"That in Scotland _this year a lion shall be slain by its whelps_." The king grew pale as death, for at that moment the wind blew out the banner of the third division of the insurgents, and above their long lines of shining helmets he recognised his own imperial flag, with the red lion rampant in its golden field. "If I this day am slain, and the boy, my son, made king," said he, huskily, "Scotland--Scotland--what will become of her? Lord of St. John, doth not the scripture say, 'woe unto the land whose monarch is a child'? and my simple-hearted Rothesay is but little more in years." At that moment a number of arrows and caliver-shots whistled past them, and the battle began in earnest, just as the distant bell of St. Ninian's Church tolled twelve. The scene of this sanguinary encounter was the tract of land now known as Little Canglar, upon the east side of a brook called the Sauchieburn, about two miles from Stirling. A number of weeping-willows--called in Scotland sauch-trees--drooped over the water, and gave a name to the place, as they did to Sir James Shaw's barony. The birds were carolling aloft in the blue welkin; the air was pure, the sunshine bright and warm; the fragrance of the flowers and bearded grass was wafted on the soft summer wind; the mavis sang among the pale green sauches, and the cushat dove sent up its cry from the Torwood's shady oaks. Grey Stirling, the wooded brow of Craig-forth and the Ochil peaks, rose on the north, all mellowed in the summer mist; all nature looked beautiful and smiling; but herd and hirsel fled as the brass cannon opened on the adverse lines, and the shout and shock of the furious onset made the poor shepherd who stood afar off on the lone hill-side, hold his breath and bend his head in prayer--for when Scot met Scot, right well he knew how deadly and how deep would be the sacrilegious slaughter! The king's vanguard, which was of course composed of his own clan, the gallant Stewarts and other Highlanders, armed with swords, long daggers, bows, and axes, led by John Stewart, Earl of Athole,--the conqueror of the Lord of the Isles--rushed upon the insurgents with a loud yell, such as can only rise from a Celtic throat. This attack was well supported by the king's left wing, composed of five thousand Perthshire spearmen, led by Lord Ruthven. The Mersemen met them with their levelled lances--those pikes so terrible in warlike annals, "six Scottish ells in length," and an awful conflict took place; while the shouts of "_A Home, a Home!_" on one side, and the shrill cathghairn of the Athole Stewarts, were often turned into the shriek of agony or the groan of death, as the lance was thrust through the Highland lurich, or the claymore found a passage through the Lowland jack; while weapons broke and throats were grasped and daggers driven through plate and mail, through plaid and buff, or the swaying axe split helmets of tempered steel and targets of tough bull's-hide like withered nutshells.