'Hepburn, you have insulted us all by this offer of money,' said the Marquis of Gordon.
'My cross of Mont Carmel, in the King's name then,'
he replied, with a flushing cheek, as he tore it from his breast and flung it into the fosse.*
* An incident almost similar occurred with the Irish Brigade at Havannah.
'Hurrah!' burst from every tongue.
'Montjoie St. Denis!' cried Turenne.
'France—France and Scotland for ever!' added the Vicomte Arpajou.
And with wild shouts that rent the air of the calm morning sky, we rushed into the fosse, and planting our echelles against the bastion, ascended, fighting hand-to-hand, and firing our pistols into the faces of the foe, as we grappled for life and death on the summit, and forced a passage in, with the loss of eighty brave Scottish soldiers.
Sir John was the first man on the rampart; the second, and consequently the winner of the cross of Mont Carmel, was one of his own private musketeers, a poor gentleman from the braes of Angus, who rose to be count and general of cavalry in the French army.
The Lorrainers were driven furiously back; but a savage conflict ensued with them between the bastion and the town-gate; and there, in the cold gray light of the morning, were Scottish musketeers and German pikemen, chevaliers in brilliant plate-armour, gentlemen of our Garde du Corps, and those of Lorraine, with the lean and famished bourgeoisie of the town, in their black and battered harness, all mingled in one wild melée of whirling swords and clubbed muskets, as they closed up round the tall figure of Hepburn on one side, and the fierce and energetic Raoul d'Ische on the other.