish troops in Bohemia.

Gordon of Cluny led the right wing, Gordon of Abergeldie the left, and Huntly the main body. He had no reserve. In full armour, with a scarf of the Gordon tartan over his cuirass, with his visor up and his sword brandished, he rode along the line.

"My brave clansmen," he exclaimed, "and you, my comrades and most illustrious allies of the house of Errol, remember that this day no alternative is left us but victory or death--glory or extermination! We are not here to fight for our lives only, but for the existence of our families, our estates, our honour, and what is dearer than all beside, the church of our forefathers, and, with that church, the souls of our children, and the souls of all their posterity. In the name of God and the blessed Virgin, charge! _a Gordon! a Gordon!_"

Led on by the Lord High Constable (though galled by an ill-directed fire from the arquebussiers of Argyle), Huntly's vanguard of knights rushed with uplifted swords upon the first column of the Calvinists, who received them on their targets, and a furious combat took place. These gentlemen were in full armour, while the poor clansmen were only in their homespun tartan, and thus fought at great disadvantage; but their tremendous claymores cut through many a head and helmet, while every thrust pierced a coat-of-mail, or sliced away a yard of good horseflesh; thus many a steed recoiled frantically on the main body, bleeding and riderless.

Over the heads of these combatants, the cannoniers of Sir Andrew Gray fired briskly on the yellow standard, according to a treacherous arrangement made secretly between Huntly and Campbell of Lochnell, who bore a mortal enmity to Argyle, for having slain his brother Campbell of Calder in 1592; and, being next heir to the earldom, he saw with ambitious hope and joy the ordnance fire on that peculiar banner which marked the post of his chief; but, lo! a misdirected shot raked the ranks of Lochnell himself, and that deep-witted duinewassal was the first whom it cut in two. The next ball killed M'Neil of Barra, and the third wounded John Grant of Corriemonie.

From the brow of a steep eminence, the M'Leans poured volley after volley with their arquebusses on Huntly's desperate troop, until Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoune dashed up, and fell amongst them with a few horsemen; but then the M'Leans slung their fire-arms behind them, and repelled the troopers by the claymore, embowelling the horses by dirk and skene-dhu, and slaying the riders as they were tumbled prone to the earth; and there died the brave Auchindoune, pierced by fifty wounds. His knights fought blindly in a dark cloud; for the smoke of the cannon and arquebusses filled the whole glen, while their reports rang among the mountain peaks with a thousand echoes.

In dark sreen tartans, bare-legged and bare-armed, with their targets slung behind them, and their claymores swayed by both hands, the Campbells poured down in thousands like a torrent upon the devoted band of Huntly, whose daring horsemen broke into two bodies, one led by himself, the other by the high constable, who was severely wounded, and desperately they fought, with all the fury that Highland valour, feudal hatred, and religious rancour could inspire; and thus for two hours the battle raged in that narrow glen, till Argyle, observing that his main body wavered, ordered John Grant of Gartenbeg, with his column, consisting of a thousand men of his own name, to "advance and sweep the Catholics from the field."

Clad in scarlet tartan, with helmets and cuirasses of steel, and targets of burnished brass, this body, which had not been engaged otherwise than suffering from the cannonade, was advancing to end the contest, when their leader, who in secret was an ally of Huntly, and a well-wisher to the Catholic cause, threw his target over his shoulder, sheathed his claymore, and cried--

"To the mountains! to the mountains!" on which the Grants, with the whole left wing, gave way, and retired _en masse_ towards the hills. Thus Kenneth Logie, who had long curbed his impatience, found himself alone, and in one moment more was involved among the advancing tide of Huntly's desperate horsemen, who, fighting every foot of the way, with the earl's torn banner fluttering above them, were hewing a passage over a field strewed with clansmen, whose tartans were drenched in blood. Nothing could surpass the bravery on both sides; one fighting for glory--the other for their lives, honour, and religion.

In the heat of the conflict, Lord Huntly had his horse shot under him, and Halbert Gordon, who, with all his faults, was brave as a lion, quickly slew Campbell of Auchinbreck, and remounted the earl on that gentleman's steed. At that moment, Kenneth Logie, who, with the coolness of a spectator, had been watching the conflict, reserving his strength and his wrath for Gordon, uttered a wild yell of rage and grief, and rushed upon him. They both wore open helmets, and, recognising each other, encountered at once, bridle to bridle, and hand to hand, with a savage and sombre fury, which rendered them quite oblivious of the battle that raged like a storm around them. They had not a breath for insult or invective; their teeth were set; their eyes were full of fire; they both hovered on the brink of eternity, and each saw nothing but his enemy.

