danger of being taken; his horse's belly being cut
open by the stroke of a scythe, so that the poor animal trailed his
bowels for more than a mile. In his flight, he passed King, the
minister, lately his prisoner, but now deserted by his guard, in the
general confusion. The preacher hollowed to the flying commander, "to
halt, and take his prisoner with him;" or, as others say, "to stay,
and take the afternoon's preaching." Claverhouse, at length remounted,
continued his retreat to Glasgow. He lost, in the skirmish, about twenty
of his troopers, and his own cornet and kinsman, Robert Graham, whose
fate is alluded to in the ballad. Only four of the other side were
killed, among whom was Dingwall, or Daniel, an associate of Burly in
Sharpe's murder. "The rebels," says Creichton, "finding the cornet's
body, and supposing it to be that of Clavers, because the name of Graham
was wrought in the shirt-neck, treated it with the utmost inhumanity;
cutting off the nose, picking out the eyes, and stabbing it through in
a hundred places." The same charge is brought by Guild, in his _Bellum
Bothuellianum_, in which occurs the following account of the skirmish at
Drumclog:--

Mons est occiduus surgit qui celsus in oris
(Nomine Loudunum) fossis puteisque profundis
Quot scatet hic tellus et aprico gramine tectus:
Huc collecta (ait) numeroso milite cincta;
Turba ferox, matres, pueri, innuptaeque puellae;
Quam parat egregia Graemus dispersere turma.
Venit, et primo campo discedere cogit;
Post hos et alios, caeno provolvit inerti;
At numerosa cohors, campum dispersa per omnem,
Circumfusa, ruit; turmasque indagine captas,
Aggreditur; virtus non hic, nec profuit ensis;
Corripuere fugam, viridi sed gramine tectis,
Precipitata perit, fossis, pars plurima, quorum
Cornipedes haesere luto, sessore rejecto:
Tum rabiosa cohors, misereri nescia, stratos
Invadit laceratque viros: hic signifer eheu!
Trajectus globulo, Graemus quo fortior alter,
Inter Scotigenas fuerat, nec justior ullus:
Hunc manibus rapuere feris, faciemque virilem
Faedarunt, lingua, auriculus, manibusque resectis,
Aspera, diffuso, spargentes saxa, cerebro:
Vix dux ipse fuga salvus, namque exta trahebat
Vulnere tardatus, sonipes generosus hiante:
Insequitur clamore, cohors fanatica, namque
Crudelis semper timidus si vicerit unquam.
_MS. Bellum Bothuellianum._

[Footnote A: William Cleland, a man of considerable genius,