hand in the picture, and well, I promise you, did he know how to
use it when he was in the body. Well, it was his grandson, John of
Lurg, who, some how or other, smelt us out in the place where we then
were in Fife; and as he was at that time raising men for a company,
you may well believe that his joy was not small when he thus came,
like a setting dog, to a dead point on such a covey of stout young
Hillantmen in a quarry. He soon contrived to get about us altogether,
and with a hantel of fair words, and mony a bonny speech about our
Hillant hills--Hillant glens--Hillant waters--Hillant lasses--and,
what was more to his purpose at the time, about Hillant deeds of
arms--all of which, observe ye, gentlemen, were made over a reeking
bowl of punch that you might have swum in, he very soon succeeded in
stirring up the fire of military ambition within our souls, until
he ultimately so inflamed us, that, with all the ease in life, he
quickly converted us, who were nothing unwilling, from hard-working
quarriers, into gentlemen sodgers, by enlisting us, all in a bunch,
into the ninety-seventh regiment, or Inverness Highlanders.
I need not tell you all the outs-and-ins of adventures that befel me
while I was in the ninety-seventh, in which corps I remained about
two years and a half. But I may mention to you, that I was serving
with it when I got my first wound--I mean this bit crack here,
gentlemen--(and he pulled up his trews, and shewed his right leg
immediately below the knee, which was shrunken up to half the thickness
of the other, from having had the greater part of the muscles utterly
destroyed.)--Some way or another, they took it into their heads to
put us on board of the Orion, one of the ships of Lord Bridport's
squadron, to act as marines--an odd sort of duty truly for Hillantmen,
and one, I'll assure you, that we by no means liked over much, seeing
that, on board of a ship, we were obliged to stand to be peppered
at like brancher crows on a tree, without the power of having our
will out against the villains, by charging them with the baggonet,
as we should have done had we been opposed to them on dry land; and,
indeed, we soon felt the frost of this, when we came to be engaged
in the action fought with the French fleet on the 23d of June 1795.
On that day, the French had twelve line-of-battle ships, besides a
number of frigates and other smaller vessels. From all their manoeuvres
it was very clear that they did not wish to face us--for they stole
off in a very dignified manner, never looking over their shoulders all
the time, as they were fain to have made us believe that they never
saw us at all, or that we were quite beneath their notice. But it
was no time for us to stand upon ceremony.--We after them full sail,
and we soon made them condescend to attend to us. In spite of all
they could do we brought them to action in L'Orient Bay. There we
lethered them handsomely, and we very speedily took from them three
great ships, the Alexander, the Formidable, and the Tigger; and,
if it had not been for the batteries on shore, there was no doubt
that we should have had every keel of them. Well, you see, gentlemen,
a large splinter of oak--rent away from the ship's side by a cannon
shot--took me just below the knee, and demolished the shape of my leg
in the ugly fashion I showed you this moment. But I was young then,
and hearty, and no very easily daunted or cast down, so that I was
soon out of the doctor's list, and on duty again.
But what was far worse than all the wounds that my body could have
suffered, though it had been shot and drilled through and through like
a riddle, was that which befel me at Hilsea barracks after we returned
to Britain. You know very well, gentlemen, that the Bible says, "a
wounded speerit who can bear?" Now, you may guess what were the wounds
of my speerit, and, consequently, what were my sufferings, when I and
some of my Hillant comrades were told, that we were to be immediately
drafted into the ninth, or East Norfolk--an English regiment!
