oot who had lost their leader,
and cried out, "Fire on, my lads, fear nothing;" his right-arm was cut
down by a Highlander who advanced with a scythe, fastened to a pole. He
was dragged from his horse; and the work of butchery was completed by
another Highlander, who struck him on the head with a broadsword:
Gardiner had only power to say to his servant, "Take care of yourself."
The faithful creature hastened to an adjoining mill for a cart to convey
his master to a place of safety. It was not until two hours had elapsed,
that he was able to return. The mangled body, all stripped and
plundered, was, even then, still breathing; and the agony of that
gallant spirit was protracted until the next day, when he expired in the
house of the minister of Tranent.

This digression, introducing as it does, one of the _real_ heroes of
this mournful period, may be pardoned.

According to the evidence on his trial, Lord Kilmarnock first joined the
standard of Charles Edward on the "banks of the river which divides
England from Scotland;"[334] but Maxwell of Kirkconnel mentions that the
Earl marched from Edinburgh on the thirty-first of October, 1745, at the
head of a little squadron of horse grenadiers, with whom were some
Perthshire gentlemen, who, in the absence of their own commander, were
placed under the conduct of Lord Kilmarnock.[335] After this decisive
step, Lord Kilmarnock continued to follow Charles during the whole of
that ill-fated campaign, which ended in the battle of Culloden. During
the various events of that disastrous undertaking, his character, like
that of many other commanders in the Chevalier's army, suffered from
imputations of cruelty. That this vice was not accordant with his
general disposition of mind, the minister who attended him on his
death-bed sufficiently attests. "For myself," declares Mr. Foster, "I
must do this unhappy criminal the justice to own, that he _never_
appeared, during the course of my attendance upon him, to be of any
other than a soft, benevolent disposition. His behaviour was always mild
and temperate. I could discern no resentment, no disturbance or
agitation in him."[336] So gentle a character is not the growth of a
day; and if ever Lord Kilmarnock were betrayed into actions of violence,
it must have been under circumstances of a peculiar nature.

Among other charges which were specified against him, was a
participation in the blowing up of the church of St. Ninian's, in the
retr