Such scenes, and scenes worse by far,
were but too common in those days, and even the authority of officers
was of small avail at such a time.
Into the midst of such a pandemonium as this came small parties of the
cavalry, most of them already excited with drink and ready for any
devilry. Among the noisiest and most quarrelsome of the dragoons were
two non-commissioned officers--brutal-looking ruffians both of them--who
made their way from group to group, drinking wherever the chance
offered, shouting obscene songs, and making themselves insufferably
offensive whenever a man more quietly disposed than his comrades
happened to be met. Boastful and quarrelsome, these two, with a few
dragoons of different regiments, at length attached themselves to
Sempil's Regiment, amongst whom it chanced that a group of men, more
quiet and well-behaved than the general run, sat around a fire, cleaning
their arms or cooking rations, and discussing the battle and the heavy
losses of the regiment. It was not difficult to guess that the majority
of the group were men bred among the great, sweeping, round-backed hills
of the Scottish Border--from "up the watters" in Selkirk or
Peeblesshires, some of them, others again perhaps from Liddesdale,
Eskdale, or Annandale, or one of the many dales famous in Border
history; you could hear it in their tongue.
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