It was a sad, and yet a proud day, for the mothers of the young men, that on which they left their native village. Natural affection deplored their departure, while maternal pride gloried in visions of the honours that awaited them on the fields of war. The plumed bonnet, the belted plaid, and all the other gallant array of the Highland soldier, presented themselves to the fond mothers; and they thought, as they gazed on the stately forms of their sons for the last time, how well they would look in the martial garb which they were about to assume. The young men, then, whom we have represented as wending their way by the margin of Loch Ard, and prosecuting a southward journey, were proceeding to Glasgow, one of the recruiting stations of the --th Highland regiment, to enrol themselves in that gallant corps, which was already filled with their friends and countrymen.
On arriving at Glasgow, which, although a distance of nearly forty miles from the spot where we first introduced them to the reader, they made out with perfect ease on the evening of the same day on which they left their native village, the young men repaired to a well-known resort of the privates of Highland regiments which were from time to time quartered in Glasgow. This was a low, dark public-house in the High Street of that city, kept by a Serjeant M'Nab, an old veteran, who had seen service in his day; and who, although he had now retired into private life, continued to maintain all his military connections with as much zeal as if he was still in the discharge of his military duties; and, indeed, this he was to some extent, having still an authority to enlist. The house of M'Nab was thus filled from morning to night with soldiers of various grades of rank--serjeants, corporals, and privates--and of various degrees of standing, from the raw, newly-enrolled recruit, with his stiff black stock--the only article of his military equipment with which he had been yet provided--to the veteran serjeant, who had literally fought his way to his present rank. In every corner of every room in this favourite resort of the Celtic warriors, lay heaps of muskets resting against the wall; and on every table lay piles of Highland bonnets--their owners being engaged in discussing the contents of the oft-replenished _half-mutchkin stoup_. Occasionally, too, the scream of a bagpipe might be suddenly heard in some apartment, where the party by which it was occupied had attained the point of musical excitement, while, over all, except the sounds of the aforenamed instrument, prevailed the din of noisy, but good-humoured colloquy, in sonorous Gaelic; for no other language was ever heard in the warlike domicile of Serjeant M'Nab.