the epochs when the
days of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants were
on the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and I felt as if I
beheld the hand of the Lord in the cloud weighing the things of time in
His scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again so
great as that the cause of Claverhouse should be suffered to prevail.
For my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughts
as the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with a
glorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes.

CHAPTER XCII

General Mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at
the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary, and which the Highlanders call
Fascali, because, as the name in their tongue signifies, no trees are
growing thereon. This place is the threshold of the Pass of
Killicrankie, through the dark and woody chasms of which the impatient
waters of the Gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs.
The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic
forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity
is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the
minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had
joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place.

As the soldiers spread themselves over the green bosom of Fascali, and
piled their arms and furled their banners, and laid their drums on the
ground, and led their horses to the river, the General sent forward a
scout through the Pass to discover the movements of Claverhouse, having
heard that he was coming from the castle of Blair-Athol, to prevent his
entrance into the Highlands.

The officer sent to make the espial had not been gone above half an hour
when he came back in great haste to tell that the Highlanders were on
the brow of a hill above the house of Rinrorie, and that unless the Pass
was immediately taken possession of, it would be mastered by Claverhouse
that night.

Mackay, at this news, ordered the trumpets to sound, and as the echoes
multiplied and repeated the alarm, it was as if all the spirits of the
hills called the men to arms. The soldiers looked around as they formed
their ranks, listening with delight and wonder at the universal bravery,
and I thought of the sight, which Elisha the prophet gave to the young
man at Dothan, of the mountains covered with horses