Each man had on his back a valise, tin canteen, and great-coat; his haversack and water-bottle were slung, and attached to a lanyard at his neck, each carried a large knife—like the genuine jockteleg of the days of old—and right service-like and purpose-like they all looked.
The officers, who were in blue patrol jackets, with kilt, claymore, and dirk, carried knives of the same kind, together with a haversack, field-glass, and water-bottle.
Dense were the crowds occupying every street, every window and balcony, every coign of vantage, and the whole area through which the regiment marched to the sound of its national and martial music seemed instinct with life, ardour, and enthusiasm.
Many veterans were in the ranks of the regiment—men who had served in Ashanti, and not a few who, as Albany Highlanders, had marched to Candahar and fought in Afghanistan. Their colonel—Cluny the younger, son of that venerable Cluny who is chief of the Macphersons or Clanvurich (the second tribe of the great Clan Chattan), and was once a Black Watchman—rode at their head, and near him marched his favourite sergeant-major, MacNeil, a tall, stately, and tried soldier, who, though he knew not the fate before him, when the hour came, had no fear of facing death, as became one of the Freicudan Dhu.
Evan Cameron, as he marched on, claymore in hand, had a shrewd idea that among the many there whose tender hearts were filled with pity and enthusiasm, would be one who was secretly and inexpressibly dear to himself; and yet, though a kind of mortal pain was in his breast, his heart, despite it all, beat responsive to the cadence of the old familiar march—the regimental quick-step—the same air to which he had so often trod in past times and in other lands; and now, as one in a dream, he saw the seething crowds, the forest of waving hats and handkerchiefs, and all the glorious view on which he was probably looking for the last time—the noble line of Princes Street, steeped in the morning sun, the Calton Hill with its line of towers and battlements, its temples, great stone obelisk, and reproduction of the classic Parthenon of Minerva, Arthur's Seat, and the Craigs, and the old city with its ten-storey houses—each a stone record of the historic past.
He was suddenly roused on seeing Carslogie playfully kiss the basket hilt of his claymore, and wave his hand to a young lady who sat by the side of an elderly gentleman in an open barouche.
She was closely veiled, but Evan's heart leaped in his breast when he recognised Eveline—Eveline by the side of Sir Paget, who waved his hat occasionally, and jerked his bald head about as usual.
'Why was such a girl as that, Allan Graham's sister, sacrificed to that old devil of a fogie?' asked one of the Black Watch of Carslogie, a high-spirited young fellow, who thought it very nice to be in the 42nd, but very nasty to be also in debt, and was now right glad to find himself en route for Egypt.
'Why, indeed? you may well ask,' he replied; 'simply because her father is one of the upper ten, and, like all that lot, selfish to the backbone.'
And Cameron's heart endorsed his answer to the full.