on the
other hand, declared that to fight would be madness. He saw one regiment
in scarlet. More might be behind. To attack such a force was to rush on
certain death The best course was to remain quiet till night, and then
to give the enemy the slip.

A sharp altercation followed, which was with difficulty quieted by the
mediation of Rumbold. It was now evening. The hostile armies encamped at
no great distance from each other. The Earl ventured to propose a night
attack, and was again overruled.

Since it was determined not to fight, nothing was left but to take the
step which Hume had recommended. There was a chance that, by decamping
secretly, and hastening all night across heaths and morasses, the Earl
might gain many miles on the enemy, and might reach Glasgow without
further obstruction. The watch fires were left burning; and the march
began. And now disaster followed disaster fast. The guides mistook the
track across the moors, and led the army into boggy ground. Military
order could not be preserved by undisciplined and disheartened soldiers
under a dark sky, and on a treacherous and uneven soil. Panic after
panic spread through the broken ranks. Every sight and sound was thought
to indicate the approach of pursuers. Some of the officers contributed
to spread the terror which it was their duty to calm. The army had
become a mob; and the mob melted fast away. Great numbers fled under
cover of the night. Rumbold and a few other brave men whom no danger
could have scared lost their way, and were unable to rejoin the main
body. When the day broke, only five hundred fugitives, wearied and
dispirited, assembled at Kilpatrick.

All thought of prosecuting the war was at an end: and it was plain
that the chiefs of the expedition would have sufficient difficulty
in escaping with their lives. They fled in different directions. Hume
reached the Continent in safety. Cochrane was taken and sent up to
London. Argyle hoped to find a secure asylum under the roof of one
of his old servants who lived near Kilpatrick. But this hope was
disappointed; and he was forced to cross the Clyde. He assumed the dress
of a peasant and pretended to be the guide of Major Fullarton, whose
courageous fidelity was proof to all danger. The friends journeyed
together through Renfrewshire as far as Inchinnan. At that place the
Black Cart and the White Cart, two streams which now flow through
prosperous towns, and turn the wheels of many factories,