ls 'started to
life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without striking a blow;
and though the foreign troops made a stout resistance, they were
overpowered by numbers, and those of their leaders who were not dead
were taken prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought
desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty accepted the
horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and dashed away into the hills,
throwing away as he did so his star, sword and cloak--a fatal act, which
brought about his discovery and death. Their horses were next abandoned,
and Montrose changed clothes with a peasant, and with young lord
Kinnoull and Sinclair of Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that
lay on the west.

[Illustration: For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them
to Caithness.]

Now began for the three fugitives the period of bodily anguish that was
to cease only with their lives. The country was strange to them, and was
almost bare of inhabitants, so that for two days they sought in vain to
find a road which might take them to Caithness, whence they could escape
to France or Norway. During these two days they ate absolutely nothing,
and passed the cold nights under the stars. At length Kinnoull, who had
always been delicate, flung himself down on the heather, and in a few
hours died of exhaustion. There his friends were forced to leave him,
without even a grave, and wandered on, their steps and their hearts
heavier than before, till a light suddenly beamed at them out of the
dusk. It was a shepherd's cottage, where they were given some milk and
oatmeal, the first food they had eaten since the battle; but the man
dared not take them into his hut, lest he should bring on himself the
wrath of the covenant for harbouring royalists, even though he knew not
who they were.

The reward offered for Montrose sharpened men's eyes and ears, and in
two days he was discovered lying on the mountain side almost too weak to
move. It was Macleod of Assynt to whom the deadly shame of his betrayal
is said to belong, and Montrose prayed earnestly that the mercy of a
bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed him. But the man who for many
years had defied all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common
soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with his feet tied
together underneath, and led through roaring, hissing crowds, which
pressed to see him in every town through which they had to pass. The
wounds that he