The long dread of invasion from France, political and religious rancour, with years of continued victory by sea and land--the glories and the fall of Nelson and Abercrombie, the brilliant but terrible career of Napoleon following close on the atrocities of the French Revolution--all conspired to fill honest Mr. Bull's heart with a furore for military fame; he ceased to smoke the pipe of peace, and the worthy man's funny red coat and warlike pigtail were never off. Gillray's coloured caricatures of French soldiers in cocked hats and long blue coats, and of their "Corsican tyrant," in every ridiculous and degrading situation that art could conceive or malevolence inspire, filled every print-shop; and the press, such as it was, groaned alternately under puffs of self-glorification and scurrilous abuse of France and its emperor, with a systematic expression of true British contempt for anything foreign and continental. Thus the whole country swarmed with troops of every arm, and all Britain was a species of garrison, from London to Lerwick, and from Banff to Bristol. They had been some hours on the march before Quentin thought of obtaining a very requisite piece of information--to wit, their destination, when he was informed by Captain Warriston that the three recruiting parties were to embark at Leith on board an armed smack or letter-of-marque, for Colchester barracks in England, where the three Scottish regiments were stationed. "After I travel so far," said Quentin, "I do sincerely hope the commanding officer will approve of me." "Rest assured that he will," replied Warriston, confidently; "he is a plain, sometimes rough old soldier, but he knows me well." "Who is colonel of the regiment?" "Lieutenant-General Lord Elphinstone is our colonel," said Monkton; "and our lieutenant-colonel being aged--an old Minden officer, indeed--has permission to sell out. Jack Middleton, the major, is in command at present, and as he is too poor to purchase, he is revenging himself upon the regiment." "How?" asked Quentin, with surprise. "Though our corps is a crack one (what corps is not so in its own estimation?) he harangues us daily on the bad discipline and disorder in which his predecessor has left us; so all have gone to school again, from the oldest captain down to the youngest fifer." "Indeed," said the bewildered volunteer; "that is very hard!"