3obn Itjounoer 373 



dropped work for the day, and run up to Willie Ovens, 

 the cooper, when I saw a red, meteor-like light in the 

 distance. I called Willie Ovens out to see, when we 

 agreed that it was too high in air to be a signal 

 light. But while we stood thus conjecturing, up blazed 

 Penielheugh, when, hulloo ! up I started to the 

 Braeheads, and there were Hume .Castle with all the 

 other signal hills in flames. Here was the signal sum- 

 moning every man to his musket, and all the village was 

 soon astir, something between a hum and an uproar." 



Then came the hurried moonlight march to Kelso, 

 and the mustering in the big ball-room of the Cross 

 Keys Tavern, when only two men were found to be 

 missing out of the five hundred members of the corps. 

 After a brief inspection the gallant volunteers (who had 

 not yet received their uniforms, and were as ragged in 

 appearance as they were valiant in heart) were dis- 

 missed to their billets to rest, with orders to fall in 

 instantly at tuck of drum. The weary warriors had 

 not long laid their heads on their pillows when they 

 were startled from their slumbers by a rub-a-dub-dub 

 in the streets. Up they sprang to arms, only to find, 

 to their unmitigated disgust, that their sleep had been 

 broken by the old town crier, who, all unwitting of the 

 beacon scare, was methodically going his rounds with 

 his drum (the substitute for a bell in Kelso) to announce 

 a shop sale of cheap goods. Nothing more happened ; 

 the excitement died down as quickly as it had flashed up, 

 " Kelso, however," says John, " made a fine show on that 

 First of February, 1 804, for here were fathers, mothers, 

 wives, sisters, sweet-hearts altogether, flocking in from 



