The two troops precipitated themselves immediately in disorder and ran against one another in the narrow way, where, as we have said, two men could hardly pass abreast. There was a terrible collision there, and the conflict began among friends who should have been united against the enemy. Finally, the two troops, leaving behind them some corpses stifled in the press, or even killed by their companions, passed through the defile pell-mell and were lost sight of in the ravine. But during this struggle Seyton and Arbroath had lost precious time, and the detachment sent by Murray, which had taken the road by Glasgow, had reached the village beforehand; it was now necessary not to take it, but to retake it. Argyll saw that the whole day’s struggle would be concentrated there, and, understanding more and more the importance of the village, immediately put himself at the head of the body of his army, commanding a rearguard of two thousand men to remain there and await further orders to take part in the fighting. But whether the captain who commanded them had ill understood, or whether he was eager to distinguish himself in the eyes of the queen, scarcely had Argyll vanished into the ravine, at the end of which the struggle had already commenced between Kirkcaldy of Grange and Morton on the one side, and on the other between Arbroath and Seyton, than, without regarding the cries of Mary Stuart, he set off in his turn at a gallop, leaving the queen without other guard than the little escort of twenty men which Douglas had chosen for her. Douglas sighed. “Alas!” said the queen, hearing him, “I am not a soldier, but there it seems to me is a battle very badly begun.” “What is to be done?” replied Douglas. “We are every one of us infatuated, from first to last, and all these men are behaving to-day like madmen or children.” “Victory! victory!” said the queen; “the enemy is retreating, fighting. I see the banners of Seyton and Arbroath floating near the first houses in the village. Oh! my brave lords,” cried she, clapping her hands. “Victory! victory!” But she stopped suddenly on perceiving a body of the enemy’s army advancing to charge the victors in flank. “It is nothing, it is nothing,” said Douglas; “so long as there is only cavalry we have nothing much to fear, and besides the Earl of Argyll will fall in in time to aid them.” “George,” said Little William. “Well?” asked Douglas. “Don’t you see?” the child went on, stretching out his arms towards the enemy’s force, which was coming on at a gallop. “What?” “Each horseman carries a footman armed with an arquebuse behind him, so that the troop is twice as numerous as it appears.” “That’s true; upon my soul, the child has good sight. Let someone go at once full gallop and take news of this to the Earl or Argyll.” “I! I!” cried Little William. “I saw them first; it is my right to bear the tidings.” “Go, then, my child,” said Douglas; “and may God preserve thee!”