It was full time to put a stop to all such nonsense. The newspapers told us what it had done abroad; and what better could we expect from it at home? Weeds will not grow into flowers anywhere, and no man can handle tar without being defiled; the first of which comparisons is I daresay true, and the latter must be--for we read of it in Scripture. Well, as I was saying, it was a brave notion of the king to put the loyalty of his land to the test, that the daft folk might be dismayed, and that the clanjamphrey might be tumbled down before their betters, like windle-straes in a hurricane:--and so they were. Such a crowd that day, when the names of the volunteers came to be taken down! No house could have held them, even though many had not stepped forward who thought to have got themselves enrolled. Losh me! did they think the government was so far gone, as to take characters with deformed legs, and thrawn necks, and blind eyes, and hashie lips, and grey hairs on their pows? No, no, they were not put to such straits; though it showed that the right spirit was in the creatures, and that, though their bodies might be deformed, they had consciences to direct them, and souls to be saved like their neighbours. I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals on; and when I looked myself in the bit glass, just to think I was a sodger, who never in my life could thole the smell of powder, and had not fired anything but a penny cannon on a Fourth of June, when I was a haflins callant. I thought my throat would have been cut with the black corded stock; for, whenever I looked down, without thinking like, my chaff-blade played clank against it, with such a dunt that I mostly chacked my tongue off. And, as to the soaping of the hair, that beat cock-fighting. It was really fearsome; but I could scarcely keep from laughing when I glee'd round over my shoulder, and saw a glazed leather queue hanging for half an ell down the braid of my back, and a pickle horse-hair curling out like a rotten's tail at the far end of it. And then the worsted taissels on the shoulders--and the lead buttons--and the yellow facings,--oh, but it was grand! I sometimes fancied myself a general, and giving the word of command. Then the pipeclayed breeches--but that was a sore job; many a weary arm did they give me--beat-beating camstane into them. The pipeclaying of the breeches, I was saying, was the most fashious job, let alone courtship, that ever mortal man put his hand to. Indeed, there was no end to the rubbing, and scrubbing, and brushing, and fyling, and cleaning; for to the like of me, who was not well accustomed to the thing, the whitening was continually coming off and destroying my red coat or my black leggings. I had mostly forgot to speak of the birse for cleaning out the pan, and the piker for clearing the motion-hole. But time enough till we come to firing.