The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 21 Page 70

claymore in his hand, came by, leading a company of his renegades. He grinned at Boyd, and passed his basket-hilt around his throat with a significant gesture, then grinned again.

“Not yet, you Scotch loon!” said Boyd gently. “I’ll live to pepper your kilted tatterdemalions so they’ll beg for the mercies of Glencoe!”

After that, for a long while only stragglers came limping by — lank, bloody, starved creatures, who never even turned their sick eyes on the people they passed among.

Then, after nearly half an hour, a full battalion of Johnson’s Greens forded the river, and behind them came Butler’s Rangers.

Old John Butler, squatting his saddle like a weather-beaten