It was a still cold day and the very air seemed tense with the issues involved. Aline’s heart beat with excitement, yet she was surprised how calm she felt. “Surely I am afeared,” she said, “and yet I am full of gladness and am ready to give my life, as Ian has asked.” She rode upon a grey charger carrying the banner of Ochil which she had hastily made at Canonbie with her own hands;--azure, a fesse between three crescents argent.[28] Ian lacked Aline’s happy disposition, and looked troubled, but his resolution to do or die was no whit less determined. [28] A blue field divided horizontally by a broad silver band; two silver crescents above and one below. The English cavalry were, as usual, immensely superior in numbers, and while the Scots forces were forming their line, they hoped to press the advantage by a charge, which at the same time should cover the advance of their own infantry deploying out of the valley. The Scots were in two ranks, with the reserves below the crest of the hill, every front man, the butt of his pike against his right foot and the point breast high, the while those behind crossed their pike points with those forward. Ian held his horsemen back on the right flank, while the bowmen were on the left. The enemy charged swiftly over the haugh, their gay pennons a-flutter on their lances, a brave sight to see. And as they came they shouted;--“Down with the heretics; come on, ye coward loons.” “For God and our country,” the Scots replied, as the wave of Southrons hurled itself upon the bristling pikes, only to break and scatter as many a man of that goodly host met his doom. Ian taking them at a disadvantage led the Scots’ horse in a counter-charge and menacingly they thundered over the plain, so that despite his smaller force he drove them behind their own lines and numbers more of the English bit the dust and among them the Lord of Almouth, their leader, a noble and brave youth who received a lance thrust in his side and fell to earth gripping the soil with both his hands in the agony of death. And many a gay Scots gallant lay on the ground between the hosts and the corbies gathered in the air watching for their time to come. Then for a while the battle fell to those on foot and furiously they fought and many doughty deeds were done on either side that day. But terrible was the slaughter, as neither party would yield the advantage to the other; and the shouting of the fighters mingled with cries of the wounded, and ever and anon there boomed the roar of the artillery in the which the English had the better of the Scots. The fight was stubborn and Aline’s mood, at first all eager, now gave place to one of dread, the light began to fail and a voice within the air seemed to whisper, “Whensoever the day goes down, the spirits of darkness will gather for your destruction and then it will be too late.” She even thought she saw “Old Moll” stalking through the battle-field and gloating over the slain.