that if each man, on coming within the proper
distance of the enemy, should direct his thrust
not at the man directly opposite to him, but
against the one who fronted his right-hand
comrade, the target would be rendered useless, and
the Highlander would be wounded in the right
side, under the sword-arm, before he could ward
off the thrust. Accordingly, he had practised
the men during the spring in this new exercise.
When they had taken their morning meal, they
were marched forward from the camp, arranged
in three parallel divisions of four regiments each,
headed by Huske, Sempill, and Mordaunt,
having a column of artillery and baggage upon
one hand, and a fifth of horse upon the other.

Duke William's speech to his men betrayed
some anxiety as to the behaviour of the soldiers
we saw start to Finchley. They were to be firm
and collected, and, forgetting all past failures, to
remember the great object which had brought
them to that Scotch moor. He represented the
enemy to be merciless, and that hard fighting
was the only chance of safety.

He was grieved, he added, to suppose that
there could be a person reluctant to fight in the
British army. But if there were any there who
would prefer to retire, whether from disinclination
to the cause, or because they had relations in
the rebel army, he begged them, in the name of
God, to do so, as he would rather face the
Highlanders with one thousand determined men at his
back, than have ten thousand who were lukewarm.
The men, catching enthusiasm from his
language, shouted, "Flanders! Flanders!" and
impatiently desired to be led forward to battle.
It was suggested to the duke at this juncture
that he should permit the men to dine, as usual,
at one o'clock, as they would not probably have
another opportunity of satisfying their hunger
for several hours. But he rejected the proposal.
"The men," he said, "will fight better and
more actively with empty bellies; and, moreover,
it would be a bad omen. You remember
what a dessert they got to their dinner at
Falkirk!"

This was like the young hard martinet, who
forgot that we English at least always fight best
when well fed; but Duke William was a man
who never had any pity. The army advanced
in formal military order, the hedges of bayonets
glancing and flashing in the cold sunlight.
The crimson colours flaunted, and one
hundred drums, rolled valiantly by little cocked-
hatted men, sounded a challenge to the angry
Highlandmen. Lord Kilmarnock predicted
defeat to the white cockades, when he
observed the duke's cool, measured, determined
advance. About six hundred yards from
the rebel lines the marsh became so deep
that the soldiers were up to their ankles in
water, and the artillery horses floundering in
the bog, some of the men slung their carbines
and dragged the cumbrous guns through the
brown swampy pools. As the moor was dry
to the right, the watchful duke then ordered
Pulteney's regiment to join the Scots Royals,
and another body of horse to cover the left
wing. At five hundred paces from the
embattled clansmen the duke halted his troops.

The day now, as if glooming for the catastrophe,
became overcast—the sunshine faded
away, and a drift of slanting snow began to beat
sharp and cold from the north-east. This
discouraged the Highlanders, and raised the spirits
of the English and Hessian soldiers. Charles,
feeling the disadvantage of this blinding rain,
made some clumsy attempts to outflank and get
to windward of the duke, but he was baffled in
each attempt, and the two armies returned to
their first positions.

It was during these useless marches and
countermarches that a poor shock-headed
mountaineer resolved, with the spirit of an
old Roman, to sacrifice his life for his Prince
and his clan; he craftily approached the
English lines, demanded quarter, and was sent
to the rear. He, however, contrived to lounge
through the lines, paying no regard to the
rough ridicule of the soldiers. Lord Bury,
son of the Duke of Albemarle, and aide-de-
camp to the duke, happening just then to
pass by in a richly laced dress, the crafty
Highlander suddenly snatched a musket from a
soldier near him, discharged it at an officer
whom he mistook for the duke, and stoically
bore the shot from the ranks that instantly
stretched him dead.

In most battles the struggle is which shall
first gain the benefit of being the assailant.
In this battle the effort was which should be
the last to attack, and by this unwise delay the
Prince wasted all the ardour and fire of his
impetuous irregular troops. The first shots
were fired by the unhandy, reckless Highland
artillerymen. They blazed away at a clump of
horse, among whom they supposed the duke
was stationed; but the shot passed high over
their heads.

How many a heart far away was beating for
the men of those two armies! The little,
strutting, dapper, choleric king was thinking of
his son; Fielding, perhaps, over his wine, was
deriding the cattle-stealing Highlanders. In
many an English cottage prayers were offering
and tears shedding for humble Dick and Tom in
the ranks. For those fierce men in the plaids, too,
supplications were rising to heaven from many
a grey-haired old shepherd on the mountains,
many a fair-haired lassie by the loch-side, many
a mother in the lonely glen.

A few minutes after one, Colonel Bedford
received orders from the duke to open a
cannonade on the Pretender's army, to provoke
the Highlanders to advance. Major-General
Husk on the left, Lord Temple on the right,
and Brigadier Mordaunt in the centre, as well
as Generals Bland and Hawley, who guarded
the cannon at the wings, could see the "Young
Italian," as they derisively called him. They
discerned his womanly blue eyes, his long neck,
and his blonde peruke, as he stood on an
eminence. Colonel Bedford, indeed, levelling a gun,
not only cut grooves and lanes through the
enraged Highland ranks, but actually bespattered