In an earlier article I have tried to describe the “Old Sergeant” of my native parish. In a neighbouring glen which formed another parish of our local presbytery, there dwelt during my boyhood another veteran of the grand old type, that stout ex-warrior, Sergeant Davie Russell. I lived a good deal from time to time with the minister’s family of the parish in which the sergeant dwelt, and to the elderhood of which it was his pride to belong; and the manse boys of Glenvorlich used often to take me with them to visit the still stalwart veteran in his comfortable cottage under the shadow of the great mountain with the twin wens on its summit. The Sabbath evening was the time when he was best pleased to see us; and for the sake of the interesting stories which were sure to follow, we were content to endure a cross-examination in the toughest problems of the Shorter Catechism, and listen to a dissertation on the faulty tactics of Amasa, the captain of the host of Absalom, who, the sergeant contended, would not have suffered so severe a defeat if he had posted his troops out in the open to encounter the onslaught of Joab instead of taking up a position in the heart of the wood of Ephraim. On Sundays Sergeant Davie Russell always wore his pensioner’s blue coat with the red facings, the Waterloo Medal hanging by the faded crimson ribbon on its left breast, and the empty sleeve tacked to the right lapel of it. It was in the memorable battle which ended Napoleon’s career that he had lost his right arm, and ever since he had enjoyed his sergeant’s pension, with a trifle extra for his wound. Forty years of peace-time had no whit dulled his recollection of the old fighting days, and we boys hung on the old soldier’s lips as he told us stories of his battles. Wellington was his hero. “His soul was as a sword, to leap at his accustomed leader’s word”; to finish the quotation, “he knew no other lord.”