They advanced slowly at first, without firing a shot, while Mackay’s right poured a hot volley into their ranks, and the leathern cannon discharged their harmless thunder from the centre.  A gentleman of the Grants, who was fighting that day among the Macdonalds, was knocked over by a spent ball which struck his target.  “Sure, the Boddachs are in earnest now!” he said, as he leaped to his feet with a laugh.  It was not till they had reached the level ground that the Highlanders delivered their fire.  One volley they poured in, and then, flinging their muskets away, bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell.  The soldiers had not time to fix their bayonets in the smoking muzzles of their muskets before the claymores were among them and the battle was over.[103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled:  the men broke and ran like sheep.  The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the example of flight.  Their officers behaved like brave soldiers.  Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, till he was cut down by a young clergyman, Robert Stewart, a grandson of Ballechin.  Eight officers of Mackay’s own regiment were killed, including his brother, the colonel; and many of Ramsay’s.  In vain was the cavalry ordered to charge.  In vain did Belhaven like a gallant gentleman gallop to the front.  In vain did Mackay place himself at their head, and, calling on them to follow him, spur into the thick of the flashing claymores.  Before his horse they fell back right and left in such a way as to justify his boast to Melville that with fifty stout troopers he could have changed the day even then; but one of his own servants alone followed him.  A few of the dragoons discharged their carbines at random.  Then all turned and spurred off among the crowd of footmen to the mouth of the pass.  Some of the fugitives tried to cross the Garry, and were either drowned in its swift waters, or cut down as they scrambled drenched and unarmed through its fords.  Down the pass to Pitlochrie the rout went.  The men of Athole, no longer doubtful of the issue, pounced from their lair upon the easy prey; and even women lent their hands to the butchery.[104]

Well might Mackay bitterly complain, “There was no regiment or troop with me but behaved like the vilest cowards in nature except Hastings and my Lord Leven’s."[105] For on the right matters had fared rather better with the Lowlanders.  Many of Leven’s Borderers had stood firm and Hastings’ Englishmen; and where the Southrons stood firm the Highlanders wavered.  But they were too few for Mackay to have any hopes of retrieving the fortune of the day.  The Highlanders were now busy with the baggage, which offered a more tempting and less troublesome prize than the struggling mass of fugitives.  Mackay therefore collected the few men he could get together, and led them across the Garry by a ford above the field of battle over the mountains towards Stirling.  On his march