I think some malignant genius had
found his masterpiece of irony in the dress which we were condemned
to wear: jacket, waistcoat, and trousers of a sulphur or mustard
yellow, and a shirt or blue-and-white striped cotton. It was
conspicuous, it was cheap, it pointed us out to laughter--we, who
were old soldiers, used to arms, and some of us showing noble
scars,--like a set of lugubrious zanies at a fair. The old name of
that rock on which our prison stood was (I have heard since then)
the Painted Hill. Well, now it was all painted a bright yellow
with our costumes; and the dress of the soldiers who guarded us
being of course the essential British red rag, we made up together
the elements of a lively picture of hell. I have again and again
looked round upon my fellow-prisoners, and felt my anger rise, and
choked upon tears, to behold them thus parodied. The more part, as
I have said, were peasants, somewhat bettered perhaps by the drill-
sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more
than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed, you could
have seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented than in
this Castle of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in fancy, and
blush. It seemed that my more elegant carriage would but point the
insult of the travesty.
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