It was a brave notion of the king to put the loyalty of the land to the test, that the daft folk might be dismayed, and that the clanjamphrey might be tumbled down before their betters, like the windle-straes in a hurricane.  And so they were.  Such crowds came forward when the names of the volunteers were taken down.  I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals on, and when I looked myself in the glass, just to think I was a sodger who never in my life could thole the smell of powder!  Oh, but it was grand!  I sometimes fancied myself a general, and giving the word of command.  Big Sam, who was a sergeant in the fencibles, and enough to have put five Frenchmen to flight any day of the year, whiles came to train us; but as nature never intended me for the soldiering trade, I never got out of the awkward squad, though I had two or three neighbours to keep me in countenance.

We all cracked very crouse about fighting; but one dark night we got a fleg in sober earnest.  Jow went the town bell, and row-de-dow gaed the drums, and all in a minute was confusion and uproar in ilka street.  I was seized with a severe shaking of the knees and a flapping at the heart, when, through the garret window, I saw the signal posts were in a bleeze, and that the French had landed.  This was in reality to be a soldier!  I never got such a fright since the day I was cleckit.  There was such a noise and hullabaloo in the streets, as if the Day of Judgment had come to find us all unprepared.

Notwithstanding, we behaved ourselves like true-blue Scotsmen, called forth to fight the battles of our country, and if the French had come, as they did not come, they would have found that to their cost, as sure as my name is Mansie.  However, it turned out that it was a false alarm, and that the thief Buonaparte had not landed at Dunbar, as it was jealoused; so, after standing under arms for half the night, we were sent home to our beds.

But next day we were taken out to be taught the art of firing.  We went through our motions bravely—­to load, ram down the cartridge, made ready, present, fire.  But so flustered and confused was I that I never had mind to pull the tricker, though I rammed down a fresh cartridge at the word of command.  At the end of the firing the sergeant of the company ordered all that had loaded pieces to come to the front, and six of us stepped out in a little line in face of the regiment.  Our pieces were cocked, and at the word “Fire!” off they went.  It was an act of desperation on my part to draw the tricker, and I had hardly well shut my blinkers when I got such a thump on the shoulder as knocked me backwards, head over heels, on the grass.  When I came to my senses and found myself not killed outright, and my gun two or three ells away, I began to rise up.  Then I saw one of the men going forward to lift the fatal piece, but my care for the safety of others overcame the sense of my own peril.  “Let alane, let alane!” cried I to him, “and take care of yoursell, for it has to gang off five times yet.”  I thought in my innocence that we should hear as many reports as I had crammed cartridges down her muzzle.  This was a sore joke against me for a length of time; but I tholed it patiently, considering cannily within myself, that even Johnny Cope himself had not learned the art of war in a single morning.