On the contrary, the tempers
of the poor old fellows were soured by the indignities with which the mob
distinguished them on many occasions, and frequently might have required
the soothing strains of the poet we have just quoted--
"O soldiers! for your ain dear sakes,
For Scotland's love, the Land o' Cakes,
Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks,
Nor be sae rude,
Wi' firelock or Lochaber-axe,
As spill their bluid!"
On all occasions when a holiday licensed some riot and irregularity, a
skirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation with the rabble
of Edinburgh. These pages may perhaps see the light when many have in
fresh recollection such onsets as we allude to. But the venerable corps,
with whom the contention was held, may now be considered as totally
extinct. Of late the gradual diminution of these civic soldiers reminds
one of the abatement of King Lear's hundred knights. The edicts of each
succeeding set of magistrates have, like those of Goneril and Regan,
diminished this venerable band with the similar question, "What need we
five-and-twenty?--ten?--or five?" And it is now nearly come to, "What
need one?" A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen, of an old
grey-headed and grey-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features, but bent
double by age; dressed in an old fashioned cocked-hat, bound with white
tape instead of silver lace; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of a
muddy-coloured red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon,
called a Lochaber-axe; a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity,
and a hook at the back of the hatchet.
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