'And a few weeks hence will see us with it again, and back to the old pipe-clay routine,' said Cameron.
'Regiments are now no longer what they were in my time,' said Lord Aberfeldie, a little irrelevantly, perhaps, but pursuing his own ideas. 'Examinations, cramming and useless pedantry, promotion by selection and compulsory retirement for the officers, with short service among the men, render corps no longer what they were in the old days, each a happy, movable home. The time when a young officer often said, with just pride and noble ambition, "My father and my grandfather have both commanded this regiment, and, please God, I hope at some period to do the same," can never come again! And what Highland officer now, in the Black Watch or any other of our national regiments, is followed to the colours by a band of his own name and kindred, or can speak of his comrades as "my father's people," or "the men from our glen;" and yet such was the case when yonder ruined clachan was instinct with village life, and the voices of children were heard around its humble hearths.'
'The hero of Ghuznee had a theory that no Scotsman was fitted to command a regiment,' said Stratherroch, laughing.
'I know that he detested Scotsmen, and brought six officers, all Scotsmen, to a court-martial; and it was then he is said to have made the statement which cost him so dear in India.'
'How?' asked Holcroft.
'Because, within an hour after, old Colonel Wemyss, of the 52nd, paraded him in rear of the cantonment, and planted a bullet in his body by way of curing him of prejudice for the future. Rather a convincing argument, old Wemyss thought it,' added Aberfeldie, laughing, as he knocked the ashes from his cherished briar-root, put it in its case, and dropped it into his silver-mounted sporran.
'Talking of regiments, I saw yours at Portsmouth, Graham,' said Holcroft; 'and I thought the men looked graceful indeed, with their kilts over their left shoulders and their black sporrans waving above their bronzed faces.'
Whether this was meant as a joke or a sneer, it is impossible to say; but his hearers took it as the former, and laughed accordingly, on which Holcroft added,
'I mean their plaid-shawls over their shoulders. I remember that Miss Raymond laughed heartily when I made the same remark.'
'I don't wonder at that,' said Lord Aberfeldie. 'Olive is a girl who laughs on very slight occasions.'