CHAPTER XIX.

AN OLD SOLDIER'S STORY.

    "If he was of Leven's," said the lieutenant.
    "I told him your honour was."
    "Then," said he, "I served three campaigns with him in
Flanders."—Tristram Shandy.

A last glance at his old friends before we go in pursuit of Quentin.

"I fear me," said the quartermaster, shaking his old yellow wig, which still survived, and letting a long stream of tobacco smoke escape from his mouth, as he and the dominie lingered over their toddy-jugs one evening in "the snuggery," "I fear me much that the Master's London debts and liabilities are more than his father, worthy man, reckons on, and that Rohallion, wood and haugh, hill and glen, main and farm-town, will all be made ducks and drakes of within a week after the old Lord is carried through the haunted gate and up the kirk loan yonder."

"Wae is me that I should hear this," said the dominie, sadly.

"I speak in confidence, dominie," said the quartermaster, laying his "yard of clay" lightly on the other's arm, and lowering his voice.

"Of course—of course. But how different hath the Master's life been from his father's! Wasting his patrimony among London bucks and bullies—among parasites and flatterers, even as Timon of Athens wasted his substance, till he was driven to seek sustenance by digging for the poorest roots of the earth."

"Our old Lord has ever acted wisely, dominie; when not on active service, he has ever been resident on his ain auld patrimonial property—wisely so, I say, for it beseems not that the great names of the land should die out of the memory of those who inhabit it; d—n all absentees, say I!"

And as the quartermaster buried his red nose in his toddy-jug, the concluding anathema became an indistinct mumble.

"Bankruptcy and disgrace are before the Master, I fear," he resumed with a sigh, as he snuffed the long candles, which were placed in square-footed holders of carved mahogany, mounted with silver rings on the stems; "war may save him for a time, but only if he leaves the Guards."

"War, say ye?"

"Yes—for if he owed sums that surpassed the national debt, his creditors could never touch him while under orders for foreign service."

"But at his home-coming?"

"Ay, there's the rub, dominie. A fine story it would be to have the Master of Rohallion—he, the heir of a line that never was disgraced—ever stainless and true—arrested by a dog of a bailiff—arrested, perhaps, at the head of his regiment, it might be after fighting the battles of his country! Zounds, dominie, it would be enough to make all the old oaks in Rohallion wood drop their leaves and die, as if a curse had come upon the land! It would break his father's heart, and, much as I love the family, I would rather that Cosmo was killed in action, than that he had to endure such disgrace, or that after facing the French, as I know he will do bravely (for there never came a coward of the Crawford line), he had to flee ignobly to Holyrood, and become an abbey laird, that he might snap his fingers at the laws of both Scotland and England, until, perhaps, he got the lands of Ardgour."

The dominie was truly grieved to hear such things, for he had all the old Scottish patriarchal love of the family, under whom his forefathers—stout men-at-arms in their time, had been trusted dependents, through long dark ages of war and tumult; so he drew a long sigh, took a deep draught from his toddy jug, and asked in a low voice—

"If aught were to happen unto the Master, how would the title go?"

"I scarcely ken, dominie; by the death of Ranulph Crawford in a foreign land, it would probably fall to some far-awa cousin, after the lands had been frittered among disputants in the Court of Session, and the auld patent that King James signed on a kettle-drum head, had been hacked to rags by a Committee of Privileges. Confound the law, say I, wi' a' my heart! However, the old Lord, Heaven bless him! is a hale man and strong yet, so let us not anticipate evils, which are sufficient for their own day."

"Four weeks—a whole month to-night, John, since we last saw Quentin," said the dominie, to change the subject.

"Poor Quentin!"

"As a bairn how bonnie he was—yea, beautiful as Absalom!"

The quartermaster sighed with impatience, it might be with a little air of disappointment, as he pushed his toddy-jug aside, and proceeded energetically to refill the bowl of his pipe. Why, thought he, has Quentin never written to me, according to his promise?

It was September now. The bearded grain that had been yellowing on the long corn-rigs of Rohallion was already gathered in; the harvest-kirn or home had been held in the great barn of the Home Farm, and the tawny stubbles gave the bared land a sterile aspect, till they disappeared as the plough turned up the shining furrows, where the black ravens flapped their wings, and the hoodie-crows sought for worms. The leaves were becoming brown and yellow as sienna tints spread over the copsewood, and the sound of the axe was heard at times, for now the husbandman looked forward to the closing year, and remembered the rhyming injunction:—

"Ere winter preventeth, while weather is good,
For galling of pasture get home with thy wood;
And carry out gravel to fill up a hole,
Both timber and furzen, the turf and the coal."

