In which a company of royalist horsemen, burdened with prisoners, traverses a bleak and forsaken moorland to confront a resolute band of insurgents drawn up behind natural defences, their numbers and zeal a match for their scanty arms and rustic weaponry. Claverhouse, resolved to avoid retreat and bloodshed if possible, debates tactics with his officers and entrusts a young cornet, his kinsman, to bear a summons for surrender, while the spirit of the contest is marked by solemn psalmody and the watchful gaze of kin and countrywomen.