Amid the dense smoke that rolled in white clouds and concealed the adverse lines, their carnage and its horrors, again and again the brave old Laird of Scoury led his squadrons to the charge, resolved to force the passage to turn the flank of Luxembourg or die, and again they were repulsed from the abbatis by the courage of the desperate Cavaliers. As yet, not one trooper had penetrated among them, though hundreds and their horses lay groaning and rolling in the agonies of death, entangled among the apple-laden branches of the prostrate trees, grasping and rending them with their teeth in the tortures of dissolution. As yet not one of the Scottish exiles had fallen; but now Mackay ordered a body of his dragoons to dismount, to unsling their short fusees, and from behind the piles of dead and dying men and chargers, to fire upon the abbatis which could afford no protection against bullets. A furious fusilade now ensued, and Fenton soon missed Finland from his side; he turned, and his hot blood cooled for a moment to behold him lying on the bloody turf in the last agonies of death. A ball had pierced his breast; his eyes were glazing, and he was beating the earth with his heels, as he blew from his quivering lips the bells of blood and foam. Unfortunate Douglas! Something was clenched in his hand and pressed to his lips; but as his dying energies relaxed, and his brave spirit fled to heaven, the relic fell on the turf;--it was Annie Laurie's braid of bright brown hair. "Farewell, dear Finland," exclaimed Walter, kissing the dead man's hand. "Here end thy love and misfortunes together!" Sorrow, rage, and ardour roused the fury of Fenton to the utmost, and with his clubbed weapon he sprang over the trees of the abbatis, exclaiming, "to the charge, gentlemen Scots!--to the charge! Never let it be said that the Cavaliers of Dundee played at long bowles with those false English churls. Victory and revenge!" Fired by his example, and animated by national and political hatred against those who had deserted James VII., and wrought so many miseries to his few adherents, the little band sprang from the abbatis and threw themselves with incredible fury and determination on the dismounted troopers. Onward they pressed over piles of dead and wounded, while every instant the balls that flew thick as drifting rain, thinned their narrow ranks, and added many another item to the vast amount of that day's carnage. None can be so brave as those for whom life has lost every charm; and none so reckless as those who have a thousand real or imaginary wrongs to avenge. Thus, heedless alike of the number of their antagonists, who were again pressing up to the attack, the Scottish Cavaliers came on pell mell, and a desperate conflict ensued with firelocks and fusils clubbed.