"Well, they conquered by the force of their discipline, and as that declined, so did their power; but to what profitable end, I say, teach the bairn all these havers about wars, battles, and bombshelling? Do you wish to make of him a tearing, swearing, tramping dragoon, such as we read of in the days of that atrocious Claverhouse?" "Not at all, dominie." "Then," asked Skaill, angrily, "what would ye make of him?" "A man, where you would make him a Molly." The dominie shook his head, and as he did so the bag of his wig shook pendulously behind him. "John Girvan, bairns should be taught early to delight, not in arts which conduce to the destruction of human life, but in such as lead to charity, mercy, benevolence, and humanity." "Quite right, dominie, and for utterly ignoring all these, I know a man of peace who had his lugs cropped off his head." "Cropped?" "Shaven clean off his head by a knife." "Barbarous! barbarous!" "But just, dominie--strictly just. Did you ever hear how our 28th, or North Gloucestershire, came to be called _the Slashers_?" "Sooth to say, John, I never heard o' them at all." "Well, pass the bottle, and I care na if I tell you. A company of ours was quartered with them in a town on the Canadian frontier. It was during the winter of '79, when the atmosphere was so cold that the hoar-frost on our sentries' greatcoats made them look for a' the world like figures round a bridecake; stiff half-and-half grog froze before you could drink it; the bugles froze with the buglers' breath; flesh came off if you touched a swordblade or musket barrel, and the air was full of glittering particles. We had to saw our ration beef in slices, and half roast our loaves before we could cut them. Men were found dead in the snow every day--stiff and frozen; in fact, there was no way of keeping ourselves warm, do what we might. I don't know how many degrees it was _below_ the freezing point, but the cold was awful, and it seemed as if the mercury was frozen too! "Amid the severity of that Canadian winter, the mayor of the town, a democratic and discontented ruffian, refused billets to the soldiers' wives, and the poor women and helpless children of the 28th nearly all perished in the streets; in the mornings they were found frozen like statues, or half-buried among the snow; but severely was the mayor punished, for one day as he sat at dinner the table was suddenly surrounded by a party of savages, in war-paint, with hunting shirts, fur cloaks, moccassins, and wampum belts. They whooped, yelled, brandished their tomahawks, and then dragging the mayor from the table, sliced off both his ears. After this they at once disappeared, and it was not known for some days that these pretended savages were soldiers of the 28th whose wives had perished through his inhumanity. It was for this that we first called them 'slashers,' a title which their bravery in the war fully confirmed."