f the young men,
that on which they left their native village. Natural affection
deplored their departure, while maternal pride gloried in visions of
the honours that awaited them on the fields of war. The plumed bonnet,
the belted plaid, and all the other gallant array of the Highland
soldier, presented themselves to the fond mothers; and they thought,
as they gazed on the stately forms of their sons for the last time,
how well they would look in the martial garb which they were about to
assume. The young men, then, whom we have represented as wending their
way by the margin of Loch Ard, and prosecuting a southward journey,
were proceeding to Glasgow, one of the recruiting stations of the --th
Highland regiment, to enrol themselves in that gallant corps, which
was already filled with their friends and countrymen.

On arriving at Glasgow, which, although a distance of nearly forty
miles from the spot where we first introduced them to the reader, they
made out with perfect ease on the evening of the same day on which
they left their native village, the young men repaired to a well-known
resort of the privates of Highland regiments which were from time to
time quartered in Glasgow. This was a low, dark public-house in the
High Street of that city, kept by a Serjeant M'Nab, an old veteran,
who had seen service in his day; and who, although he had now retired
into private life, continued to maintain all his military connections
with as much zeal as if he was still in the discharge of his military
duties; and, indeed, this he was to some extent, having still an
authority to enlist. The house of M'Nab was thus filled from morning
to night with soldiers of various grades of rank--serjeants,
corporals, and privates--and of various degrees of standing, from the
raw, newly-enrolled recruit, with his stiff black stock--the only
article of his military equipment with which he had been yet
provided--to the veteran serjeant, who had literally fought his way to
his present rank. In every corner of every room in this favourite
resort of the Celtic warriors, lay heaps of muskets resting against
the wall; and on every table lay piles of Highland bonnets--their
owners being engaged in discussing the contents of the oft-replenished
_half-mutchkin stoup_. Occasionally, too, the scream of a bagpipe
might be suddenly heard in some apartment, where the party by which it
was occupied had attained the point of musical excitement, while, over
al