I do not know whether my companions found as much interest in studying me as I derived from observing them. Probably they pitied me, as the Highlanders did the Lowlanders. I had not been born in Scotland: that, in their eyes, was a misfortune which almost amounted to a disgrace. My incapacity to rival them in their potations, and my inability to take part in their theological discussions, made them regard me with something akin to contempt. Once I overheard a Highlander whisper to a Lowlander, "Surely she iss a feckless creature," and I guessed with a feeling of abasement that he was speaking of me. On the whole, they treated me with a rude kindliness, doing all they could to make me acquainted with the elements of the rough-and-ready discipline which was the standard of the troop, and protecting my ignorance, whenever they dared, from the harsh tongue of the sergeant-major.
We were mounted men, but our weapons were those of foot-soldiers. Our horses, stout little nags, known as Galloways, were simply our means of conveyance from place to place. If we had been called upon to fight, we should probably have fought on foot, and we were armed accordingly, with long muskets which we bore either slung across our shoulders or suspended muzzle-downwards from our saddle-peaks.
Equipped for rapid movement, we carried little with us save our weapons: but under his saddle-flap each dragoon had a broad metal plate, and behind the saddle was hung a bag of oatmeal. When we bivouacked in the open, as many a time we did, each trooper made for himself on his plate, heated over a camp fire, a farle or two of oat-cake, and with this staved off the pangs of hunger. It was, as the sergeant had said, a man’s life--devoid of luxury, compact of hardship and scanty feeding, with little relaxation save what we could find in the taverns of the towns or villages where we halted for a time.
In my ignorance, I had thought that when we set out from Dumfries to march through Galloway we should find, opposed to us somewhere, a force of Covenanters who would give battle. I had imagined that these rebels would have an army of their own ready to challenge the forces of the King: but soon I learned that our warfare was an inglorious campaign against unarmed men and women. We were little more than inquisitors. In the quiet of an afternoon we would clatter up some lonely road to a white farm-house--the hens scattering in terror before us--and draw rein in the cobbled court-yard.