Quotes from George MacDonald Fraser

dark, wiry soldier at the first bed was cleaning his rifle, hauling the pull-through along the barrel. 'Not like that,' said Bennet-Bruce. 'Pull it straight out, not at an angle, or you'll wear away the muzzle and your bullets will fly off squint, missing the enemy, who will seize the opportunity to unseam you, from nave to chaps.' He tugged at the pull-through. 'What the hell have you got on the end of this, the battalion colours?

I'd have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary—the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo-jumbo, were as good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is religion for? In

the idyll was marred by the appearance round the southern headland of a small, waspish-looking vessel, standing slowly out on a course parallel to our own. It happened that I saw her first, and drew my commander's attention to her with a sailor-like hail of: "Jesus! Look at that!" Spring

Aye, weel, here's tae us.' 'Wha's like us?' said McGilvray. 'Dam' few,' said Forbes. 'And they're a' deid,' I said, completing the ritual. 'Aw-haw-hey,' said Daft Bob and we drank.

the guard house of the bloodiest valley in Britain. One is not surprised to learn that an early owner was boiled alive by impatient neighbours; there is a menace about the massive walls, about the rain-soaked hillside, about the dreary gurgle of the river.

I take some pride in the fact that while thrones were toppling and governments melting away overnight, I was heading for home with a set of crown jewels. There's a moral there, I think, if I could only work out what it was.

what is thought now, and held to be universal truth, was not thought then, or true of that time.

he was a man of his hands, and most were, he might decide to wait and plan for the day when he could raid the robbers in his turn, and get his revenge illegally with interest. Or he could decide on pursuit, across the frontier if necessary. This was a strictly legal, almost a hallowed process, known by the descriptive name of "hot trod".

the fatal privilege". It enshrined the right to recover one's property by force, and in practice to deal with the thieves out of hand. A trod might lawfully be made at any time within six days after the offence; if it was followed immediately it was a hot trod, otherwise it was known as a cold trod. In either case it was governed by strict rules; a careful line was drawn, under Border law, between a trod and a reprisal raid.

The 1563 agreement between England and Scotland speaks of "lawfull Trodd with Horn and Hound, with Hue and Cry and all other accustomed manner of fresh pursuit"; according to Scott, this obliged the pursuer to carry a lighted turf on his lance-point, as earnest of open and peaceful intentions.

Blackmail was paid by the tenant or farmer to a "superior" who might be a powerful reiver, or even an outlaw, and in return the reiver not only left him alone, but was also obliged to protect him from other raiders and to recover his goods if they were carried off. It reached the proportions of a major industry, with the blackmailers employing collectors and enforcers (known as brokers), and even something like accountants.

I love her dearly, far beyond any creature I've ever known, and I can prove it, for never once in almost seventy years of married life have I taken her by the throat.

When you have no choice, you must just buckle down to misfortune Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and wait.

Fortunately for the world my generation didn't suffer from spiritual hypochondria - but then, we couldn't afford it. By modern standards, I'm sure we, like the whole population who endured the war, were ripe for counselling, but we were lucky; there were no counsellors.

In her, ignorance and stupidity formed a perfect shield against the world: this, I suppose, is innocence. It

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark.

I took Elspeth home first. I had written to my father while we were on honeymoon, and had had a letter back saying: "Who is the unfortunate chit, for God's sake? Does she know what she has got?" So all was well enough in its way on that front.

By God, I wish that spit had been a real one, with me to turn it.

Oh, the holy satisfaction of the godly—when it comes to delight in cruelty I'm just a child compared to them

it wasn't that I'd grown any braver as I got older - the reverse if anything

Here I was alone, and could take my own time. In other parts of the world one always seems to be in a great hurry, tearing from one spot to the other at a gallop, but out yonder, perhaps because distances are so great, time don't seem to matter; you can jog along, breathing fresh air and enjoying the scenery and your own thoughts about women and home and hunting and booze and money and what may lie over the next hill.

It's a great thing, prayer. Nobody answers, but at least it stops you from thinking.

about him, and that all the signs were that he

Perhaps Dahomey inoculated me against the African bug which has bitten so many, to their cost, for it breeds grand dreams which often as not turn into nightmares.