It was with sore hearts, and no little indignation, that we heard of
the odious order for this cruel separation from our beloved native
regiment--a corps in which we had all been like bairns of the same
family in the bosom of our common mother--where our officers had
been more like elder brothers to us than superiors--cracking with us,
at times, in Gaelic, over all our old Hillant stories--and enjoying,
as much as we did, our Hillant songs and Hillant dances--and many of
them, having known sundry individuals among us when at home in boyhood,
were as familiar and easy with us, at any ordinary bye-hour, as you,
gentlemen, are pleased to be with me at this precious moment--and
yet the di'el ae bit was our discipline any the waur o' that,
whatever his Grace the gallant Duke of Wellington may say against
such a system--and, for aught I know, he may be right enough as to
the English, who have not been brought up as we were in the allowance
of such liberties,--but, as for us, when the parade hour came, or the
time for duty, all such familiarities ceased, and every one filled his
own place, like the wheel of a watch, to be turned at the will of him
who was above him.--You may easily conceive, then, that banishment,
or even death itself, would have been better to us than the being
thus torn from such a regiment for the express purpose of being
joined to a corps composed of Englishmen, with whom we could neither
crack of our homes, nor of our Hillant hills, nor sing Gaelic songs,
nor tell auncient stories, nor speak about Ossian, nor hear the pipes
play, nor dance the Hillant-fling.--And then, instead of the kind and
brotherly correction of our Hillant officers, the very slightest sound
of whose word of reproof brought the blush of shame into our cheeks,
and was as effectual a punishment to us as if we had been brought
to the halberts--think what it was to us to be snubbed by some cross
tempered upsetting Sassenach, who could know nothing of our nation's
temper or disposition, and who might perhaps, of a morning, order
our backs to be scored, with as little remorse as he would order a
beef-steak to be brandered for his breakfast.--Oh it was a terrible
change!--Our very speerits were just altogether broken at the very
thought of it, and we actually ceased to be the same men.
But, gentlemen, if this was the effect produced on our minds by
the mere anticipation of this most bitter change in our fate, what
think ye was the misery of body which we sustained, and, especially,
what think ye was my misery, when I, who never wore aught else but a
kilt from the day I was born till that accursed moment, was crammed,
in spite of all I could say or do to the contrary, hip and thigh, into
a pair of tight regimental small-clothes!--Aye, you may laugh indeed
gentlemen--but if anybody was to tie your legs together with birken
woodies, as they have tied the fore-legs of yon pouny that you see
feeding yonder in the bit meadow at the foot of the brae, and if you
were then to be bidden to climb up the steepest face of Ben-Machduie,
you could not be more helpless, or more ill at ease than I was. As
for drilling, you might as well have set up a man in a sack to march.
"Step out!" cried they eternally--"why the devil don't you step out?"
But it was just altogether ridiculous to cry out any such thing to
me, for fint a step could I take at all, unless they had letten me
step out of my breeks.--I was in perfect torture with them.--The
very circulation of my blood was stopped--my nether man was rendered
entirely numb and powerless. Nay, had I been built up mid man into
a brick-wall I might have stepped out just as well.
Now, I would have you to understand, gentlemen, that especially and
above all things, the confounded articles grippit and pinched me most
desperately over the henches. The joints of my henches were so bound
together in their very sockets by their pressure as to be rendered
altogether useless; and the torture I endured in these quarters became
so great, that I felt I could bear it no longer. I sat down, therefore,
to hold a consultation with myself what was best to be done; and, after
as cool and calm a consideration of my lamentable case as my extreme
state of misery would allow, I came, in my own private council of war,
to the determination, that I had only three things to choose from, and
these were,--to desert--to cut my throat--or to cut my breeches; and,
after having much and duly weighed these different evil alternatives,
I finally resolved to adopt the last of them.
Having come to this resolution, I then began, like a skilful engineer,
narrowly to examine the horrid instruments of my sufferings, in order
to ascertain how and where I could most easily make a breach in them,
and one that was most likely to give the greatest ease to myself. A
little farther thought and observation soon convinced me, that, as
the parts most grievously afflicted, were those which your masters of
fortification would have called the sailliant angles of my henches to
right and left, and especially as on these hinged much of the motion
of the whole man, it was clear that the proposed attempt to work myself
relief should be first tried in those two points. I lost not a moment,
therefore, in carrying my plan into execution. I immediately borrowed
a pair of shears from a sodger's wife; and, sitting down regularly
before my breeches, like an experienced general about to besiege a
fortress, I fairly attacked the two sailliant angles of the bastion,
and carried them by storm; and having, with the greatest nicety,
cut out a round piece of the cloth of three or four inches in width,
directly over each hip-joint, I ventured to thrust my limbs within
the very garrison of my breeches; and really, gentlemen, the ease I
obtained in consequence of this bold operation is not to be described.
