“Ye’re proposition, serjeant, no seems to give his honour much satisfaction,” said the mason, as soon as his superior was out of hearing.  “Still, it was military, as I know by what I saw mysal’ in the Forty-five.  Flainking, and surprising, and obsairving, and demonstrating, and such devices, are the soul of war, and are a’ on the great highway to victory.  Had Chairlie’s men obsairved, and particularised mair, there might have been a different family on the throne, an’ the prince wad ha’ got his ain ag’in.  I like your idea much, serjaint, and gin’ ye gang oot to practise it, I trust ye ’ll no forget that ye’ve an auld fri’nd here, willing to be of the pairty.”

“I didn’t think the captain much relished the notion of being questioned about his son’s feelin’s, and visit up here, at a time like this,” put in one of the Americans.

“There’s bowels in the man’s body!” cried Mike, “and it isn’t the likes of him that has no falin’.  Ye don’t know what it is to be a father, or ye’d groan in spirit to see a child of yer own in the grip of fiery divils like them same.  Isn’t he a pratty man, and wouldn’t I be sorrowful to hear that he had come to har-r-m?  Ye’ve niver asked, serjeant, how the majjor got into the house, and ye a military sentry in the bargain!”

“I suppose he came by command, Michael, and it is not the duty of the non-commissioned officers to question their superiors about anything that has happened out of the common way.  I take things as I find them, and obey orders.  I only hope that the son, as a field-officer, will not out-rank the father, which would be unbecoming:  though date of commissions, and superiority, must be respected.”

“I rather think if a major in the king’s service was to undertake to use authority here,” said the spokesman of the Americans, a little stiffly, “he wouldn’t find many disposed to follow at his heels.”

“Mutiny would not fare well, did it dare to lift its head in this garrison”—­answered the serjeant, with a dignity that might better have suited the mess-room of a regular regiment, than the situation in which he was actually placed.  “Both captain Willoughby and myself have seen mutiny attempted, but neither has ever seen it succeed.”

“Do you look on us as lawful, enlisted soldiers?” demanded one of the labourers, who had a sufficient smattering of the law, to understand the difference between a mercenary and a volunteer.  “If I’m regimented, I should at least like to know in whose service it is?”

“Ye’re over-quick at yer objections and sentiments,” said Jamie Allen, coolly, “like most youths, who see only their ain experience in the airth, and the providence o’ the Lord.  Enlisted we are, a’ of us, even to Michael here, and it’s in the sairvice of our good master, his honour captain Willoughby; whom, with his kith and kin, may the Lord presairve from this and all other dangers.”