ordained by the Commission. Their leader was Sir
James Turner, a man of some education, but rough and brutal. He had
served on the Continent under Gustavus Adolphus, had fought under Leslie
in the Presbyterian ranks, and had accompanied Hamilton with the
Engagers into England. Turner, in his own memoirs, declares that he not
only did not exceed his orders, but was even lenient beyond his
commission. When, a few years later, in a momentary fit of indulgence,
his acts were called in question by the Privy Council, the evidence
hardly served to establish his assertion.

At length the West rose. On November 13th, 1666, four countrymen came
into the little village of Dalry, in Galloway, in search of refreshment.
There they found a few soldiers, driving before them a body of peasants
to thresh out the corn of an old man who would not pay his fines. There
was an argument and a scuffle: a pistol was fired and a soldier fell:
the rest yielded. It was now too late to go back. Turner was posted at
Dumfries with a considerable sum of money in his charge. It was
determined to seize him. The four champions had now been joined by some
fifty horsemen and a large body of unmounted peasants. Turner was made
prisoner; and the money restored to the service of those from whose
pockets it had been originally drawn.

The number of the insurgents had now risen to three thousand. They
determined to march on Edinburgh, thinking to gather recruits on the
way; but when they came within five miles of the city their hearts
failed them. The weather was bitterly cold: provisions and arms were
scarce: the peasantry of the more cultivated districts had proved either
lukewarm to the cause or openly hostile: no recruits had come in, and
their own ranks were growing daily thinner. At length they turned on
their tracks and made once more for their western fastnesses. But they
had now to reckon with a more dangerous foe than Turner.

The garrison in Edinburgh was commanded by Thomas Dalziel, a ferocious
old soldier who had learned his trade in the Russian wars. His dress was
as uncouth as his manners, and he wore a long white bushy beard that no
steel had been suffered to touch since the death of the first
Charles.[11] With all the regulars he could muster Dalziel was quickly
after the fugitives. He came up with them on Rullion Green, a ridge of
the Pentland Hills. Though now numbering scarce a thousand men, the
Covenanters were strongly posted, and defende