"True," said he; "Moina is here—in my eyes and in my heart. My life is hers."
"Then why throw it heedlessly away? Do you live for her? 'Tis enough for the wretched to perish."
He wrung my hand, and we passed to our places.
On this day of carnage and desperation the world was looking as bright as ever. The walls of the old city were smiling in the sunshine, and its ruddiest glow fell on the ancient church, within the walls of which there was the greatest amount of suffering. Though the season was advanced, the noon was somewhat sultry, and swarms of new-born gnats were wheeling in the sunny air. The young green grass was sprouting above the trenches where the dead were buried; the Sound was like a blue mirror, and clouds of fleecy whiteness flecked the wide azure dome of the sky. All nature looked beautiful, and the glad earth seemed to smile back on the bright sun; but man, in his Wickedness, was doing all he could to render that beautiful Earth—a Hell!
I had just come from the lifeless Ernestine, and hence, perhaps, this moralizing for a moment; but I was dogged and desperate; selfishly caring not who fell, or who survived—who might be victorious, or who vanquished. The world and I had no longer any thing in common; and now the uproar and strife that deepened round me as the foe drew near, were a congenial relief to my tortured spirit; for it rose, as it was drawn away from bitter thoughts, and my heart leaped at the rattling musketry, the shrieks, cries, and moans of the wounded, the tumultuous shouts of the combatants as they closed up shoulder to shoulder in the breach, where our Highlanders shot, with rapid and deadly precision, right over the heads of a stand of Spynie's Lowland pikes, whose gallant breasts had replaced the fallen bastion.
On came that triple column of the foe, and now one high discordant yell announced that they were within pistol-shot; but so thick was the smoke before us that we could scarcely see them. The wild Merodeurs made incredible efforts to bring on the coffin of their colonel, and seemed to enjoy the strange bravado of being led by a corpse to the assault; but every relay of soldiers who lifted it from the earth were shot down in succession, until at last the coffin, with its bearers and hundreds of others, tumbled pell-mell into the ditch, before the breach, the way to which became literally choked by the bodies of the killed and wounded; and over these the rear companies of the Merodeurs, and Camargo's Spanish pikemen, rushed mingling to the assault, like a flood of valour and fury.
But the flood was stemmed, and that fury curbed by the hedge of Scottish pikes that met them in the breach, and the Spaniards and Germans were rolled back on each other, until the front ranks were literally hurled headlong on the rear. In vain, by clubbed muskets, by hewing with swords, and by grasping with the bare hand, they strove to beat, to cut, or tear a passage through the soldiers of Lord Spynie. The finest chivalry of England, of Normandy, and Acquitaine, had failed, on fields of more than European renown, to force a passage through a rampart of Scottish pikes; and now, assuredly, that honour was not reserved for the Imperialists of the Duke of Friedland. Some, however, were torn out of Spynie's ranks, and slain or taken prisoner; among the former was the son of the Laird of Leys, first private gentleman of a company; and, among the latter, Sir John Hume of Aytoune, in the Merse. He was dragged by the throat and waist-belt into the midst of the enemy, by whom he was barbarously slashed and wounded.
Over the heads of Spynie's men, and closing up into their ranks, our Highland musketeers poured their bullets point-blank into the faces of the stormers; while our brass cannon, from an angle of the bastion, raked their column in flank. Here they slew many of our best men; and Lumsden, my lieutenant, Captain M'Donald, of the house of Keppoch, and nearly three hundred gallant clansmen, fell to rise no more. We shot down all the mounted officers, save those two who had been so conspicuous, one by his red plume, the other by his snow-white horse; and, during the lulls of the smoke and uproar, they were to be seen and heard encouraging their soldiers, by precept and example, to push on, and to die rather than flinch.
"That is Rupert-with-the-Red-plume!" I heard Sir Donald say; "and he on the white horse is the Duke of Friedland; for who but he would have the black buffalo's head of Mechlenburg on his saddle-cloth? Fifty Scottish pounds to the man who knocks them both on the head!"
But they seemed to bear charmed lives, and though innumerable shots were fired at them through openings in the smoke, they were never hit; and now, fortunately for us, at the very moment our ammunition was beginning to fail, the enemy began to waver; and at such a time, and on such a duty, to waver is but a prelude to flight. They gave way on all hands, and retired with precipitation round the right flank of the Frankenlake, leaving behind them a terrible scene of carnage and destruction.