"Under arms, Lord love thee! didst thou ever read the history of Sister Margaret, which flowed from a head, that, though now old and somedele grey, has more sense and political intelligence than you find now-a-days in the whole synod? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble?—When she would have taken up a piece of broad-cloth in her vision, lo! it exploded like a great iron cannon; when she put out her hand to save a pirn, it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol. My own vision in Edinburgh has been something similar. I called to consult my lawyer; he was clothed in a dragoon's dress, belted and casqued, and about to mount a charger, which his writing-clerk (habited as a sharp-shooter) walked to and fro before his door. I went to scold my agent for having sent me to advise with a madman; he had stuck into his head the plume, which in more sober days he wielded between his fingers, and figured as an artillery officer. My mercer had his spontoon in his hand, as if he measured his cloth by that implement, instead of a legitimate yard. The, banker's clerk, who was directed to sum my cash-account, blundered it three times, being disordered by the recollection of his military tellings-off at the morning-drill. I was ill, and sent for a surgeon— He came—but valour so had fired his eye, And such a falchion glittered on his thigh, That, by the gods, with such a load of steel, I thought he came to murder,—not to heal. I had recourse to a physician, but he also was practising a more wholesale mode of slaughter than that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duck—I detest a drum like a quaker;—and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common, so that every volley and roll goes to my very heart." "Dear brother, dinna speak that gate o' the gentlemen volunteers—I am sure they have a most becoming uniform—Weel I wot they have been wet to the very skin twice last week—I met them marching in terribly doukit, an mony a sair hoast was amang them—And the trouble they take, I am sure it claims our gratitude." "And I am sure," said Miss M'Intyre, "that my uncle sent twenty guineas to help out their equipments." "It was to buy liquorice and sugar-candy," said the cynic, "to encourage the trade of the place, and to refresh the throats of the officers who had bawled themselves hoarse in the service of their country." "Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black-nebs by and by."