xvi.
Irishry and all the Highlanders, Montrose never saw his old lieutenant again. Five hundred Ulstermen—among them the gallant O'Kean—to their eternal honour refused to leave tho royal standard," ll. 183-4.
"The next few months of blundering in Argyll were to show how little of a general he was on his own account. Two years later he was to disappear from history, stabbed in the back in an obscure Irish fray. But as brigadier under Montrose he was worth an army, and his stand at Auldearn will live as long as feats of valour can stir the hearts of men," l. 178.
Agus seo an tráċt do-ní Buchan ar an gcaṫ sin Ailt Éirinn:
"There was one mistake in the calculation. Alastair was undermanned. He can have had no more than 500 men, all infantry, to oppose the attack of 3,400 foot and 400 horse, If we remember that the musketeers of those days were considered to be unable to face cavalry, unless drawn up behind hedges or palisades, we get some notion of the desperate odds. They were increased by Alasdair's own impetuous conduct. He was never the man to await an onset, and while . Hurry's army was struggling through the marshy burn, he sacrificed the advantage of his higher ground and rushed to meet them. Eight to one is odds reserved to the champions of fairy tales, 'Why, how the devil,' asks Major Bellenden in Old Mortality, 'can you believe that Artamines or what d'ye call him fought single-handed with a whole battalion? One to three is as great odds as ever fought and won, and I never knew any one who cared to take that except old Corporal Raddlebanes.' But Alastair's deeds were worthy of the Ossianic heroes, and it is not hard to understand how in Highland legend his fame is made to outshine Montrose's. He and his Irish conducted themselves like the fierce warriors of the Sagas. He was forced back, fighting desperately, into the nest of enclosures in front of the village. Like Ajax by the ships he himself was the last to retreat. His targe was full of pikes, but he swung his great broadsword round and cut off their heads like cabbage stalks. He broke his blade, but got another from a dying comrade. Again and again he rushed out to he]p his stragglers to enter. One of his men, Ranald Mac Kinnon, of Mull, fought swordless against a dozen pikemen with an arrow through both cheeks and no weapon but his shield. So raged this Thermopylae among the pigstyes, etc," l. 141.
Is tuigṫe ḋúinn as sain caidé a ṁéid de ċalmaċt a ḃí i nAlasdair. Tugann Buchan faṫaċ fíoċṁar fraoċda ("fire-eating giant") air, mar ní hé aṁáin go ndéanaḋ
