you intend returning to the plough-tail, eh? I should hardly think
you'll venture home again after such a cursed mishap."

I at once acknowledged that I did not intend returning home again; but
as to what I should do, I did not know.

"Why, now," replied my entertainer, "I think a stout, good-looking,
likely young fellow as you are need be at no loss. There's the army. Did
you ever think of that, eh? The only thing for a lad of spirit. Smart
clothes, good living, and free quarters, with a chance of promotion.
The chance, said I? Why, I might say the certainty. Bounty too, you
young dog! A handful of golden guineas, and pretty girls to court in
every town. List, man, list," he shouted, clapping me on the shoulder,
"and your fortune's made!"

List! It had never occurred to me before. I had never thought, never
dreamt of it. But now that the idea was presented to me, I by no means
disliked it. It was not, however, the flummery of my new acquaintance,
who, I need hardly say, was neither more nor less than a sergeant in
coloured clothes, assumed, I suppose, for the purpose of taking young
fellows like myself unawares,--I say it was not his balderdash, which,
young and raw as I was, I fully perceived, that reconciled me to the
notion of listing. It was because I saw in it a prompt and ready means
of escaping the immediate destitution with which I was threatened, my
foolish determination not to return home having rather gained strength
than weakened, notwithstanding a painful sense of the misery which my
protracted absence must have been occasioning at home. To the sergeant's
proposal of listing, therefore, I at once assented; when the former
calling in the landlord, tendered me in his presence the expressive
shilling.

The corps into which I had listed was the----, then lying in the Tower,
London, there being only the sergeant and two or three men of the
regiment in Glasgow recruiting. The matter of listing settled, the
sergeant bespoke me a bed for the night in the tavern in which we were,
that being his own quarters.

On the following day I was informed, much to my surprise, although by no
means to my regret, that a detachment of recruits for the---- were to be
sent off that evening at nine o'clock by the track boat for Edinburgh,
and from thence by sea to the headquarters of the regiment at London,
and that I was to be of the number. At nine o'clock of the evening,
accordingly, we were shipped at Port-Dundas.

Befor