've been expecting for hours. Those are the videttes of the
French army, and they have been watching us all the time our vanguard
was passing. I'll stake a year's rental of the lands of Claverhouse
that if we could see on the other side of that hill we would find
Conde's troops making ready for an attack."

"I will not say but that you are right, and I don't like the situation
nor feel as comfortable as I did half an hour ago. Do you think that
the general in command knows of this danger, or has heard that the
French outposts are so near?"

"If you ask me, Mr. Carlton, I would say that those Dutch officers
don't know that there is a Frenchman within ten miles; they are good
at drill, and steady in battle, but their minds are as heavy as their
bodies. Their idea of fighting is to deploy according to a book of
drill on a parade ground; you cannot expect men who live on the flat
to understand hills. That wood," and Claverhouse was looking at the
hill intently, "is simply full of men and horses, and within an hour,
and perhaps less, you will see a pretty attack. Aren't we at their
mercy?" Claverhouse pointed forward to the crest of a little hill over
which the Dutch brigade were passing in marching formation, and
backward to the lumbering train of baggage-wagons.

"'Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad,' is a Latin
proverb I picked up at St. Andrew's University, and one of the few
scraps of knowledge I carried away from the good old place. They might
at least have thrown out some of our cavalry on the right to draw fire
from that wood, and enable us to find their position. It's not overly
pleasant to jog quietly along as if one were riding up the Carse of
Gowrie to Perth fair, when it's far more likely we are riding into the
shambles like a herd of fat bullocks going to Davie Saunders, the
Dundee butcher."

"See you here, friend," cried Carlton, "I am not in a mind to be taken
at a disadvantage and ridden down by those Frenchmen when we are not
in formation. They have us at a disadvantage in any case, but, by my
life, we ought at any rate to deploy to the right, and seize that
higher ground, or else they will send us into that marshland that I
see forward there on the left. If they do, there will be some throats
cut, and it might be yours or mine. What say you, Mr. Graham, to ride
forward and tell one of the officers in attendance on his Highness
what we have seen, and then let them do as they please?"

"