"Attacked!"--How breathlessly and with what protracted agony did she long for intelligence--for another letter or for the War-office lists! But days, weeks, months rolled on; the snow descended on the Highland mountains; the woods of Kinnoull were again leafless; again the broad Inches of Perth wore the white mantle of winter; the Tay was frozen hard as flint between its banks and between the piers of the old wooden bridge; there now came no mails from America; no letter reached her; and poor Emmy, though surrounded by admirers as of old, felt all the misery of that deferred hope which "maketh the heart sick." Meanwhile Louis, at the head of his company of Montgomery's Highlanders, accompanied the force of Brigadier Forbes, who, in September, despatched from Raystown Colonel Bouquet to a place called Loyal Henning, to reconnoitre the approach to Fort du Quesne. The colonel's force consisted of 2000 men; of these he despatched in advance 500 Provincials and 400 of Montgomery's regiment, under Major James Grant of Ballindalloch, whose second in command was Captain Charters. Despite the advice of the latter, Grant, a brave but reckless and imprudent officer, advanced boldly towards Fort du Quesne with all his pipes playing and drums beating, as if he was approaching a friendly town. Now the French officer who commanded in the fort was a determined fellow. He it was who had behaved with such heroism at the recent siege of Savannah, where he had been sergeant-major of Dillon's Regiment of the Irish Brigade in the service of King Louis. When the Comte d'Estaing madly proposed to take the fortress by a _coup-de-main_, M. le Comte Dillon, anxious to signalize his Irishmen, proposed a reward of a hundred guineas to the first grenadier who should plant a fascine in the fosse, which was swept by the whole fire of the garrison; but his purse was proffered in vain, for not an Irishman would advance. Confounded by this, Dillon was upbraiding them with cowardice, when the sergeant-major said-- "Monsieur le Comte, had you not held out a sum of money as an incentive, your grenadiers would one and all have rushed to the assault!" The count put his purse in his pocket. "Forward!" cried he--forward went the Irish grenadiers, and out of 194 who composed the company, 104 left their bodies in the breach. But to resume: the moment the soldiers of Grant were within range, the French cannon opened upon them, and under cover of this fire, the infantry made a furious sortie.