Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/359

Rh them, and use their broadswords: they did so, and before the enemy had time to draw theirs, cut many of them down in an instant; whereupon they wheeled about, and captain Fowler, who commanded the rebels on the right, being then in the rear, advancing up to me, I gave him such a blow over the head with my broad sword, as would have cleaved his scull, had it not been defended by a steel cap. Fowler turning about, aimed a blow at me, but I warded it off, and with a back stroke cut the upper part of his head clean off, from the nose upward.

By this time, the rebels leaving their horses, fled to the moss; but the royalists pursuing them, killed about sixty, and took fourteen prisoners. Here Cameron, the famous covenanter, lost his life; and Haxton was taken prisoner, infamous for imbruing his hands in the blood of the archbishop of St. Andrews, as I have already mentioned; for which parricide, both his hands were afterward cut off, and he was hanged at Edinburgh.

But this victory cost me very dear; for being then in the rear, I rode into the moss after the rebels, where I overtook a dozen of them hacking and hewing one of my men, whose horse was bogged; his name was Elliot, a stout soldier; and one of Clavers's troop. He had received several wounds, and was at the point of being killed when I came to his relief, I shot one of the rogues dead with my carbine, which obliged the rest to let the poor man and his horse creep out of the hole, but at the same time drew all their fury upon myself; for Elliot made a shift to crawl out of the moss, leading his horse in his hand, but was wholly disabled from assisting his deliverer, and was not regarded by his enemies, who probably thought