Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/21

 intimations of the consequences which he apprehended, and which did in fact follow, and, submitting to Providence, spent the remainder of the day in making as good a disposition as circumstances would allow.

He continued all night under arms, wrapped up in his cloak, and generally sheltered under a rick of barley which happened to be in the field. About three in the morning he called his domestic servants to him, of which there were four in waiting. He dismissed three of them with a most affectionate Christian advice, and such solemn charges relating to the performance of their duty and the care of their souls, as seemed plainly to intimate that he was taking his last farewel of them. There is great reason to believe that he spent the little remainder of the time, which could not be much above an hour, in those devout exercises of soul, which had so long been habitual to him, and to which so many circumstances did then concur to call him. The army was alarmed by break of day, by the noise of the rebels approach, and the attack was made before sun-rise, yet when it was light enough to discern what passed. As soon as the enemy came within gun-shut, they made a furious fire; and it is said that the dragoons, which constituted the left wing, immediately fled. The Colonel, at the beginning of the onset, which, in the whole, lasted but a few minutes, received a wound by a bullet in his left breast, which made him give a sudden spring in his saddle; upon which his servant, who has led the horse, would have persuaded him to retreat: but he said it was only a wound in the flesh, and fought on, though he presently after received a shot in his right thigh. In the mean time it was discerned that some of the enemies fell by him, and particularly one man who had made him a treacherous visit but a few days before, with great professions of zeal for the present establishment.