Little expecting such a
rencounter, they were marching in defiles upon the lower ridgy craigs,
to avoid the swamps which occupied the broader way.
At sight of the Scots, Lord Percy, the Southron commander, ordered a
party of his archers to discharge their arrows. The artillery of war
being thus opened afresh, Wallace drew his bright sword, and waving it
before him, just as the sun set, called aloud to his followers. His
inspiring voice echoed from hill to hill; and the higher detachments of
the Scots, pouring downward with the resistless impetuosity of their
own mountain streams, precipitated their enemies into the valley; while
Wallace, with his pikemen, charging the horses in those slippery paths,
drove the terrified animals into the morasses, where some sunk at once,
and others, plunging, threw their riders, to perish in the swamp.
Desperate at the confusion which now ensued, as his archers fell
headlong from the rocks, and his cavalry lay drowning before him, Lord
Percy called up his infantry; they appeared, but though ten thousand
strong, the determined Scots met their first ranks breast to breast;
and leveling them with their companions, rushed on the rest with the
force of a thunder-storm.
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