So innocent was I, and so utterly unconscious of even a suspicion
that I had done any thing wrong, that when the drum beat, I went off
to the private parade of the company I had been attached to, with
my heart almost as much eased as my henches; nay, it was absolutely
bounding with benevolence, and brimful with the earnest desire and
intention of spreading the blessed discovery I had made, and making
it widely known among my Hillant comrades, so that all of them who
might be in the same state of misery as I had been, might forthwith
proceed to benefit themselves, as I had done, by the bright discovery
I had made. Rejoicing in my ease, therefore, I strode across the
barrack-square, with a step so much wider and grander than any I
had lately been able to use, that I felt a pride in the excellence
of my invention which I cannot possibly describe. I halted for a
moment--stretched out, first my right leg, and then my left, just as
I have seen a fowl do upon its perch--and then, clapping my hand upon
the new made hole on either side of me, I chuckled for joy.
"Hah!" cried I; "breeches do they call you? By my faith, then, but I
have made you more like your name by these well-imagined breaches of
my own contrivance, which I have so ingeniously opened through your
accursed sides."
I then bent myself down, and made a spring into the air; after which,
being quite satisfied that a paring or two more off the edges of the
round holes would make all nearly right, I walked on with an air of
dignified self-satisfaction that was not to be mistaken. But I had not
come within ten yards of the spot where the company was falling in,
when I heard the serjeant exclaim,--
"My heyes! look at that ere Ighland savage! I'm damned if he arn't
been cutting big oles in his Majesty's rigimental breeches!"
A loud horse-laugh burst out from among the men, and the serjeant
joined heartily in it. But it was no laughing matter to me; I was
cut to the soul. All our horrible anticipations of English officers,
halberds, and cat-o'-nine-tails, came smack upon me at once. I was
overwhelmed--I grew dizzy--and, before I had well recovered myself,
I was marched off to the guard-house under the charge of a corporal
and a file of men, and a written crime was given in against me in
these terms.
"Privut Archbauld Stewart of Captin Ketley's compnay, confined by order
of Sargunt Nevett, for aving cut two big oles in the ipps of a pair of
riggimental britches belonghing too is Magesty King George the Third."
Well, gentlemen, there was I left in the guard-house for some hours
a prisoner. But if I was confined in one way, I took good care to put
myself very much at my ease in another; for I pulled off my tormentors
altogether, and sat quite coolly and comfortably without them. But
I was sore enough at heart, for all that; for, independent of the
fearful prospect of the unrelenting punishment that awaited me, the
disgrace of confinement to which I had thus, for the first time in
my life, been subjected, and that so unjustly, stung me to the very
heart. For a good hour or more I could do nothing but grind my teeth
with absolute vexation and rage; but at length I began to gather some
command of myself, and to think of the necessity of making up my mind
as to what was to be done. I recalled the three evil alternatives,
from which I had already made that which had now proved to be so
unfortunate a selection, and as that had so miserably failed me, I
continued for sometime swinging backwards and forwards, like a bairn
in a shuggy-shue, [2] between the two that yet remained to be tried,
and I had not yet made up my mind on the subject, when the serjeant
appeared, and ordered me to put on my breeches and follow him. I obeyed
like a man who gets up from his straw to go out and be hanged. But
there was one great difference between such a poor wretch and me,
very much in his favour, for as his fetters in such a case are taken
off, I was on the contrary condemned to buckle on mine.
I did follow the serjeant as he bade me, but notwithstanding the
outlets I had made in the breeches for the joints of my hench bones,
and the comparative ease I had thereby formerly enjoyed, yet the few
hours I had had in the guardhouse of a freedom of limb resembling that
which I was wont to enjoy in my old kilt, made me feel so strange upon
thus recommitting my joints to the thraldom of the accursed garments,
that I went shaughling along after him, as if they had undergone no
improvement at all. He took me directly to Captain Ketley's quarters,
and whilst I was on my way thither, I was compelled to bring my doubts
to a hasty conclusion, and so I resolved that of the two plans now
only remaining for me to choose from, desertion should be first tried,
seeing that if it should fail me, I might cut my throat afterwards, for
that if I should cut my throat first, I should not afterwards find it
an easy matter to desert. I had no more time than just enough to settle
this point with myself, when the serjeant rapped at our captain's door.
