"The wretch was rightly served," said the dominie; "and truly did our old friend Rob write of 'man's inhumanity to man making countless thousands mourn.'" "Aye, dominie, that poem is as gude as any sermon that ever was written!" exclaimed the quartermaster. "But to return to Quentin, it is wi' such barbarous stories as that you have told me you fill the bairn's head, John, at an age when his mind should be impressed wi' ideas of charity and mercy. How noble it was of the great Constantine, to employ his son, as soon as he could write, in signing pardons and granting boons. Under favour, John, the pen is a nobler instrument than the sword." "Then how about Wight Wallace and the Bruce of Carrick, dominie, eh? Had they never learned to handle aught but a goosequill, where would our auld mother Scotland have been to-day; so shut pans, ye auld gomeril, and brew your toddy." The dominie chuckled and said, "I have worn a red coat mysel', quartermaster, for when Thurot was off the west coast, I was a year in the volunteers under the Earl o' Glencairn." "The best year of your life, dominie!" "I had a sword, a musket and a bayonet. 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.'" "And how did you feel when you saw the beacons blazing on the Carrick hills, and heard the drums dinging before you, on the night o' the _false alarm_?" asked the old soldier with a sly smile. "I shouted like Julian when sent to war, 'Oh Plato! Plato! what a task for a philosopher.'" "The deevil you did!" exclaimed Girvan, puffing vigorously; "and what then?" "Glencairn fined me twenty merks Scots, for speaking in the ranks." "Fined--I'd have flogged you at the drumhead wi' the cat-o'-nine-tails." "The Romans used a vine sapling, as we find in Juvenal, and----" "Bother those Romans, whoever they were, if they really ever existed at all! You are ever and aye stuffing Quentin wi' these Romans and their sayings and doings." "Indubitably, and I would that I could teach him all that was ever known to the seven wise men o' Greece." "And who were they?" "Bias, Pittacus, Solon, Chilo, Periander, Cleobulus, and Thales," replied the dominie with singular volubility; "all men who flourished before the Christian era." "Powder and pipeclay! Egad, I'm glad they don't flourish now. Their names sound just like those of a regiment of niggers we had at the siege of Boston. Pardon, dominie,--but I must have my joke. I wish I could teach Quentin something of fortification," he added thoughtfully, as he watched the pale smoke from his pipe curling up towards the ceiling. "It is an art almost coeval wi' man," responded the other approvingly. "True," rejoined the quartermaster; "for did not Cain build a city with a wall round it on Mount Libuan, and call it after his son Enoch?"