THE SPIRIT THAT LEADS TO VICTORY.
[To THE EDITOR 07 TER "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—A hundred years ago Scott—" Good Sir Walter dead and gone "—in one of his "notes" wrote of the alarm given in Scotland, of invasion during the Napoleonic War, and, telling of the quick turn out and forced march of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, goes on to say :—
"Two members of the corps chanced to be absent from their homes, and in Edinburgh on private business. The lately married wife of one of these gentlemen, and the widowed mother of the other, sent the arms, uniforms, and chargers of the two troopers, that they might join their companions at Dalkeith. The author was much struck by the answer made by the last-men- tioned lady, when he paid her some compliment on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son with the means of meeting danger, when she might have left him with a fair excuse for remaining absent. Sir,' she replied, none can know better than you that my son is the only prop by which, since his father's death, our family is supported. But I would rather see him dead on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse's length behind his companions in the defence of his king and country."
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