of the style in which Scott's genius could work the scantiest materials
to his will. All contemporary accounts of the fray are singularly meagre
and confused; and, indeed, the art of describing a battle was then very
much in its infancy. It is difficult, from Claverhouse's own despatch,
to get more than a general idea of the affair, which was probably after
the first few minutes but an indiscriminate _mêlée_. No doubt it was his
consciousness of some lack of clearness that inspired his apologetic
postscript: "My Lord, I am so wearied and so sleepy that I have written
this very confusedly." The flag of truce, which in the novel Claverhouse
sends down under charge of his nephew Cornet Graham to parley with the
Covenanters, was of Scott's own making, though it seems that a couple
of troopers were despatched in advance to survey the ground. Nor does
Claverhouse mention any kinsman of his, or any one of his name, as
having fallen that day: the only two officers he specifies are Captain
Blyth and Cornet Crafford, or Crawford, both of whom were killed by
Hamilton's first fire. But though Claverhouse mentions no one of his own
name, others do. By more than one contemporary writer one Robert Graham
is included among the slain. It is said that while at breakfast that
morning in Strathavon he had refused his dog meat, promising it a full
meal off the Whigs' bodies before night; "but instead of that," runs the
tale, "his dog was seen eating his own thrapple (for he was killed) by
several." Another version is, that the Covenanters, finding the name of
Graham wrought in the neck of the shirt, savagely mangled the dead body,
supposing it to be that of Claverhouse himself.[26]

But to come from tradition to fact. The affair began with a sharp
skirmish of musketry on both sides. To every regiment of cavalry there
were then joined a certain proportion of dragoons who seem to have held
much the position of our mounted infantry, men skilled in the use of
firearms and accustomed to fight as well on foot as in the saddle. A