A Spectre of Power by Mary Noailles Murfree

THE detachment of Highlanders that Lieutenant Everard left to reinforce Fort Prince George proved of no great interest to the troops already stationed there pining in the weariness of long inaction. The natural expectation of the revival of zest in life incident to new companionship, fresh experiences, stories still untold, and songs as yet unsung all fell flat in the reality; for few of the newcomers could speak aught but the Gaelic, and they clung together with a pertinacity and a suspiciousness of the "Sassenach sidier," with whom they were thus unequally yoked, that threatened faction in the little garrison. Hence, to accustom them to their new comrades and break up the clique whenever it was possible, the Highlanders were separately detailed to duty among the English, although on parade, at roll call, and at drill they were segregated and kept within their own ranks.

Callum MacIlvesty was one of the few who could speak English; but although, being a "gentleman ranker," his lowly station involved association with his military equals, he seemed hardly likely to contribute notably to the mirth of nations. He was preoccupied, gravely brooding much of the time, and even when roused showed a temperament averse to the familiar horseplay of the jocund Britisher. Among his Scotch comrades he was little subject to the irksome constraints of his position as a common soldier. They could gauge and realize his claims to a higher station, and, more than conceding them, showed him a consideration and respect to which he had been accustomed from his earliest youth. He returned their kindness, which thus manifested a touch of the magnanimous, with earnest fellow feeling, and his relations with them were affectionate and even fraternal. To the English contingent at the fort, however, he was merely "a bare-kneed Sawney who held his head stiff and stepped high," with no justification that they could discriminate, for he, like them, shouldered a musket for pay.