"Come in!" cried Captain Ketley, in what sounded in my ear like a
tremendous voice.
"Privut Archbauld Stewart and his cut breeches, your honour!" cried
the serjeant, ushering me without ceremony into the middle of the room.
There I stood with my head up, and in the military attitude of
attention, the which, as you will naturally observe, gentlemen, was,
of all others, out of all sight the most convenient and best chosen
attitude for me at the time; for, as you will understand, the palms of
my two hands were thus exactly applied to the two holes I had made,
though the size of the holes themselves was so great that I could by
no means entirely cover them. But if I could have done so, this well
conceived manoeuvre of mine would have been of no avail.
"Stand at ease!" cried the serjeant, giving me at the same time a
smart tap on the back with his rattan cane.
"Serjeant," said I impatiently, "you know very well that it's not
possible for me to stand at ease in thir fashious breeks of mine."
I saw that Captain Ketley had a hard task of it to keep his gravity.
"What is this which has been reported to me of you, sir?" demanded he
with as stern a look as he could possibly assume; "how comes it that
you have taken upon you to destroy a pair of new regimental breeches
in that manner?"
"Captain," said I, now quite brought to bay, and making up my mind
to go through with it, whatever the consequences might be; "Captain,
if your honor will but hear me, I will speak."
"Speak on then," said Captain Ketley, "provided you say nothing that
as an officer I may not listen to. Serjeant Nevett, you may retire."
"You need not fear that I shall offend you, Captain Ketley," said I,
"I have been over long accustomed to speak to officers to forget the
respect and duty I owe to them as a sodger, and since your honour is
so kind, I will be as short as I can. I enlisted, you see, to serve in
the Inverness Highlanders, and in so doing I covenanted to fight in
company with my own countrymen, and in the freedom of a kilt. Now,
against all bargain--against all manner of justice--against my
will--and against the very nature of a Hillantman, I have been thrust,
first into this English regiment, and then into this pair of English
small clothes--well may they be so called, I'm sure. Captain Ketley,
all this is most unreasonable. You might as well put a deer of the
mountains into a breachame, and expect to plough the land with him,
as to put a Hillantman into such cruel harness as thir things, with the
hope that he can do his work in them; and, although I am as wishful as
any man that serves King George can be, to spend the last drop of my
blood, as some of it has flowed already in the cause of his Majesty,
God bless him! and for our common country, yet I will just tell your
honour plainly and honestly--though with all manner of respect--that
I will not stay in this Ninth Regiment to be kept in the eternal
torture of thir breeks, though I should see the men drawn out to
shoot me for trying to desert--for death itself is desirable rather
than that I should longer endure such misery as this. So I say again,
that although I am quite willing to serve King George in any regiment
he may be pleased to put me into that wears the kilt, yet I will take
the first moment I can catch, to run away from such disgraceful and
heartbreaking bondage as this to which I am now subjected."
"No, no, my good fellow," said Captain Ketley, who had all this time
had his own share of trouble in keeping himself from laughing, and
who now gave way and laughed outright; "you must not run away from
us, Archy. We cannot afford to lose so good a man. We must do all we
can to put you at your ease with us. Your complaints are certainly
not altogether unreasonable. But you should not have cut holes in
your breeches--you should have come and stated your grievances to
me. Remember in future, that you will always find me ready to listen
to any well-founded complaint you may have to make. Meanwhile,--see
here," said he, taking a pair of old loose trowsers out of his chest,
and tossing them to me,--"wear these for a few days, till your limbs
get somewhat accustomed to the thraldom of small clothes, and until
we can get you fitted with a better and easier pair of your own. I
shall see about your immediate release from confinement, and that
you and your Highland comrades be excused from duty until you are
more at home in your new clothing. If you behave yourself well,
you shall always find a friend in me."
