“No! I may die—must die; but it shall be in front of my troop, or in the middle of the breach. Yet how I long to escape this doom! I have won enough of glory; I despise pillage and wealth; but I feel my very heartstrings shrink from the now terrible idea of final dissolution. Oh! that the fatal hour were past, or that I had still my former eagerness to die! Keppel, if I dared, I would to-day own myself a coward.”
“Come with me,” said Keppel, “to my quarters. The night air has made you aguish. The cold fit will yield to a cup of as generous Rhine wine as ever was drunk on the banks of the Sambre.” Monteith consented, and the two moved off to partake of the stimulating and substantial comforts of a soldier’s breakfast in the Netherlands.
It was between one and two in the afternoon. An unusual stillness reigned in the lines of the besiegers. The garrison remained equally silent, as watching in deep suspense on what point the storm portended by this terrible calm would burst. A single piece of artillery was discharged. Instantly a body of grenadiers rushed from the intrenchments, struggled over masses of ruins, and mounted the breach. The shock was dreadful. Man strove with man, and blow succeeded to blow, with fierce and breathless energy. The English reached the summit, but were almost immediately beaten back, leaving numbers of their bravest grovelling among the blackened fragments. Their leader, Lord Cutts, had himself received a dangerous wound in the head; but disregarding it, he selected two hundred men from Mackay’s regiment, and putting them under the command of Lieutenants Cockle and Monteith, sent them to restore the fortunes of the assault. Their charge was irresistible. Led on by Monteith, who displayed a wild and frantic desperation, rather than bravery, they broke through all impediments, drove the French from the covered way, seized on one of the batteries, and turned the cannon against the enemy. To enable them to maintain this advantage, they were reinforced by parties from other divisions. Keppel, advancing in one of those parties, discovered the mangled form of his friend Monteith, lying on heaps of the enemy on the very summit of the captured battery. He attempted to raise the seemingly lifeless body. Monteith opened his eyes,—“Save me!” he cried; “save me! I will not die! I dare not—I must not die!”
It were too horrid to specify the ghastly nature of the mortal wounds which had torn and disfigured his frame. To live was impossible. Yet Keppel strove to render him some assistance, were it but to soothe his parting spirit. Again he opened his glazing eyes,—“I will resist thee to the last!” he cried, in a raving delirium. “I killed him but in the discharge of my duty. What worse was I than others? Poor consolation now! The doom—the doom! I cannot—dare not—must not—will not die!” And while the vain words were gurgling in his throat, his head sunk back on the body of a slaughtered foe, and his unwilling spirit forsook his shattered body.—Edinburgh Literary Journal.
THE LADY OF WARISTOUN.
The estate of Waristoun, near Edinburgh, now partly covered by the extended streets of the metropolis on its northern side, is remarkable in local history for having belonged to a gentleman, who in the year 1600, was cruelly murdered at the instigation of his wife. This unfortunate lady, whose name was Jean Livingstone, was descended from a respectable ancestry, being the daughter of Livingstone, the laird of Dunipace, in Stirlingshire, and at an early age was married to John Kincaid, the laird of Waristoun, who, it is believed, was considerably more advanced in years than herself. It is probable that this disparity of age laid the foundation of much domestic strife, and led to the tragical event now to be noticed. The ill-fated marriage and its results form the subject of an old Scottish ballad, in which the proximate cause of the murder is said to have been a quarrel at the dinner-table:
It was at dinner as they sat,
And when they drank the wine,
How happy were the laird and lady
Of bonny Waristoun!