Legends of the Black Watch; or, Forty-second HighlandersGrant, James
History
Legends of the Black Watch; or, Forty-second Highlanders
Grant, James
Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 42nd -- History -- Anecdotes
The terms were soon drawn up and signed by the staff officers of both
forces; by Munro in the name of the British Commander-in-Chief, and
by Montcalm in the name of the Marquis de Vaudreuil,
Governor-General, and Lieutenant-General of New France; and after
ably concluding this negotiation, so important for his comrades,
MacGillivray returned to the fort just as the red round moon began to
rise like a bloody targe above the eastern skirts of the forest, and
to tinge with its quivering rays the placid waters of Lake George.
The first who received him at the gate was his "dear wee Mary," as he
called her, trembling and in tears for his safety. During the whole
time of his visit to the camp of Montcalm, the yelling and whooping
of the Indians had filled the fort and the woods with horrid sounds.
The next day passed before Munro had all prepared to leave the
shattered ramparts he had defended so well.
It was on a gorgeous August evening when his war-worn and weary
garrison paraded, prior to their final departure. The western
clouds, as they floated across the sky, were tinged with violet and
saffron hues. The forest and the grass wore their most brilliant
green, and Lake George its deepest blue. The large golden
butter-cups that spotted all the verdant glacis of the ramparts,
within which so many brave men were lying stark and stiffened in
their blood, and the bright-coloured wildflowers that grew amid the
waters of the fosse and by the margin of the lake which filled it,
were unclosing their petals, to catch the coming dew, and wore their
gayest tints.
The whole aspect of the scenery, and of the soft balmy evening, were
little in accordance with the horrors that were passed, and those
which were soon to ensue!
Already the grenadiers of Montcalm, with all the formality of
friends, had received the gates and various posts from the guards of
the Royal Americans; the white banner of France, under a royal
salute, had replaced the Union Jack, and at that moment sharply beat
the drums, as the garrison began to march out, with their _unloaded_
muskets slung and their colours cased--the Royal Americans, Parker's
Foot, and the little band of our old friends, the Black Watch (now
less by sixteen men than on the day of their arrival), with the piper
and MacGillivray at their head, defiling from the fort in close
column of subdivisions, while the French escort was under arms to
receive them in line by a general salute, with drummers beating on
the flanks.
A faint cheer was heard within the fort. It came from the log huts
where the wounded lay. They, poor fellows! were left to the care of
the enemy, together with the unburied bodies of those who would never
hear a sound again until the last trumpet shakes the earth with its
peal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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