“Well, he has a son going in this affair; and old Tom, or Colonel Watson, as he is now very particular to be called, is down here with his wife and two daughters, to see the ensign off. I went to pay the old fellow a visit, Hodge; and found him, and the mother and sisters, all as busy as bees in getting young Tom's baggage ready for a march. There lay his whole equipment before my eyes, and I had a favourable occasion to examine it at my leisure.” “Which you did with all your might, or you're not the Joe Hight of the year '10,” said my grandfather, taking his turn with the ashes and the tobacco-box. Old Hight was now puffing away like a blacksmith who is striving to obtain a white heat, and it was some time before he could get out the proper reply to this half-assertion, half-interrogatory sort of remark. “You may be sure of that,” he at length ejaculated; when, certain of his light, he proceeded to tell the whole story, stopping occasionally to puff, lest he should lose the “vantage ground” he had just obtained. “What d'ye think of half-a-dozen strings of red onions, for one item in a subaltern's stores!” My grandfather grunted again, in a way that might very well pass for a laugh. “You're certain they were red, Joey?” he finally asked. “As red as his regimentals. Then there was a jug, filled with molasses, that is as big as yonder demijohn;” glancing at the vessel which contained his own private stores. “But I should have thought nothing of these, a large empty sack attracting much of my attention. I could not imagine what young Tom could want of such a sack; but, on broaching the subject to the Major, he very frankly gave me to understand that Louisbourg was thought to be a rich town, and there was no telling what luck, or Providence--yes, by George!--he called it _Providence!_--might throw in his son Tommy's way. Now that the sack was empty, and had an easy time of it, the girls would put his bible and hymn-book in it, as a place where the young man would be likely to look for them. I dare say, Hodge, you never had either bible or hymn-book, in any of your numerous campaigns?” “No, nor a plunder-sack, nor a molasses-jug, nor strings of red onions,” growled my grandfather in reply. How well I remember that evening! A vast deal of colonial prejudice and neighbourly antipathy made themselves apparent in the conversation of the two veterans; who seemed to entertain a strange sort of contemptuous respect for their fellow-subjects of New England; who, in their turn, I make not the smallest doubt, paid them off in kind--with all the superciliousness and reproach, and with many grains less of the respect.