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——"