ever, ravaged the whole district anew, committing to the flames the gleanings he
had in his former rapacious and merciless visitations been compelled to leave,
through incapacity to destroy. Nairn and Elgin were plundered, and the chief
houses set on fire ; Cullen was totally laid in ashes, and "sic lands as were left
unburnt up before were now burnt up." Hurry, in the meantime, was allowed
the quiet possession of Inverness.
On the very day that Hurry was defeated at Auldearn, Baillie had come to Cairn-a-mount on his way to join him. He had just ravaged Athol, and the Highlanders were on their way for its rescue, when he was ordered to the north: and by the Cairn-a-mount came to Cromar, where he learned the fate of his colleague at Auldearn. On the 19th of May he broke up his camp at Cromar, having peremptory orders to hazard a battle. He himself had experience sufficient to instruct him in the danger of leading a few raw and dispirited troops against an army of so much experience and so much confidence as that of Montrose ; but having no alternative, he marched to Cochlarachie, whence he could discern Montrose's army in number, as he supposed, nearly equal to his own, encamped among some enclosures in the neighbourhood of that town. The same night he was joined by Hurry, with a hundred horse, the remnants of the army that had fought at Auldearn, with whom he had fought his way through Montrose's very lines. Next morning he expected to have had an encounter, but to his surprise Montrose was fled. He was followed at some distance by Baillie, but he took up an impregnable position in Badenoch, where he awaited the return of M'Coll and his reinforcements, having it in his power to draw from the interior of that wild district abundant supplies. Baillie, on the contrary, could not find subsistence, and withdrew to Inverness to recruit his commissariat ; which having accomplished, he came south and encamped at Newton in the Garioch.
Montrose, in the meantime, penetrated as far as Newtyle in Angus, anticipating an easy victory over the earl of Crawford, who lay at the distance of only a few miles, with a new army, composed of draughts from the old for the protection of the Lowlands. When on the point of surprising this force, he was called to march to the assistance of the Gordons, whose lands Baillie was cruelly ravaging. On the last day of June, he came up with Baillie, advantageously posted near the kirk of Keith, and, declining to attack him, sent a message that he would fight him on plain ground. Baillie still wished to choose his own time and his own way of fighting ; and Montrose recrossed the Don, as if he designed to fall back upon the Lowlands. This had the desired effect, and Baillie was compelled, by his overseeing committee, to pursue. On the 2d of July the two armies again met. Montrose had taken post on a small hill behind the village of Alford, with a marsh in his rear. He had with him the greater part of the Gordons, the whole of the Irish, the McDonalds of Glengarry and Clanronald, the M'Phersons from Badenoch, and some small septs from Athol, the whole amounting to three thousand men. Baillie, on the other hand, had only thirteen hundred foot, many of them raw men, with a few troops of lord Balcarras', and Halket's horse regiment. Montrose, having double the number of infantry to Baillie, drew up his army in lines six file deep, with two bodies of reserve. Baillie formed also in line, but only three file deep, and he had no reserve. Balcarras, who commanded the horse, which were divided into three squadrons, charged gallantly with two; but the third, when ordered to attack in flank, drew up behind their comrades, where they stood till the others were broken by the Gordons. The foot, commanded by Baillie in person, fought desperately, refusing to yield even after the horse had fled; nor was it till Blontrose had brought up his reserve, that the little band
