escendants are now the
allies of our nation in a war for world freedom. In the annals of our
regiment, the use of the broadsword and pistol in the Battle of Brooklyn
is duly recorded, for it was after this engagement that the regiment was
required to lay aside these mediaeval weapons--a fact which occasioned such
discontent among the veterans of the Watch that there was even fear that
the Highland stubbornness might manifest itself as markedly in protest as
on the occasion--in England, in 1743--when the men of the regiment,
confronted with orders issued in ignorance of the Highland characteristics
and customs, departed quietly, in a body, without the knowledge of their
officers, and marched as far as Northampton with the intention of
returning to their Highland homes, relinquishing the purpose only when
prolonged negotiations had made the facts of the situation plain to their
stubborn minds.

On the whole, however, this disposition on the part of the men of the
Black Watch could hardly be called surprising, in view of the ignorance
regarding the Highland character then prevalent in England. Three years
before, King George the Second, having never seen a Scotch
Highlander--although the Black Watch had already been organized in the
Highlands as the Forty-third regiment of the British army--asked to have
some examples of the race sent to appear before him and his court. Two
Highlanders, Gregor MacGregor and John Campbell, appeared in response to
the King's command. (A third, John Grant, began the journey to London with
them but died on the way.) MacGregor and Campbell gave exhibitions of
their dexterity with the broadsword and the Lochaber axe, in the presence
of the King and his Court. When they had finished the King gave each a
gold guinea as a gratuity. They gave the coins as a tip to the porter, on
their departure. The King had not understood that his guests were Highland
gentlemen.

Sitting at the window of the house where I now pass the peaceful and
uneventful days of the soldier who has fought until wounds incapacitate
him for further service afield, I smiled, one day, at another thought in
which the past and the present incongruously came into association. From
this window, I viewed the populous, close-built residential stretches of
Washington Heights, typical of the city life of to-day. And, amid all
this, my eye could seek out the very spot where occurred the grimly
humorous adventure of Major Murray, most corpu