"Four weeks—ay, it is September now," said the quartermaster.

"And I fear me the lad will return no more."

"Say not so, dominie; he may come upon us when we least expect him."

"It may be, for, of a verity, life is full of strange coincidences."

"Strange, indeed! I have told you many a soldier's yarn, dominie; but did you ever hear of the strange meeting I had with an old man of the clan Donald?"

"Where—in the Highlands?"

"No, in America."

The dominie shook his head as a negative.

"Then fill your pipe, brew your toddy, draw your chair nearer the fire, and I'll tell you about it.

"Ye see, dominie, it was in the winter of '75, when Rohallion was lieutenant in the Light Company, and I but a corporal, that, with a detachment of ours, we joined Major Preston and Captain—afterwards the unfortunate Major—André in the stockaded fort of St. John, on the Richelieu River, in Lower Canada. In the fort were seven hundred rank and file, chiefly of the Cameronians and the 7th or Royal Fusiliers, and our orders were to defend the place to the last!

"We were soon attacked with great vigour by the American General Montgomery, at the head of Lord knows how many rebellious Yankees and yelling Indian devils; but like brave men we defended ourselves till the whole place was unroofed and riddled by shot and shell—defended ourselves, amid the snows of severe winter, on half-rations, and what was worse, on half-grog, till our ammunition was expended. Then, but not till then, we were compelled to surrender, and give up our arms, baggage, and everything to the foe.

"Disheartened by defeat, and denuded of everything but our regimentals, we were marched up the lakes by Ticonderoga. As I had no desire for remaining a prisoner during a war, the end of which none could foresee, and not being an officer, having no parole to break, I resolved to escape on the first available opportunity, and did so very simply, on the night-march along the borders of Lake George. There was a halt, during which I contrived to creep unseen into a thick furzy bush, and there I remained, scarcely daring to breathe, till the prisoners fell into their ranks an hour before daybreak, and surrounded by their escort of triumphant Yankees and Indians in their war paint, proceeded on their sad and heartless journey into the interior.

"After the poor fellows had departed and all was still, while the ashes of the watch-fires smouldered and reddened in every breath of wind that passed over the snowy waste—and keen and biting blasts they were, I can tell ye, dominie—I slipped out of my friendly bush, stealthily as a snake might have done, and crawled away on my hands and knees from the vicinity of the deserted halting-place, for I dreaded to encounter some straggler of the escort, and still more did I dread some rambling Indian, who would have swooped down upon me with his scalping knife, and I had not the slightest ambition to see my natural wig added to the other grizzly trophies on a warrior's hunting shirt.

"Arms I had none, and was scarcely clothed. I was hungry, weary, and, on finding myself alone, I began to reflect whether I had acted wisely in escaping to face individually the perils that awaited me, for my tattered red coat marked me as an enemy, and in the stern frost of an American winter, you may believe, it was not to be discarded or cast aside without a substitute. Such a garb increased my perils, and we all know what it cost poor Major André, of the Cameronians, when caught in his uniform within the American lines.

"The cold seemed to freeze my faculties, and vaguely endeavouring to retrace the way we had come, I hoped by some chance, and by the care of Providence, to reach the junction of the Sorrel or the Richelieu with the St. Lawrence, for there I knew that Colonel Maclean was posted with the royal regiment of Scottish Emigrants, but concerning how far I was from thence, and how I was to reach it, I knew no more than of what the man in the moon may be about at this moment.

"Vainly I toiled on till day dawned fully on the vast extent of snow-covered country. Then I found myself among the high and wooded hills that look down upon the bosom of the Hudson. Far in the distance lay Fort St. John which we had so long defended, and which had the Stars and Stripes where the Union Jack waved before. On the other hand, Lake George, a sheet of snow-covered ice, with all its isles, lay like a map at my feet, far down below.

"Cold, cold, ice, frost, snow, a biting wind everywhere! I sighed and shuddered with misery, and longed for any other garment than my fatal red coat, that I might approach a house or homestead, and crave a morsel of food, and permission, for a minute, to warm myself by the kitchen fire, but to make the attempt was too rash, and, though my prospects were not cheering, I had no desire to court a rifle-shot from some loophole or upper window.

