Women had never come much my way, but I had a boy's distrust of the sex; and as I plodded along the highroad, with every now and then a cuff from a trooper's fist to cheer me, I had hard thoughts of their heartlessness.
We were a pitiful company as, in the bright autumn sun, we came in by the village of Liberton, to where the reek of Edinburgh rose straight into the windless weather.

The women in the cart kept up a continual lamenting, and Muckle John, who walked between two dragoons with his hands tied to the saddle of each, so that he looked like a crucified malefactor, polluted the air with hideous profanities.

He cursed everything in nature and beyond it, and no amount of clouts on the head would stem the torrent.

Sometimes he would fall to howling like a wolf, and folk ran to their cottage doors to see the portent.

Groups of children followed us from every wayside clachan, so that we gave great entertainment to the dwellers in Lothian that day.