Cope does not know that it is there!
Cope thinks that it is all slough! This man swears that he can and
will take us across, one treading behind another. It's settled. When
sleep seems to wrap us, then we'll move!"
That was what was done, and done so perfectly, late at night, Sir John
Cope sleeping, thinking himself safe as in a castle. File after file
wound noiselessly, by the one way through the marsh, and upon the
farther side, so near to Cope, formed in the darkness into
battle-lines.... Ian Rullock, passing through the marsh, saw in
imagination Alexander lying with eyes closed.
The small force, the Stewart hope, prepared for onslaught. The dawn
was coming, there was a smell of it in the air, far away a cock
crowed. There stood, in the universal dimness, a first and strongest
line, a second and weaker, badly armed line. The mass of this army
were Highlanders, alert, strong, accustomed to dawn movements,
dreamlike in the heather, along the glen-sides, in the crooked pass.
They knew the tactics of surprise. They had claymores and targes, and
the most muskets. But the second line had inadequate provision of
weapons. Many here bore scythes fastened to staves. As they carried
these over their shoulders Ian, looking back, saw them against the
palest light like Death in replica.
The two lines hung motionless, on stout ground, now within the defense
to which Cope had trusted, very close to the latter's sleeping camp.
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