"As I stumbled on by the skirts of a fir copse, which somewhat sheltered me from the biting north wind, and while the drowsy numbness of exhaustion was stealing over me, I heard a loud and sonorous voice commanding me to 'stop.' I turned and saw a man approaching me.

"His form was powerful and athletic, apparently, rather than tall, and he seemed about fifty years of age or more; very brown and weather-beaten in visage, and his hair was white as the snow around us. He had on a thick fur cap, the warm earlaps of which were tied under his chin; and over a yellow Indian hunting-shirt he wore a seaman's pea-jacket, with two rows of large white horn buttons in front. It was girt by a belt of untanned leather, in which were stuck a hunting-knife, a pair of brass-mounted pistols, and a rusty basket-hilted Highland broadsword. He was evidently one of the insurgents—'Mr. Washington's rebels,' as we named them. He carried a long rifle, and wore a pair of large deer-skin boots, that came well over his sturdy thighs, and were strapped to his waist-belt. His whole appearance and bearing indicated a state of bodily strength, hardihood, confidence, and warmth, all of which, at that particular moment, I greatly envied. With his right hand on the hammer and his left on the barrel of his rifle, as if about to cock it, he said, in a voice that was both sharp and deep in tone—

"'Stand, Englishman, if you would not be shot down, as many a time I have seen your countrymen shoot others, in cold blood.'

"'I don't think even death could make my blood colder than it is already,' said I, with chattering teeth; 'but you accuse us unjustly of outrage.'

"'Do I?' said he, with a fierce sneer; 'by your doings at Lexington, I don't think the Redcoats are much changed since I saw them in Lochaber.'

"'I am not an Englishman,' said I, glancing at the sword in his girdle.

"'Then, what the devil are you?' he asked, sharply.

"'I am a Scotsman, as I rather think you are,' I added, for he had a Skye-terrier look about the face that indicated a West Highlander.

"'Indeed,' said he, in an altered tone, placing the butt of his rifle on the ground, greatly to my satisfaction and general ease of mind; 'you are one of the force that defended Fort St. John, under Major Preston and Captain André?'

"'Yes.'

"'And how, then, are you here?'

"'I was a prisoner, but escaped; and so great is my misery, that I beg of you to make me a prisoner again, if you are in the American interest.'

"'By your yellow facings, you are not one of the King's Fusiliers.'

"'I am a 25th man,' said I.

"'A 25th man?' he repeated, coming nearer, and looking hastily about to see if we were observed, but all around the vast landscape seemed desolate and tenantless; 'I will screen and save you if I can, for the sake of the old country neither of us may ever see again; but, more than all, for the sake of the number on your buttons. Here, taste this first, and then follow me.'

"He drew a leather hunting-bottle from the pocket of his rough pea-jacket, and gave me a good dram of Jamaica rum, but for which, I am sure, I should have died there, for the cold was fast overpowering me.

"'So you are a 25th man?' said he, surveying me with considerable interest; 'well, for that reason, if it were for nothing else, I shall befriend you. Come this way.'

"I was too cold—too intensely miserable—to question his meaning, but accompanied him through the wood, by a narrow path where the snow lay deep, and where, in some places, it had fallen in such a manner over the broad, horizontal and interlaced branches of the pine trees as to form quite a covered passage, where the atmosphere felt mild—even warm, compared with the temperature elsewhere. After a time, we reached an open plateau, on the slope of the hills that look towards Lake George, where we found his hut, a comfortable and warm little dwelling, sheltered by stupendous pines, and built entirely of fir logs, dressed and squared by the hatchet, and pegged each down into the other through holes bored by an auger. It had a stone chimney, within which a smouldering fire soon shot up into a ruddy blaze as he cast a heap of crackling fir cones on it, and then added some dry birch billets, that roared and sputtered cheerily, and threw showers of sparks all over us.

"He gave me some food, broiled venison, hard biscuits, and a good can of Jamaica grog; and he also gave me that which I needed sorely—warm clothing, in the shape of an old frieze coat, lined with martin skins, in lieu of my poor, faded and tattered regimentals, which, for security's sake, we cast into the fire and burned.

