“Privut Archbauld Stewart of Captin Ketley’s compnay, confined by order of Sargunt Nevett, for aving cut two big oles in the ipps of a pair of riggimental britches belonghing too is Magesty King George the Third.”
Well, gentlemen, there was I left in the guard-house for some hours a prisoner. But if I was confined in one way, I took good care to put myself very much at my ease in another; for I pulled off my tormentors altogether, and sat quite coolly and comfortably without them. But I was sore enough at heart, for all that; for, independent of the fearful prospect of the unrelenting punishment that awaited me, the disgrace of confinement to which I had thus, for the first time in my life, been subjected, and that so unjustly, stung me to the very heart. For a good hour or more I could do nothing but grind my teeth with absolute vexation and rage; but at length I began to gather some command of myself, and to think of the necessity of making up my mind as to what was to be done. I recalled the three evil alternatives, from which I had already made that which had now proved to be so unfortunate a selection, and as that had so miserably failed me, I continued for sometime swinging backwards and forwards, like a bairn in a shuggy-shue,[2] between the two that yet remained to be tried, and I had not yet made up my mind on the subject, when the serjeant appeared, and ordered me to put on my breeches and follow him. I obeyed like a man who gets up from his straw to go out and be hanged. But there was one great difference between such a poor wretch and me, very much in his favour, for as his fetters in such a case are taken off, I was on the contrary condemned to buckle on mine.
I did follow the serjeant as he bade me, but notwithstanding the outlets I had made in the breeches for the joints of my hench bones, and the comparative ease I had thereby formerly enjoyed, yet the few hours I had had in the guardhouse of a freedom of limb resembling that which I was wont to enjoy in my old kilt, made me feel so strange upon thus recommitting my joints to the thraldom of the accursed garments, that I went shaughling along after him, as if they had undergone no improvement at all. He took me directly to Captain Ketley’s quarters, and whilst I was on my way thither, I was compelled to bring my doubts to a hasty conclusion, and so I resolved that of the two plans now only remaining for me to choose from, desertion should be first tried, seeing that if it should fail me, I might cut my throat afterwards, for that if I should cut my throat first, I should not afterwards find it an easy matter to desert. I had no more time than just enough to settle this point with myself, when the serjeant rapped at our captain’s door.
“Come in!” cried Captain Ketley, in what sounded in my ear like a tremendous voice.
“Privut Archbauld Stewart and his cut breeches, your honour!” cried the serjeant, ushering me without ceremony into the middle of the room.
There I stood with my head up, and in the military attitude of attention, the which, as you will naturally observe, gentlemen, was, of all others, out of all sight the most convenient and best chosen attitude for me at the time; for, as you will understand, the palms of my two hands were thus exactly applied to the two holes I had made, though the size of the holes themselves was so great that I could by no means entirely cover them. But if I could have done so, this well conceived manœuvre of mine would have been of no avail.
“Stand at ease!” cried the serjeant, giving me at the same time a smart tap on the back with his rattan cane.
“Serjeant,” said I impatiently, “you know very well that it’s not possible for me to stand at ease in thir fashious breeks of mine.”
I saw that Captain Ketley had a hard task of it to keep his gravity.
“What is this which has been reported to me of you, sir?” demanded he with as stern a look as he could possibly assume; “how comes it that you have taken upon you to destroy a pair of new regimental breeches in that manner?”