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Updated: May 3, 2025
The Covenanters aimed with deadly precision; the fighting was desperate; hand-to-hand encounters were frequent. The troops broke and fled, leaving 20 dead on the field. The Covenanters had 1 killed and 5 mortally wounded. Hamilton, Hackston, Paton, Balfour, Cleeland, and Hall were the noble captains that won the day in the name of the Lord of hosts.
"The test, the test, and the qualification!" said Bothwell to Halliday; "I know the meaning now Zounds, that we should not have stopt him! Go saddle our horses, Halliday. Was there one of the men, Cornet, very stout and square-made, double-chested, thin in the flanks, hawk-nosed?" "Stay, stay," said Cornet Grahame, "let me look at the paper. Hackston of Rathillet, tall, thin, black-haired."
Balfour had been accused of malversation in the management of some property for which he was the Archbishop's factor, and Hackston, his brother-in-law, had been arrested as his bail and forced to make the money good. Russell, who has left a curiously minute and cold-blooded narrative of this murder, was a man of headstrong and fiery temper.
They found Balfour and Hackston already there; and for a few moments these men even turned the tide of battle, for they made an irresistible dash across the bridge, and absolutely drove the assailants from their guns, but, being unsupported, were compelled to retire. If each had been a Hercules, the gallant five would have had to succumb before such overwhelming odds.
Hackston was asked to take the command, but declined, alleging his cause of quarrel with Sharp, which would, he declared, "mar the glory of the action, for it would be imputed to his particular revenge." But, he added, he would not leave them, nor "hinder them from what God had called them to."
Beneath the waving folds of the Blue Banner 5,000 men had rallied when Saturday's sun was sinking in the west. They had unbounded confidence in the cause for which they adventured their lives; a holy enthusiasm knit them together. They were ready for battle "with hand strokes," as they said to Hackston, one of their noble captains.
"The very man," exclaimed Bothwell, "and the very horse! he was in this room not a quarter of an hour since." The leader of this party was David Hackston, of Rathillet, a gentleman of ancient birth and good estate. He had been profligate in his younger days, but having been led from curiosity to attend the conventicles of the nonconforming clergy, he adopted their principles in the fullest extent.
"You are a gentleman you will protect me!" cried the wounded old man, crawling towards him. "I will never lay a hand on you," said Hackston, and put his cloak about his mouth. It is an old temptation with me, to pluck away that cloak and see the face to open that bosom and to read the heart. With incomplete romances about Hackston, the drawers of my youth were lumbered.
Hackston and Balfour were men of some fortune, who had been free-livers in their youth, and were now professing to expiate those errors by a gloomy and ferocious asceticism. Both had a grudge against Sharp.
Richard Cameron was killed at the first charge: Donald Cargill and Hackston of Rathillet were made prisoners. Both were taken to Edinburgh and executed, the latter with circumstances of needless barbarity.
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