"Nothing," said the Sergeant, "can be more beautiful than his ’A man’s a man for a’ that’."
"The mair’s the pity, Adam!" said Katie. "It’s wrang--clean wrang--I tell ye; and ye’ll live tae rue’t. What right has _he_ to speak? cock him up wi’ his impudence! There’s mony a bairn aulder than him canna speak sae weel. It’s no’ a safe business, I can tell you, Adam."
"Gi’ ower, gi’ ower, woman," said the Sergeant; "the cratur’ has its ain gifts, as we hae oors, and I’m thankfu’ for them. It does me mair gude than ye ken whan I tak’ the boy on my lap, and see hoo his e’e blinks, and his bit feet gang, and hoo he laughs when he hears the bird say, ’I’m Charlie’s bairn’. And whan I’m cuttin’, and stitchin’, and hammerin’, at the window, and dreamin’ o’ auld langsyne, and fechtin’ my battles ower again, and when I think o’ that awfu’ time that I hae seen wi’ brave comrades noo lying in some neuk in Spain; and when I hear the roar o’ the big guns, and the splutterin’ crackle o’ the wee anes, and see the crood o’ red coats, and the flashin’ o’ bagnets, and the awfu’ hell--excuse me--o’ the fecht, I tell you it’s like a sermon to me when the cratur’ says ’A man’s a man for a’ that!’" The Sergeant would say this, standing up, and erect, with one foot forward as if at the first step of the scaling ladder. "Mind ye, Katie, that it’s no’ every man that’s ’a man for a’ that’; but mair than ye wad believe are a set o’ fushionless, water-gruel, useless cloots, cauld sooans, when it comes to the real bit--the grip atween life and death! O ye wad wunner, woman, hoo mony men when on parade, or when singin’ sangs aboot the war, are gran’ hands, but wha lie flat as scones on the grass when they see the cauld iron! Gie me the man that does his duty, whether he meets man or deevil--that’s the man for me in war or peace; and that’s the reason I teached the bird thae words. It’s a testimony for auld freends that I focht wi’, and that I’ll never forget--no, never! Dinna be sair, gudewife, on the puir bird."--"Eh, Katie," he added, one night, when the bird had retired to roost, "just look at the cratur’! Is’na he beautifu’? There he sits on his bawk as roon’ as a clew, wi’ his bit head under his wing, dreamin’ aboot the wuds maybe--or aboot wee Charlie--or aiblins aboot naething. But he is God’s ain bird, wonderfu’ and fearfully made."