Now came the Scots, under Kennedy. A gallant sight it was to see them advance, shoulder to shoulder — Scots of the Marches and the Lennox, Fife, Argyll, and the Isles, all gentlemen born.
‘Come on!’ cried Randal Rutherford. ‘Come on, men of the Marches, Scotts of the Forest, Elliots, Rutherfords, Armstrongs, and deem that, wheresoever a Southron slinks behind a stone, there is Carlisle wall!’
The Rough Clan roared ‘Bellenden!’ the Buchanans cried ‘Clare Innis,’ a rag of a hairy Highlander from the Lennox blew a wild skirl on the war-pipes, and hearing the Border slogan shouted in a strange country, nom Dieu! my blood burned, as that of any Scotsman would. Contrary to the Maid’s desire, for she had noted that I was wan and weary, and had commanded me to bide in cover, I cried ‘A Leslie! a Leslie!’ and went forward with my own folk, sword in hand and buckler lifted.
Beside good Randal Rutherford I ran, and we both leaped together into the ditch. There was a forest of ladders set against the wall, and I had my foot on a rung, when the Maid ran up and cried, ‘Nom Dieu what make you here? Let me lead my Scots’; and so, pennon and axe in her left hand, she lightly leaped on the ladder, and arrows ringing on her mail, and a great stone glancing harmless from her salade, she so climbed that my lady’s face on the pennon above her looked down into the English keep.
Andrew Lang, A Monk of Fife.