"Three days I remained with the trapper or hunter, for such he seemed to be, and on the fourth, after having carefully reconnoitred all the neighbourhood, he announced his intention of conducting me to Colonel Maclean's outposts upon the Richelieu; and being now thoroughly refreshed, I was glad to hear the tidings.

"'I shall never forget your kindness to me,' said I; 'and I value it all the more, because you are one of those who are in arms against the king.'

"'It is maybe not the first time I have been so,' said he, with a deep smile puckering all his eyelids.

"'And you saved my life simply because I was a 25th man?'

"'Yes—because one of your regiment—it was Lord Leven's—no, Lord Semple's then—saved mine, at a harder pinch, some thirty years ago,' said he, gravely, as he marched on before me through the snow, with his long rifle sloped on his shoulder.

"'You have been a soldier, then?'

"'Like yourself, Lowlander, for I know you are southland bred by your tongue.'

"'In what regiment?' I asked.

"'In the clan regiment of Macdonald of Keppoch. Rest him, God!' he exclaimed, taking off his cap and looking upward, while his keen grey eyes glistened, it might be in the frosty wind, under his bushy eyebrows.

"'When was this—and where?'

"Can you be so dull as not to guess? It was in the ever-memorable and ever-glorious campaign under His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, whom heaven long preserve! It was in 1746, just thirty years ago. Look at these scars,' he added, showing me several sword wounds that were visible among his thick white hair. 'I got these at Culloden, from Bland's dragoons, when fighting for Scotland and King James VIII.'

"'You must be an old man?' said I.

"'Old,' he exclaimed; 'I am barely fifty—young enough to fight and ripe enough to die for my new home, this land of America, to which I was banished as a slave with many more of my clan and kindred.' He was now warming with his subject and the recollections of the past. 'There is,' he resumed, 'a pass in the hills here that reminds me of my native glen in Croy. Often I go there and sit on the 16th April, as the fatal day comes round, when outnumbered, three to one, by British and Hanoverians, the Highland swordsmen went down like grass on Culloden moor, before the withering fire of grape and musketry! Then the river that flows into Lake George seems the Nairn—the water of Alders; yonder open moorland seems the plain of Drummossie, and the distant farm among the pine-trees passes for Culloden House. Afar off in the distance the bastions of Ticonderoga become those of Fort George, that jut into the Moray Firth, and yonder wooded mountain, as yet without a name, seems to me like wild Dun-daviot; and then as with the eyes of a seer, it all comes before me again, that April day, with its terrible memories! Then,' he continued, with flashing eyes, as he pointed across the plain, 'then I seem to see the white battle-smoke rolling over the purple heather, and the far extended lines of the hell-doomed Cumberland reaching from Bland's scarlet horse on the right to the false Lord Ancrum's blue dragoons upon the left—these long and steady lines of infantry, Barrel's, Munro's, the Fusiliers, the Royals, and all the rest, in grim array, three ranks deep, the colours waving in the centre, the bayonets glittering in the sun. On the other,' his voice failed him, and almost with a sob, he continued, 'on the other hand, I see the handsome Prince, the idol of all our hearts, on his white horse, half shimmering through the smoke and morning mist, and then the loyal clans in all their tartans, with target and claymore: Murray on the right, and Perth on the left, in the centre Athol, Lochiel, Appin, Cluny, and Lovat, Keppoch, Glengarry, and others with wild Lord Lewis and old Glenbucket in the rear! Then once again from yonder pine forest I seem to hear the war-pipes playing the onset, and a thrill passes over me. I feel my sword in my hand"—he dashed down his rifle and drew his claymore—'I draw down my bonnet; I hear the wild cheer, the battle cry of Righ Hamish gu bragh! pass along the line, as with heads stooped and targets up, we burst like a thunderbolt through the first line of charged bayonets! In a moment it is dispersed and overborne—it is all dirk and claymore, cutting, hewing and stabbing. On yet, on—and whoop! we break through the second line; on yet, through the third, and the day may be our own! Its fire is deadly and concentrated; I am beside the aged and white-haired Keppoch, my chief—all our people have fallen back in dismay before the fire of musketry and the treachery of the Campbells, who turned our flank. Keppoch waves his bonnet; again I hear him cry My God! my God! have the children of my tribe forsaken me? Again the bullets seem, to pierce me, and we fall to the earth together—and so the wild vision passes away!'

