Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/600

 $80 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. spot at The rebels lay in Glenmalure ; l the same spot which the English officers being offered kine or killing, had preferred the last. It was an appropriate scene for the retribution now to be inflicted. Kildare, who ac- companied the expedition, had doubtless sent notice to his friends to be on the watch. The Deputy, with Kildare and Colonel Wingfield, held the mouth of the gorge, to prevent escape, while young Sir Peter Carew, Colonel Moore, and a distinguished officer named Cosby, advanced with the body of the troops. They went un- molested up the narrow valley for some distance, seeing no one, when suddenly the crags and bushes on either side, before and behind, became alive with armed men, and amidst yells and shouts they were assailed with a storm of shot, and stones, and arrows. The new-comers in their bright red and blue uniforms found themselves especially aimed at, and the unearthly howling, and the wild figures glancing among the rocks, made sud- den cowards of them. ' Amazed/ ' terrified/ they crowded together, threw down their arms, and tried to fly. But the trap had closed upon them, and all the officers and almost all the men were destroyed. A disaster at such a moment was unusually danger- ous. Two thousand Scots had just landed in Antrim ; the famous Countess threatening to occupy the entire north-east corner of Ulster, in the name of James or his mother. 2 1 Not Glendalough, as Camden says. 2 ' I find she is wholly bent to make a new Scotland in the north parts of Ireland, and falling in further communication with her she