It was
enough for a swordsman so skilled as Ringan Oliver. Exhausted as he was,
like a flash his weapon leapt forward, and the great Highland champion
had fought his last fight.
It was near to being a dearly bought victory. Murder was in the hearts
of the Highlanders, as for the moment they stood in savage silence,
hungering for the life of their champion's overthrower. And Ringan was
fainting from loss of blood, unable to raise himself from the trampled,
muddy ground on which he had fallen. Things indeed looked ill for him
and for his friends. And ill, no doubt, it would have fared with them,
if just then it had not chanced that the certain news reached the
Highlanders in Dunkeld of the death of him they called "Ian Dhu nan
Cath" (Black John of the Battles), John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount
Dundee, slain the previous day in Killiecrankie fight. Thus it happened
that, instead of falling sword in hand on the little party of
Lowlanders, the dismayed clansmen began to slip away, and Ringan's
friends succeeded in getting their sorely wounded comrade into safety.
It was some time after this, when life had become less stormy, that
Ringan again took up his residence at Smailcleuchfoot. Here he continued
to live till he was quite an old man.
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