"God bless your honour!" cried I, with a joyful and grateful heart,
and, if you will believe me, gentlemen, almost with the tears in my
eyes; "your honour has spoken to me just like one of our own kind
Hillant officers of the Ninety-seventh. I'll go all the world over
with you, though my breeks were of iron!"
Well, gentlemen, Captain Ketley was as good as his word--he was a
kind and steady friend to me as long as he lived. He inquired of me
whether I could read and write; and, finding that I could do both--aye,
and spell too--and that somewhat better, as I reckon, than Serjeant
Nevett,--and, moreover, that I was not a bad hand at counting,--he got
me made a corporal in less than a fortnight, and, very soon after that,
a serjeant. But, woe's me! a few months had hardly passed away when
Captain Ketley died. Many were the salt tears I shed over his grave,
after we had given him our parting vollies, and no wonder, for he was
one of the best friends I ever had in my life. I cannot think of him,
even yet, without regret. Willingly would I have given my life for
his at any time. But what is this miserable world, gentlemen, but a
valley of sorrow?
Well, I got fond enough, after all, of the Holy Boys, as the old
Ninth lads were called.
Clifford (interrupting.)--How did they get that name, Archy?
Serjeant.--Oh, I'll tell you that, sir.--You see, when they came from
the West Indies, as a skeleton regiment, they were made up again with
growing boys. Colonel Campbell of Blythswood tried to do them some
good by getting them schoolmasters and Bibles. But the young rogues
had been ill nurtured in the parent nest, and they used to barter their
Bibles for gin and gingerbread. The Duke of York used to say of them,
that they were every thing that was bad but bad sodgers--ha! ha! ha!
And now, gentlemen, I believe I have little more to tell you about
myself, except that I got my jaw broken in two places by a musket
ball in Holland, on the 19th of September 1799. See what a queer kind
of a mouth it has made me in the inside here. You see I had been out
superintending the working party in the redoubts, and I had returned,
tired as a dog, to the barn where the light company were quartered,
and had just laid my head on my wife's knee to take a nap--for I
was married by this time--when a terrible thumping came to the door,
and Corporal Parrot ran to see who was there. Now, it happened that
one of our serjeants was sick, and the other had been killed.--It
was Adjutant Orchard who knocked so loud.
"Where is Serjeant Stewart?" demanded he, in a terrible hurry, the
moment he entered the place.
"Can't I do instead of him?" replied Corporal Parrot; "for he is just
new out of the trenches."
"No!" replied the Adjutant; "if he was new out of hell, I must have
him directly."
"What's ado, sir?" demanded I, jumping up.
"You know as much as I do," replied the Adjutant; "but, depend upon
it, we are not wanted to build churches. Get you out the light bobs
as fast as you can."
Well, I hurried about and got out the light company with as little
delay as possible; and no very easy matter it was to get hold of the
poor fellows, knocked up as they were. Some of them I actually pulled
out of hay stacks by the legs, as you would pull out periwinkles from
their shells. The troops marched fifteen miles without a halt. We found
the French and Russians hard at it, blazing away so that we could see
the very straws at our feet as we marched over the sand. The balls
came whistling about us like hail as we advanced. First came one,
and knocked away the hilt of my sword; then came another, and cracked
off the iron head of my halberd.
"If you go on at this rate, you villains," said I, "you'll disarm
us altogether."
Then smack came another, whack through my canteen, and spilt all
my brandy.
"Ye rascals!" said I, trying at the same time to save as much of it
as I could in my mouth, "that is most uncivil. Ye are no gentlemen,
ye scoundrels, to spill a poor fellow's drop of comfort in this way."
By and bye, half-a-dozen of balls or so went through the blanket I
carried on my shoulders.
"By my faith," said I, "it's time now that I should return you my
compliments for all your civilities, you vagabonds."
I stooped to take a musket from a dead Russian for my own defence. The
piece was a rifle, and it was yet warm in his hand from the last
discharge.
"By your leave, my poor fellow," said I, "I'll borrow your firelock
for a shot or two, seeing that you have no farther use for it at this
present time."