70 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
ventures, he had served in the French army. He had put 
into Rochefort or Charente, I forget which, in a trading 
schooner in '71, and the bounty money of forty francs 
offered for recruits was not to be resisted. So he just left 
his ship, without any formalities, and 'listed 1 with some 
two hundred volunteers, mostly Scotch and Irish. ' No 
vary likely callants,' he explained, ' a sort of pick-me-up lot, 
ne'er-do-weel lads, like myseF, ye ken/ The forty francs 
were spent in a couple of days, but the spree Willie 
remembers to this day. 'Eh, sir, they blithe French 
lassies, let alane the reid wine, — there's jist nae abstainin' 
frae them. They countrie folk, tae, they're a' dacent 
bodies — mony's the guid meal I've had frae them, sittin' 
by the roadside, or ben the farm-hoose, — gin there's 
mair war in France, it'll no' be lang afore they see 
Willie Watson back til them. They gied us a' braw new 
uniform, tae, a' blue an' yellie an' reid. Save us, but the 
auld folk at hame wouldna hae kenfme ! Syne they took 
us a' to a grand muckle hoose, a' windies and guns, an' 
gied me a gun an' a bagonette — nae drilling ava, jist 
pit us intil a yaird an' telt us, " Ye 're gendarms noo, 
gang and fecht the Proosians," deil the Proosian was 
to be seen in a' the country-side, an' a' we had to dae 
was to gang aye tramping up and doon they boulivards 
in the sun and the stour wi' a musket at oor shouthers, 
— gey drouthy wark it was, tae, an' gin it hadna been 
for they bonnie black-eyed wenches an' they wine-shops, 
we wouldna hae tholed the sodgerin' muckle langer. 
. . , Eh, sir, but I was skeered ae day coming oot o' 
ane o' they wine-shanties after slockin' the drouth wi' 
