Sir Robert Hamilton took the command, and was assisted by Balfour and Rathillet, as also by some other gentlemen of rank, present on the field. To their joy they beheld the enemy advancing towards the morass, which would prove a very considerable barrier in their way. Had Claverhouse been familiarly acquainted with the nature of a Scottish morass, or bog, as the country folk term it, he would without doubt have rather taken a more circuitous route to avoid it. The Covenanters stood perfectly still until the dragoons were well into the moss, then singing the favourite seventy-sixth psalm, to the familiar strains of "Martyrs," they steadfastly advanced to engage the foe in conflict. Those left behind prostrated themselves in prayer to the God of Heaven, supplicating victory for the blue banner of the Covenant, waving in the light summer breeze, its white letters, "For Christ’s Cause and Covenant," made resplendent by the brilliance of the summer sun. The first volley fired by the Covenanters emptied many a saddle in Claverhouse’s ranks, and without giving them time to rally, the brave little band plunged into the morass, and then began a terrible hand-to-hand conflict, which must ensure either complete victory or total defeat. Sir Robert Hamilton kept to his horse, encouraging his men with his calm, cheerful demeanour, as well as by his steadfast words. As was to be expected, Adam Hepburn fought with desperate valour, and caused Balfour to regard him anew with a peculiar interest. After a brief, but terrible struggle, Claverhouse, seeing the field was utterly lost, hastily retreated with the exhausted remnant of his troops, narrowly escaping with his own life. Many dead and wounded lay in the morass, but the Covenanters miraculously lost only one man, while five were wounded. With thankful and triumphant hearts they prepared to return to the base of the hill. Balfour of Kinloch, finding himself near Adam Hepburn, as they turned to go, touched his arm and said, in his brief fashion, "What is it in you, Adam Hepburn, which makes you fight like Lucifer himself? Where did you get that desperate courage?" Adam Hepburn stooped to wipe his reeking sword upon the already blood-stained heather, and after a brief pause made answer, grimly: "Thirteen years ago, Mr. Balfour, I had a wife, who was to me the very apple of my eye. She was my one ewe lamb, all I had upon the earth, and in my absence they murdered her, shot her down in cold blood upon the threshold of the home whose light she was. I came home to find her dying, and I swore over her dead body that this sword should not be suffered to return to its sheath until it had sucked the life blood of as many dragoons as there were years upon her head."