about four hundred men into several bodies, he showed at first a single
troop of horse, whom the royalists prepared to receive with their cavalry;
but after a short interval, appeared a second, then a third, then a fourth;
and Montrose believing that Leslie's entire army was advancing, ordered
the infantry to take shelter among the brushwood and stunted trees on a
neighbouring eminence. But before this movement could be executed, his
horse were broken, and his whole force lay at the mercy of the enemy. The
standard-bearer with several officers and most of the natives were slain;
the mercenaries made a show of resistance, and obtained quarter; and
Montrose, whose horse had been killed under him, accompanied by Kinnoul,
wandered on foot, without a guide, up the valley of the Kyle, and over the
mountains of Sutherland. Kinnoul, unable to bear the hunger and fatigue,
was left and perished; Montrose, on the third day,[c] obtained refreshment
at the hut of a shepherd; and, being afterwards discovered, claimed the
protection of Macleod of Assynt, who had formerly served under him in the
royal army. But the

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. April 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. April 27.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. April 30.]

fidelity of the laird was not proof against temptation; he sold[a] the
king's lieutenant for four hundred bolls of meal; and Argyle and his
associates, almost frantic with joy, passed an act to regulate the
ignominious treatment to which their captive should be subjected, the
form of the judgment to be pronounced, and the manner of his subsequent
execution. When Montrose reached[b] the capital, he found the magistrates
in their robes waiting to receive him. First the royal officers,
twenty-three in number, were ranged in two files, and ordered to walk
forward manacled and bareheaded; next came the hangman with his bonnet on