"While pouring forth all this, the Highland exile seemed like one possessed, and in his powerful imagination, I have no doubt that while speaking, the present snow-clad landscape passed away, and in fancy he saw the moor and battle of Culloden all spreading like a bloody panorama before him. Until he sheathed his sword I was not without uneasiness lest he might fill up the measure of his wrath by cutting and carving on me.

"'At last it was all over,' he resumed quietly and sadly; 'and then came the butchery of the wounded by platoon firing and the desecration of the dead. Sorely wounded and faint with loss of blood, I found myself on the skirt of the field near the wall which the Campbells had broken down to enable the light dragoons to turn our right flank.

"'Weary with the battle of the past day, a soldier was leaning against the wall, screwing a fresh flint into the lock of his musket. On seeing me move, he mercifully gave me a mouthful of water from his wooden canteen, and bound up my head with a shred torn from my plaid. I then begged him to help me a little way out of the field, as I was the sole support of an aged mother, and must live if possible. The good fellow said it was as much as his life was worth, were it known that he had spared mine; but as he, too, had an old mother in the lowlands far away, for her sake he would run the risk of assisting me.

"'The morning was yet dark and we were unseen. He half carried, half dragged me for more than a mile, till we reached a thicket where I was in safety from the parties who were butchering the wounded. Some of these burned my mother's hut and bayonetted her on the threshold.

"'I offered the soldier the tassels of my sporran or the silver buttons of my waistcoat as a reward, but he proudly refused them. I then pressed upon him my snuff-mull, on the lid of which my initials were engraved——'

"'And he took it?' said I, eagerly.

"'He did, but with reluctance; and then I asked his name, that I might remember it in my gratitude——'

"'And he told you that he was John Girvan of Semple's Foot—the 25th,' said I.

"'Yes—yes; but how know you that?'

"'Because that friendly soldier was my father. He served against the Prince at Culloden (four Scotch regiments did so that day), and often have I heard him tell the story of how the mull came into his possession, and of the brave Highlander who adhered to old Keppoch when all the clans fell back before the mingled shock of horse and foot in front and flank!'

"'Your father!—that brave man your father? I thank God who has thus enabled me to repay to you the good deed done to me on that dark morning on Culloden Moor,' said the Highlander with deep emotion, as he shook my hand with great warmth.

"'Here is the mull,' said I, producing it, 'and you are welcome to a pinch from it again.'

"'It is indeed like an old friend's face,' said he, looking with interest at his initials, D. McD., graven on the silver top. 'I made and mounted it, in my mother's hut in Croy. Woe is me! How many changes have I seen since that day thirty years ago, when last I held it in my hand? And your father, soldier—I hope that brave and good man yet lives?'

"'Alas! no,' said I, sadly; 'he entered the Royals fifteen years after Culloden, and volunteered, as a serjeant, with the forlorn hope, at the storming of the Moro Castle. He fell in the breach, and the mull was found in his havresack by the men who buried him there.'

"The Highlander took off his cap and muttered a prayer, crossing himself the while very devoutly.

"'But for him,' said he, 'instead of being a lonely trapper here by the shore of Lake George, the heather bells of thirty summers had bloomed and withered over my grave on the fatal moor of Culloden; but God's blessed will be done.'

"After this unexpected meeting with one of whom I had so often heard my worthy father speak when I was but a bairn, we became quite as old friends, and parted with regret when we reached the outposts of the Royal Scottish Emigrants, close to which he guided me, and then took his departure to join General Montgomery, who deemed Donald Macdonald the chief of his marksmen.

"I never heard of him more; and as for the snuff-mull, I was robbed of it by some Germans, who cut the knapsack off my back as I lay wounded in the skirmish at Stoney Point, in the State of New York, in 1776; but this chance meeting with its original proprietor, shows us, dominie, what unexpected things come to pass in the world. Life, as I said, is full of strange coincidences, and we may meet with Quentin Kennedy or hear sure tidings of him, when least expected."

"I pray Heaven it may be so," sighed the dominie, over his empty toddy-jug, as he tied an ample yellow bandanna over his old three-cornered hat, and under his chin; and then assuming his cane, prepared to depart.

"Jack Andrews has brought your pony round to the private door; take care o' the Lollard's Linn, for the night is dark; and now for the deoch—the stirrup-cup."

