party of these advanced in open order down the hill to the brink of the
dyke and opened a smart fire on the Covenanters, who answered with
spirit, but both in their weapons and skill were naturally far inferior
to the royal soldiers. Meanwhile, some troopers had been sent out to
skirmish on either flank, and to try for a crossing. This they could not
find; but, unable to manoeuvre in the swampy ground, found instead
that their saddles were emptying fast. Then Hamilton, seeing that his
men were no match at long bowls for the dragoons, and marking the
confusion among the cavalry, gave the word to advance. By crossings
known only to themselves Burley led the horse over the dyke on one
flank, while young Cleland followed with the bulk of the foot on the
other. Claverhouse thereupon called in his skirmishers, and, advancing
his main body down the hill, the engagement became general. But in that
heavy ground the footmen had all the best of it. The scythes and
pitchforks made sad work among the poor floundering horses. His own
charger was so badly wounded that, in the rider's forcible language,
"its guts hung out half an ell;" yet the brave beast carried him safely
out of the press.[27] The troopers began to fall back, and Burley,
coming up on sound ground with his horse, flung himself on them so hotly
that the retreat became something very like a rout. Claverhouse, to
whose courage and energy that day his enemies bear grudging witness, did
all that a brave captain could, but his men had now got completely out
of hand. "I saved the standards" (one of which had been for a moment
taken) "and made the best retreat the confusion of our people would
suffer." So he wrote to Linlithgow, but he made no attempt to disguise
his defeat. He owns to having lost eight or ten men among the cavalry,
besides wounded; and the dragoons lost many more. Only five or six of
the Covenanters seem to have fallen, among whom was one of Sharp's
murderers. This does not speak very well for their opponents' fire; but
then we have only the testimony of their own historians to go by.