struggled forward. From front
and flank the fire of their enemy smote them. Those who reached the
opposite side of the trench were run through with pikes as they strove
to climb from it.

For ten minutes the desperate struggle continued, and then, finding the
impossibility of storming such a position in the face of foes of whose
strength they were ignorant, the Roundhead infantry turned, and in good
order marched back, leaving half their number dead behind them. The
cavalry in the rear had fared but little better. Finding the ground on
either side was firm when the fire opened on their flanks, they faced
both ways, and charged. But ere the horses had gone twenty strides they
were struggling to their girths in the morass. Their foes kept up a
steady fire, at forty yards' distance, into the struggling mass, and
before they could extricate themselves and regain the pathway, many
leaving their horses behind, a third of their number had fallen. Joined
by the beaten infantry, they retired across the track, and made their
way back toward their camp.

Leaving a strong guard at the morass to resist further attempts, Harry
returned with his force to the village having inflicted a loss of a
hundred and fifty upon enemy, while he himself had lost but eight men.
He intrenched the position strongly, and remained there unmolested,
until a week later he received orders to march back to Edinburgh. The
following day he was summoned before King Charles. He found there
General Leslie, the Earl of Argyll, Alan Campbell, and several of the
leaders of the Covenant.

"What is this I hear of you, Colonel Furness?" the king said. "General
Leslie has reported to me that you have inflicted a very heavy defeat
upon a rebel force which marched to surprise you. This is good service,
and for it I render you my hearty thanks. But, sir, the Earl of Argyll
complains to me that you have beleaguered his kinsman, Alan Campbell, in
his hold at Kirkglen, and treated him as a prisoner, suffering none to
go out or in during your stay there."

"This, sire, is the warranty for my conduct," Harry said, producing the
document signed by Cromwell. "This was taken by one of my men from a
trooper who had borne a dispatch from Alan Campbell to the enemy. My
man watched the interview between him and Cromwell himself, heard the
terms of the dispatch, and saw Cromwell write and give this letter to
the trooper, whom he afterward slew, and brought me the letter. The
oth