entreated me to go into some house and repose on a chair; for I had slept none in two nights, and eaten as little. I alighted; but the constant alarms of the Enemy’s approach made me resolve to ride forward to Warrington, which was but a mile; and indeed I may say I slept all that way, notwithstanding ‘my wound.’
While the wounded Dalgetty rides forward, let us borrow another glimpse from a different source;[1] of bitter struggle still going on a little to the rear of him. ‘At a place called Redbank,’ near Winwick Church, two miles from Warrington, the Scots made a stand with a body of pikes, and lined the hedges with muskets; who so rudely entertained the pursuing Enemy, that they were compelled to stop until the coming-up of Colonel Pride’s regiment of foot, who, after a sharp dispute, put those same brave fellows to the run. They were commanded by a little spark in a blue bonnet, who performed the part of an excellent commander, and was killed on the spot.’ Does any one know this little spark in the blue bonnet? No one. His very mother has long ceased to weep for him now. Let him have burial, and a passing sigh from us!— Dugald Turner continues:
‘I expected to have found either the Duke or Calendar, or both of them, at Warrington: but I did not; and indeed I have often been told that Calendar carried away the Duke with him, much against his mind. Here did the Lieutenant-General of the foot meet with an Order, whereby he is required “To make as good conditions for himself and those under him as he could; for the horse would not come back to him, being resolved to preserve themselves for a better time.” Baillie was surprised with this: and looking upon that action which he was ordered to do, as full of dishonour, he lost much of that patience of which naturally he was master; and beseeched any that would to shoot him through the head,’—poor Baillie! ‘At length having something composed himself, and being much solicited by the officers that were by him, he
- ↑ Heath’s Chronicle, p. 323.
