"The same," said I.
"Give me your hand," exclaimed the warm-hearted fellow, "who could have expected this!—what odd things do happen in the sarvice to be sure! But we have no time for talking here—for the shot are sowing all the turf about us as thick as peas—we'll have a yarn when we beat these fellows and halt."
I now resumed my musket—having given my pike to form a stretcher—and hastened forward; but was too late to share in the brilliant charge, by which, at the point of the bayonet, Lord Kildonan with the Scots Fusiliers, and Colonel Myres with the 43rd, drove back the foe in disorder and precipitation, from their position at La Chapelle, while their cannon were all taken by the seamen and marines of the Asia and Adder.
Our column then reformed, and over the most difficult, steep, and rocky ground, under a hot morning sun, we followed the fugitives beyond the heights of Berne, leaving the plateau in our rear dotted by long lines of killed and wounded, in blue and red uniforms,—but the number of the former greatly preponderated.
CHAPTER XLII.
A PAIR OF COLOURS.
"Well, boy," said the Earl of Kildonan, when I brought him the casualty list of our company, "what think you of your first engagement?"
"I think it horrible, my lord," said I; "and I shall have this slaughter before me for the rest of my life."
"Nonsense!" replied the earl, laughing; "you will soon consider such an affair a mere brush, my lad—a flash in the pan."
Without food or refreshment we now pushed on, through difficult ground, torn by volcanic throes into deep chasms and stony gullies, where watercourses brawled, and on the sides of which the wild vine and tobacco-plant grew in luxuriance; over the heights of Berne, above Ance la Haye, following the retiring French without a check, until we came upon a village with a spire in its centre, and a battery of guns on a turf wall in its front. This place was named Cayman. The fire of the battery mowed down some of our men; but Kinlochmoidart with his company made a rush and carried it at the point of the bayonet, driving out or slaying the defenders.