conspicuous, it was cheap, it pointed us out to laughter--we, who
were old soldiers, used to arms, and some of us showing noble
scars,--like a set of lugubrious zanies at a fair. The old name of
that rock on which our prison stood was (I have heard since then)
the Painted Hill. Well, now it was all painted a bright yellow
with our costumes; and the dress of the soldiers who guarded us
being of course the essential British red rag, we made up together
the elements of a lively picture of hell. I have again and again
looked round upon my fellow-prisoners, and felt my anger rise, and
choked upon tears, to behold them thus parodied. The more part, as
I have said, were peasants, somewhat bettered perhaps by the drill-
sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more
than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed, you could
have seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented than in
this Castle of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in fancy, and
blush. It seemed that my more elegant carriage would but point the
insult of the travesty. And I remembered the days when I wore the
coarse but honourable coat of a soldier; and remembered further
back how many of the noble, the fair, and the gracious had taken a
delight to tend my childhood. . . . But I must not recall these
tender and sorrowful memories twice; their place is further on, and
I am now upon another business. The perfidy of the Britannic
Government stood nowhere more openly confessed than in one
particular of our discipline: that we were shaved twice in the
week. To a man who has loved all his life to be fresh shaven, can
a more irritating indignity be devised? Monday and Thursday were
the days. Take the Thursday, and conceive the picture I must
present by Sunday evening! And Saturday, which was almost as bad,
was the great day for visitors.