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'I can bring you that very number!' said I, rising and seizing my bonnet.

Nay, not so fast,' said the colonel, laughing, and filling my glass again. 'Will they all pass the

doctor's examination.'

'They are the flower of the district-strong, hardy, and athletic men,' I replied, as the wine mounted into my head; 'men inured to a life of poverty and toil; men who with no other covering than their kilt and plaid have remained upon the frozen heather and in the open air for weeks together, to stalk the wild red deer; men who with a single bullet will kill a hawk or eagle in full flight, or bring the most furious stag to bay-ay and slay it too, by one stroke of a skene-dhu or a clubbed rifle!'

'Bravo! this is the stuff to make soldiers of! Instead of five and twenty, I wish you had five hundred such, cho laidir Re Cuchullin-as strong as the Fingalian. You see, my lad, I don't forget my Gaelic.'

'The day will never come again, when five hundred such men will march from the Braes of Loch Ora, colonel.'

He invited me to dine that day at the mess, where the splendor of the plate, the richness of the Highland uniforms, the various wines, the number and delicacy of the dishes, with the kindness and frank good-fellowship of the officers, charmed and dazzled me; and as they were all passionately fond of sporting, shooting, and deer-stalking, topics in which I was quite at home, I conversed about them with an ease, energy, and confidence which-when I forgot the pink champagne-certainly surprised myself.

Anxious to have his battalion made up without delay, the colonel had already written to the Horse Guards about me: bounties were high, and men were scarce; my twenty-five volunteers were ready and

willing, and an answer was expected from the General Commanding-in-Chief within eight days.

The night was far advanced before I left the castle. Full of new thoughts, new hopes, and new life, my whole horizon seemed to have become suddenly cloudless, bright, and sunny; Laura's beautiful eyes were before me, and amid the mellowing influences of the moonlight and the mess champagne, nothing seemed impossible for me to achieve, and I felt happy, confident, and glorious.

The moon shone with silver splendor on the broad expanse of the Clyde, and far across its bosom threw the shadow of Dumbarton's double peak. To me there seemed but one dark spot in the landscape-the large emigrant ship, which lay at anchor in the stream-the Duchess, which was to convey our poor and expatriated people to their new homes in the Land of the West.

I will hasten over their departure to America; the sailing of the vessel was hurried next day, and they were thrust on board pell-mell, like sheep. I will not attempt to describe the parting between them and the twenty-five who volunteered to share my fortune in the old world, rather than become the pioneers of civilization and the patriarchs of another race in the western hemisphere. Callum and Minnie parted for the time, with the usual promises of constancy, of remembrance, and of writing until they met again; for she would not leave her relations to become the wife of a soldier-and so we all separated.

Alisdair Mac Gouran and the older of the expatriated, were full of many misgivings; but aged people always are so; and the shrill cry of sorrow and farewell which ascended from that crowded deck as the fore-yard was filled, and when the anchor was apeak, went to my heart like a dagger. The elders of the tribe, whose tastes, habits, and thoughts were bounded by the narrow horizon of their native glen,

were naturally filled with consternation by the idea of the new and far-off land of their labours and eternal rest; but I now felt a fresh hope-a new joy springing up within me, as the love of adventure and the consciousness of freedom, so dear to a young and buoyant heart, roused my energies and my enthusiasm, and I now longed for the hour when I should belt on my sword, with the world for my home, and the colours for my household gods.

I will refrain from detailing the cruelties and barbarities to which, in their outward voyage, the last of the clan were subjected; how they were decimated by starvation and fever; how the old perished daily and the young lost health and heart together; and how the aged Mhari and the young and blooming Minnie died off the foggy Bank of Newfoundland. On board the Duchess a small allowance of meal with a liberal quantity of brackish water was their daily food; but then they were amply furnished with antislavery tracts, Addresses to the Women of America, and shilling copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Whether or not it is owing to the apathy or incapacity of the man-the solitary man- -the supposed legal and diplomatic Briareus, to whom the government of Scotland is intrusted, or to the utter ignorance of that country betrayed by British legislators, that the sufferings of our Celts arise, I pretend not to say. The fault lies somewhere.

Ignorance of Scottish affairs and of Scottish wants and wishes, together with the criminal apathy of Scottish representatives and the overwhelming influence of centralization, are doubtless the cause of much of the misery and ruin of the Highland population; and the day may come when Britain will find the breasts and bayonets of her foreign legionaries, or the effeminate rabble of her manufacturing cities, but a poor substitute for the stubborn clansmen of Sutherland, Ross-shire, and Breadalbane.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MY REGIMENT.

High

: To be Ensigns in the 2nd battalion of the anders, Allan Mac Innon, Gent., and John Belton, Gent., vice Dowb, promoted to the Turkish Contingent.'

Such was the announcement which I read in a Gazette sent to my lodgings one morning, about a fortnight after my first interview with Colonel Crawford. I now ceased to be 'gent.' in any sense of the word, and found myself in one day a full-blown ensign, with a fortune of 5s. 3d. per diem, and a passport to go where glory invited me, in the shape of whistling-dicks and Minie-rifles.

Thus, thanks to the faith and love borne me by twenty-five peasant lads of Glen Ora, now all duly attested and accepted soldiers, I had surmounted the barriers of interest at the Horse Guards; the necessity of pounding 500l. with Cox and Co., the puzzling, cramming, and quizzing at Sandhurst, with a hundred minor annoyances.

Let the reader suppose my subscription to bandfund, mess-plate, and commission fees all paid-three trifles amounting to twenty-one guineas, by which one's first three months' pay is legally borrowed under the Royal authority; let the reader imagine my outfit procured - my uniform, camp-equipage, canteen, iron-bedstead, et cetera, provided-and all to be paid for by Providence, or the plunder of Sebastopol, if the aforesaid 5s. 3d. failed to do so-and behold me, then, an ensign in a crack regiment,' and like Don Juan

'Made up by youth, by love, and by an army tailor.' In less than a month I was reported fit for duty,

and joined my company, into which the colonel had kindly enrolled my twenty-five Mac Innons. I had applied myself with such assiduity to the mysteries of the goose-step, the right half-face, the left halfface, and the right-about three-quarters-face, &c., that I gained the respect of that dread man the adjutant, and the profound esteem of the various sergeants to whom I was handed over in succession to acquire the manual and platoon exercises, the use of the club and broadsword, and to each of whom, at parting, the tip' of two days' pay was necessary. I soon won, too, the entire confidence of our brave old colonel, who, in kindness and advice, acted to me more as a father than a friend.

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Great was the change this month had achieved in my fortunes! In that brief time I had seen our dwellings levelled to the earth! the glen, which had been peopled for ages, laid desolate and bare; the muirs consumed by fire, and all the land reduced to a voiceless solitude. My mother was lying far away in her quiet grave-her old familiar face was gone for ever: I was separated from Laura, and was now a soldier, like my forefathers, with the wide world all before me.

Of John Belton, who was gazetted at the same time with myself, and who became one of my chief friends, I shall speak frequently anon. He was a handsome, lively, and light-hearted fellow, and we were a pair of inseparables; but with all the charms of the new life that had so suddenly opened before me, I was far from happy still.

After long thought, anxiety, and careful consideration, with a heart inspired by love and hope, I ventured to write a timid letter to Laura, expressing my admiration, my esteem, and undying regard for her, all of which were strengthened by the knowledge that an early and greater separation was at hand, as the regiment to which I had been appointed was

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