"Whilk the Romans ever drank in honour of Mercury, as I do now—that he may bestow a sound night's sleep," said the dominie, smacking his lips as the dram went down.

CHAPTER XX.

THE WAYFARER.

"On, on! through the wind and rain,
With the blinding tears and burning vein!
When the toil is o'er and the pain is past,
What recks it all if we sleep at last."
                                                            All the Year Round.

When we last saw him, we said that Quentin was going forth into the world to seek his fortune, though, perhaps, his chief idea or emotion was to get as far away as possible from the vicinity of Rohallion, its haughty lady, and the cold and crafty Master. As he passed through the ivied archway, he dashed aside the tears that his farewell with the old quartermaster had summoned.

"How often," thought he, "have I read in novels and romances, in dramas and story-books, of the heroes doing this—setting out on the vague and hopeful errand that was to lead to fame and fortune; but how little I ever expected to experience the stern reality, or believe that it would be my own fate! And now the hour has come—oh, it seems so strange now-a-days!"

Passing down the avenue, the stately trees of which were tossing their branches wildly in the gathering blast, he issued upon the highway, and proceeded along it without caring, and perhaps without considering, whether he went to the right or to the left.

Intense was the loneliness, and bitter the irritation of mind in which he pursued his aimless way, by the old and narrow road, which was bordered by ancient hedgerows where brambles and Gueldre-roses were growing wild and untrimmed, and where the wind was howling now among the old beech-trees, as an occasional drop of rather warm rain that fell on his face, or plashed in the dust under foot, gave warning for a rough and comfortless night for a belated wayfarer.

Again and again he looked back to the picturesque, turreted, and varied outline of Rohallion, and saw its many lighted windows, one which he knew well, in the crowstepped gable of the western wing. It was the sleeping-place of Flora Warrender.

She would be there now—her head resting on her pillow, perhaps, sleepless and weeping for him, no doubt, and for the probable results of a quarrel, the end of which she could not foresee—weeping for the young heart that loved her so truly, so he flattered himself; and in the morning she would find that his room was tenantless, his bed unslept in, and that he was gone—gone no-one knew whither!

Hope had scarcely yet risen in Quentin's breast; he felt but the stern and crushing knowledge that he was leaving his only home where all had loved, and where he truly loved all save one, to launch out upon an unknown world, and to begin a career that was as friendless as it was shadowy.

He had no defined plan, where to proceed, or what to essay. He naturally thought of the army; but, as he had ever anticipated a commission, he shrunk from enlisting, and thereby depriving himself of all liberty of action, and perhaps of forfeiting for ever the place which he felt himself, by birth and education, entitled to take in society.

Of business or the mode of attaining a profession, he was as ignorant as of the contents of the Koran, the Talmud, the Shasters, or the books of Brahma; and had he dropped from the moon, or sprung out of the turf, he could not have felt more lonely, friendless, and isolated in the world.

He was now passing the old ruined church, with its low and crumbling boundary-wall that encloses the graveyard, where, long ago, his drowned father had been reverently laid by the Rohallion Volunteers and the worthy old quartermaster.

How well Quentin knew the spot amid the solemn obscurity! he could see it from the time-worn foot-stile where he lingered for a moment. He was lying beside the ancient east window, near the Rohallion aisle, where dead Crawfords of ages past, even those who had fallen in their armour at Flodden and Pinkey, Sark and Arkinholme, were buried. No stone marked the spot; but now the rough-bearded thistle, the long green nettle, the broad-leaved dock, and the sweetbriar, mingled mournfully over the humble last home of the poor dead wanderer.

Quentin felt his heart very full at that moment.

Did the father see his son to-night? Was he looking upon him from some mysterious bourne among the stars? Did he know the tumult, the sorrow, and the half-despair that were mingling in his breast?

Quentin almost asked these questions aloud, as, with a mind deeply agitated by conflicting thoughts, the poor fellow journeyed on.

A strong regard for the home he had left (of any other he had no memory now save a vague and indistinct dream), with painful doubts lest he had been ungracious, ungrateful, or unkind to any there, beset him, after the soft revulsion of feeling excited by the solemn aspect of the midnight churchyard.

Then came dim foreshadowings, the anxious hopes—a boy's certainty of future fame and distinction; but how, where, and in what path?

