"Yield—yield!" cried Phadrig in Gaëlic, "or I'll run a yard of my halbert into your haggis-bag!"
"Quartel, señor Valoroso!" exclaimed the Spaniard; but the prayer came too late; for by one blow of his Lochaber axe, Phadrig, who was not blessed with over much patience, sliced his head in two like a Swedish turnip, cutting him through bone and steel helmet to the neck.
The Imperialists now gave way from the gate of Kiel along the whole line of ramparts, and retired through the streets with great precipitation to the church, which they entered in confusion, and followed so closely by our soldiers, that many Highlanders entered with them, and were shot or taken. Save a hundred or so, who were killed as they retired through the streets, all reached the church, got in, barricadoed the doors, and from every part of the edifice opened a terrible fire upon us.
Montgomerie's Frenchmen assailed one flank, the king's Danish regiment another, and Ian led us to the assault of the great door; but for a time we failed to make any impression upon it. The night was bleak, dark, and exceedingly stormy; the wind shook our standards and rustled our lofty plumes, and we heard it (during the pauses of the musketry) howling through the louvre-boarded spire of the church, and the high gables of the old houses; but the pauses in the fusilade were few and far between. Through the windows and from behind the planks and benches with which they had barricaded them, four or five companies of Imperialists continued to fire upon us; and the bright red streaks of flame, as they burst forth incessantly above, below, and on every side, lighted up the quaint façade of the old church, the greater part of which was of wood. Every moment our bullets tore away large splinters. A company of Irishmen in the belfry made a terrible slaughter among my company, on whom they shot down in security without receiving a ball in return, for their position was too elevated for our muskets to reach them. Ian became greatly excited by the loss of so many of his soldiers and kinsmen.
"Count of Montgomerie!" he exclaimed; "let cannon be brought and the door blown in! My brave followers—the children of my father's people—shall not perish thus!"
"Dioul, my colonel!" added Kildon, whose company united its efforts with mine to burst open the door, before which the dead encumbered the steps three deep, and which resounded beneath our mingled blows like the head of a gigantic drum; "let us blow the d—d kirk up, and, by my father's hand, I will place the first stone of your cairn."
"May the ashes of these Spaniards be scattered on the waters!" added M'Alpine in the same forcible language, and staggering as a bullet grazed his helmet; "for, by the grey stone of M'Gregor! I believe they are the same men who so cruelly slew old Dunbar and five hundred of our gallant hearts at Bredenburg."
"Yea—after surrender, in cold blood," said Lumsdaine, my lieutenant, the sole survivor of that affair; "I know them by the fashion of their doublets—forward then—let us cut to pieces this kennel of blood-hounds!"
"Tullach Ard!" cried the Mackenzies of Kildon's company.
"Cairn na cuimhne!" added my men of Strathdee.