Next morning the young grenadier appeared at the tent of Conti, with two diamond rings and a jewel of great value. "Monseigneur le Prince," said he, "the louis in your purse I presume you intended for me, and I have sent them to my mother, poor old woman! at Lillebonne; but _these_ I bring back to you, as having no claim to them." "My noble comrade," replied the prince, placing an epaulette on his left shoulder, "you have doubly deserved them by your integrity, which equals your bravery; they are yours, with this commission in the Regiment de Conti, which, in the name of King Louis, I have the power to bestow." "Bravo, prince, this is noble!" "Bravo! it equals anything in Scuderi!" exclaimed two officers, who were at breakfast with the prince. The first of these was Maurice Count Saxe, general of the cavalry; the second was the famous Victor Marquis de Mirabeau, the future political economist, who was then a captain in the French line. In twenty-four years this grenadier became a general officer and peer of France by the title of Comte de Montmorin; and in 1758, he commanded the French garrison in Ticonderoga, where he left nothing undone to render that post impregnable. Thus a desperate encounter was expected. Formed with the grenadiers in the reserve, the 42nd marched with muskets slung, and their thirteen pipers, led by Deors MacCrimmon their pipe-major, made the deep dark forests ring to that harsh but wild music, which speaks a language Scotsmen only feel; and the air they played was that old march, now so well known in Scotland as the "Black Watch;" and loudly it rang, rousing vast flocks of wild birds from the lakes and tarns, and scaring the Red men from their wigwams and camps in the dense forests of pine that covered all the then unbroken wilderness. The day was hot--the sun being 96° in the shade; the shrubs were all in blossom, and the wild plum and cherries grew in masses and clusters in the jungle, through which the heavily-laden columns of attack forced a passage towards Ticonderoga, leaving their artillery in the rear, as the officer commanding the engineers had reported, that without employing that arm, the works might be carried by storm. While the reflection of all Lucy might suffer, should he fall, cost poor White a severe pang, he was the first man who sent his name to the brigade-major, as a volunteer to lead the escalade. "But," thought he, "if successful, my promotion is insured; and if I miss death, I shall, at least, be one step nearer Lucy." Jack Oswald, who volunteered next, consoled himself by some trite quotation from Bossuet (he was always quoting French writers), that he had not a relation to regret in the world.