Page:The Monastery, Volume 1 - Scott (1820).djvu/14

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4
INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.

tion there was more danger in running away than in standing; and besides, I could not afford to lose my commission, which was my chief means of support. But, as for that over-boiling valour, which I have heard many of ours talk of, though I seldom observed that it influenced them in the actual affair—that exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a bride, truly my courage was of a complexion much less ecstatical.

Again, the love of a red coat, which, in default of all other aptitudes to the profession, has made many a bad soldier and some good ones, was an utter stranger to my disposition. I cared not a 'bodle' for the company of the misses: Nay, though there was a boarding-school in the village, and though we used to meet with its fair inmates at Simon Lightfoot's weekly Practising, I cannot recollect any strong emotions being excited on these occasions, excepting the infinite regret with which I went through the polite ceremonial of presenting my partner with an orange, thrust into my pocket

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