His romance-reading with Flora and the yarns of the quartermaster had filled his mind with much false enthusiasm and many odd fancies. He had misty recollections of heroes expelled or deserting from home under circumstances pretty similar to his own, who had flung themselves over awful precipices, when their bones were picked white (a doubly unpleasant idea) by the Alpine eagles or bears of the Black Forest: or who had thrown themselves upon their swords, or drowned themselves (the Lollard's Linn was pouring not far off; but the night was decidedly cold), yet none of these modes of exit, suited his purpose so well as walking manfully on, and imagining, with a species of grim satisfaction, the surmises and so forth at Rohallion, when the supper-bell rang and he did not appear; when Jack Andrews, with military punctuality, closed the old feudal fortress for the night, and still he was not to be found; and then the next day, with its increased excitement, was a thought that quite cheered him!

But there was Flora—sweet Flora Warrender, with all her winning little ways; and her image came upbraidingly before him despite the smarting of the wound given him by the Master, and the deeper sting of Lady Rohallion's words.

As glittering fancies rose like soap-bubbles in the sunshine; as the Châteaux en Espagne rose too, and faded away into mud-hovels and even prisons, love and affection drew his thoughts back and seemed to centre his hopes in and about Rohallion. Flora's face, the memory of past years of love and kindness experienced from Lady Winifred, and from the old Lord, melted his heart, or filled it with regard and gratitude towards them, and he felt that, go where he might, Rohallion could never be forgotten. A verse of Burns that occurred to him, seemed but to embody his own ideas and emotions—

"The monarch may forget his crown,
    That on his head an hour hath been;
The bridegroom may forget the bride,
    Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The mother may forget her child,
    That smiles so sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
    And all that thou hast done for me."

From an eminence above the oakwood shaw, he turned to take his last view of the old dwelling-place; but he could only see its lights twinkling like distant stars, for the night was obscure and murky; the clouds were rolling in great masses; the wind came in fierce and fitful gusts from the Firth of Clyde, while the rain began to descend steadily.

Bodily discomfort soon recalled all his emotions of hate and anger at the Master, and with eyes that flashed in the dark, he turned his back, almost resentfully, on the old castle, and resumed his aimless journey.

"There is sometimes," says a writer, "a stronger sense of unhappiness attached to what is called being hardly used by the world, than by a direct and palpable misfortune, for though the sufferer may not be able even in his own heart to set out with clearness one single count in the indictment, yet a general sense of hard treatment, unfairness, and so forth, brings with it a great depression and feeling of desolation."

"Why was I orphaned in youth?" thought Quentin, bitterly, as this sense of unfairness and depression came over him; "why was I cast on the bounty, the mercy, of strangers? Why did I love Flora—why do we love each other so vainly, and why are we to be hopelessly separated?"

All these questions remained unanswered; but the blinding rain was now coming down in sheets, and he felt the necessity of seeking shelter without delay.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE VAULT OF KILHENZIE.

"Through gloomy paths unknown,
    Paths which untrodden be,
From rock to rock I go
    Along the dashing sea.
And seek from busy woe,
    With hurrying steps to flee;
But know, fair lady! know,
    All this I bear for thee!"
                                            Ancient Poetry of Spain.

On passing the long thicket or copse, known as the oakwood shaw, a number of fires burning on the heath beyond, and sheltered by the oaks from the west wind, at once indicated to Quentin that a gipsy camp was there. Indeed, he could see their figures flitting darkly to and fro around the red fires, on which they were heaping wood that smoked and sputtered in the wind and rain. He could also see the little tents or wigwams which were simply formed by half circular hoops stuck in the earth, and covered by canvas or tarpaulin.

Their miserable ponies were picquetted on the open heath, where, with drooping ears and comfortless aspect, they cropped the scanty herbage or chewed the whin bushes. Aware that these people were to be sedulously avoided, and that he must neither risk the loss of his portmanteau, or the money so generously lent him by the quartermaster, he clutched his walking-cane, turned hastily aside, and passing up a lane between hedge-rows, proceeded towards a farm-house, the occupants of which he feared might know him; but he was resolved to risk recognition, for the weather was becoming pitiless, and he had no alternative.

A watchdog barked furiously and madly, straining on his chain and standing on his hind-legs, open-mouthed, as Quentin approached the house, which was involved in darkness and silence.

