'
'All this, my dear Major, is the natural consequence of their attachment
to their young landlord, and of their finding themselves in a regiment
levied chiefly in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland, and of
course among comrades disposed to quarrel with them, both as Englishmen
and as members of the Church of England.'
'Well said, parson!' replied the magistrate. 'I would some of your synod
heard you. But let me go on. This young man obtains leave of absence,
goes to Tully-Veolan--the principles of the Baron of Bradwardine are
pretty well known, not to mention that this lad's uncle brought him off
in the year fifteen; he engages there in a brawl, in which he is said to
have disgraced the commission he bore; Colonel Gardiner writes to him,
first mildly, then more sharply--I think you will not doubt his having
done so, since he says so; the mess invite him to explain the quarrel in
which he is said to have been involved; he neither replies to his
commander nor his comrades. In the meanwhile his soldiers become mutinous
and disorderly, and at length, when the rumour of this unhappy rebellion
becomes general, his favourite Sergeant Houghton and another fellow are
detected in correspondence with a French emissary, accredited, as he
says, by Captain Waverley, who urges him, according to the men's
confession, to desert with the troop and join their captain, who was with
Prince Charles.
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