"For _her_ sake, blessed Lord, direct my hand!" prayed Kenneth, and it seemed as if that voiceless prayer had been heard; for at the very moment his sword passed through the breast of Gordon, who fell forward across the saddle of his victor.

"Dog!" exclaimed the latter, seizing him relentlessly by the throat; "dog, and son of a dog, dost thou repent her death?"

"I do," gasped Gordon, almost choked in his blood; "sorely I do; but that fatal bullet was for thee--for thee--and not for her!"

"Would to Heaven thine aim had been more true! Lily," cried Kenneth, looking upward, "I have avenged thee."

"And thus I avenge myself!" exclaimed Gordon, as, with the last energy apparently of life, he twice buried his dagger in the body of Kenneth, and they fell together from their horses on the slippery field.

Gordon was supposed to be dead--but evil spirits do not pass so readily from among us.

Kenneth was borne away by a few of the Campbells; but he seemed to be in a dying state.

By this time Argyle, notwithstanding the vast superiority of his forces, had lost the battle, and Huntly was victorious. Disheartened by the treachery of the Grants and Lochnell, the Calvinists gave way in every direction; and though the brave M'Leans did all that mortal men could do to retrieve the falling fortune of the day, Huntly's horsemen drove them pell-mell beyond the rugged brook of Altconlachan, from whence the clansmen retreated to those steep mountains, up which mailed troopers could never pursue them. There, in the obscurity of the night, far down below in Glenlivat, they heard the trumpets sounding, as they summoned the Hays and the Gordons around their leaders, and all dismounted to kneel on that bloody field, where they solemnly sang _Te Deum Laudamus_.

Argyle left his two cousins Lochnell and Auchinbreck, the Laird of Barra, and five hundred men, dead in the valley; while Huntly lost only the Knight of Auchindoune, the Laird of Gicht, and a score or two of troopers.

Such was the Highland battle of Balrinnes or Glenlivat, which struck terror into the Scottish Protestants, and where Argyle lost his famous yellow banner, which was borne with other trophies into the Garioch, and placed on the summit of Huntly's castle of Strathbogie.

Abandoned by the Campbells in their hurried retreat, and left almost dying among the mountains that overlook the Livat, Kenneth found shelter in the hut of a poor old Highland crone, whose medical treatment, however kindly meant, aggravated the deadly nature of his wounds; and, as he had no wish to live, two months after the battle he sought his native place, but to die; and, however like romance the last episode of this story may be, I must only rehearse the event as it was narrated to me.

John Shool, the sexton of Logie Kirk, on entering the old burial-ground one cold and bitter morning in December, for the purpose of digging a grave, found a horse, with the bridle trailing between its legs, cropping the grass among the mounds and tombs; and he was still more startled--if any thing can startle one whose occupation is so horrible--on finding an armed man lying on the flat stone which covers fair Lily's grave. His rigid arms were spread over it, and his cold cheek rested on the letters of her name. The old carle turned him over, and uttered a cry of astonishment and pity on recognising Kenneth Logie of the Forest!

John averred, that when first found his lips were pressed upon the frost-covered gravestone. Some persons thought that this might be the sexton's fancy, or the position was accidental.

He looked calm and placid, and, as the winter sunshine fell upon his blanched face, and the morning wind lifted the dark locks of his dewy hair, it seemed to the old gravedigger as if poor Kenneth smiled.

He was buried there, and the stone which bears the inscription (already given), with the sword and cross, marks the place where he lies; the defaced tomb beside it covers the grave of Lily Donaldson.*

* A large cairn marked, or still marks, the place where Lily fell by the hand of Halbert Gordon. The stronghold of his family was pulled down many years ago, and the materials were used in the erection of other edifices; the deep wide Moat is still traceable on the farm called Parks-of-Coldstone. It surrounds an area of an acre; but the morass has long since been drained.

The flowers of many a summer have strewed their leaves above these graves; but at this hour the memory of those lovers is as fresh in Cromar as if they had been buried only yesterday.

Gordon did not die; but, leaving Scotland for ever, entered, as a Catholic, the service of the Emperor, and assuming his mother's name and designation, as Halbert Cunninghame of the Boortree-haugh, soon rose to honour and distinction. After the fashion of some of the Scoto-Imperialists, he spelt his name in a foreign manner, and as "Albrecht Count of Kœningheim" it will be frequently found in the pages of the _Svedish Intelligencer_, and the works of Famiano Strada, the Jesuit.

Book the Eleventh.