by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan. On other
occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys, whom he sometimes
drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less approbation on the part
of their parents, instructed in the mystery of artificial fire-works;
for in the case of public rejoicings, the Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as
the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of Gandercleugh.

It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by
the row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me
the military salute--but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
corner of the churchyard.

The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation, related
not only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the
course of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous
Highland traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his
parents, and of which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of
heresy to question the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars
of Montrose, in which some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems,
taken a distinguished part. It has happened, that, although these civil
commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed
the first occasion upon which they showed themselves superior, or even
equal to their Low-country neighbours in military encounters, they have
been less commemorated among them than any one would have expected,
judging from the abundance of traditions which they have preserved upon
less interesting subjects. It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that
I extracted from my military friend some curious particulars respecting