--Where's that?--It's in Germany. Our King and the Hanoverians
and the King of Prussia and the Queen of Austria are fighting the King
of France.--Aye, of course ye know that, neighbors, being intelligent
Scots folk, but recapitulation is na out of order!"
"Ask them what's thought of the Hanoverians." It was the lawyer's
clerk's question. Thereupon rose some noisy difference of opinion
among the drinking redcoats. The excise man finally reported. "They're
na English, nor Scots, nor even Irish. But they're liked weel enough!
They're good fighters. Oh, aye, when ye march and fight alangside
them, they're good enough! They're his Majesty's cousins. God save
King George!"
The recruiting party banged with tankards upon the table. One of the
number put a question of his own. He had a look half pedant, half
bully, and he spoke with a one-quarter-drunken, owllike solemnity.
"I may take it from the look of things that there are none hereabouts
but good Whigs and upholders of government? No Tories--no damned black
Jacobites?"
The excise man hemmed. "Why, ye see we're no sae muckle far from
Hielands and Hielandmen, and it's known what they are, chief,
chieftain, and clan--saving always the duke and every Campbell! And I
wadna say that there are not, here and there, this side the Hielands,
an auld family with leanings the auld way, and even a few gentlemen
who were _out_ in the 'fifteen.
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