The rain was dashing on the closed windows, washing the bleak walls and gorging the spouts and gutters, as he handled vigorously and impatiently a large brass knocker, with which the front door was furnished. After the third or fourth summons, a window was opened in the upper story, and by the light within the room Quentin could perceive the face and figure of the irate farmer, Gibbie Crossgrane, in a white nightcap and armed with a gun or musket, for Gibbie was one of the Rohallion volunteers.

"Wha are ye, and what do ye seek at this time o' night?" he demanded.

"Shelter——" Quentin began.

"Shelter!" shouted the other; "my certie! do ye take this for a change-house, or an ale-wife's, that ye rap sae loud and lang?"

"I have lost my way, Mr. Crossgrane——"

"Then ye are the mair fule! But be off," he added, cocking his piece; "I warrant ye are nae better than ye should be. This is the third time I hae been roused out o' my warm bed this blessed night by yon cursed tinkler bodies, that hae been fechting and roost-robbing about Kilhenzie a' day, so be off, carle, I say, or aiblins I'll shoot ye like a hoodiecraw, ye vagrant limmer."

With these threatening words, which showed that he was determined to consider his visitor one of the gipsies, he slapped the butt of his gun significantly, and sharply closed the window ere poor Quentin could explain or reply.

"Churlish wretch!" he sighed, as he turned away, and revenged himself by hurling a huge stone at the yelling watch-dog, which, like a cowed bully, instantly plunged into his kennel, where he snapped and snarled in spite and anger.

Aware of the futility of making any further attempt in this quarter, Quentin returned to the high road, when, passing the ruins of Kilhenzie, he conceived the idea of taking shelter in one of the remaining vaults, wherein he knew that Farmer Crossgrane was wont to store straw and hay for his cattle.

Though the memory of John the Master's wraith, the spectre-hound of the holly thicket, and other dark stories somewhat impressed him at this hour, and awed him as he approached the ruined walls, he hastened to avail himself of their shelter, quickening his pace to a run as he passed the giant tree of Kilhenzie, on the branches of which, the quartermaster and dominie averred, so many men had taken their leave of a setting sun.

He went straight to an arched vault which he knew well, as it opened off the grass-grown barbican, and finding it, as he expected, full of dry straw, he burrowed among it for warmth, and placing his portmanteau under his head, strove to avoid all thoughts of the gloomy ruin in which he had a shelter, and to sleep, if possible, till dawn of day.

The old stronghold was a familiar place, endeared to him by the memory of many an evening ramble with Flora Warrender, with whom he had explored every turret, nook, and corner of it; and with the dominie, too, whose old legends of the fiery Kennedies of Kilhenzie—with whom he always loved to connect his pupil—were alike strange and stirring.

"Ah, if I should indeed prove to be the Laird of Kilhenzie—I who lurk here like a beggar to-night!" said Quentin, and then the quaint figure of his tutor the dominie, with his long ribbed galligaskins drawn over the knees of his corduroy breeches, came vividly before him.

He thought of the stately Lady Eglinton, who had always ridiculed this ideal descent, and of her daughters, but chiefly his old playmate, the gentle Lady Mary, and wondered whether they would mourn when they heard of what had befallen him. But Quentin was fated never to see the fair Montgomerys more; for Lady Mary died in her youth, and Lady Lilias died far away in Switzerland, where she was interred in the same grave with her husband.

It was now, after his recent rude repulse at the farmhouse, that he felt himself indeed a wanderer and an outcast!

Wet and weary, he shuddered with cold; the loss of blood he had suffered rendered him weak and drowsy, and but for the brandy so thoughtfully given him by old John Girvan, he could not have proceeded so far on his aimless journey.

He strove hard, with his nervous excitement, to sleep, and to find in oblivion a temporary release from thoughts of the happy days of past companionship and of love-making—days that would return no more—moments of delight and joy never to be lived over again! Flora's voice, as low and sweet as ever Annie Laurie's was; her clear and smiling eyes, her ringing laugh, so silvery and joyous, were all vividly haunting him, with the memory of that dear and—as it proved—last kiss in the ancient avenue.

All these were to be foregone now, it too probably seemed for ever, and Cosmo, with his thousand chances, had the field to himself, nor would he fail to use them.

Despite his strong and almost filial love for Lord and Lady Rohallion, Quentin felt in his heart that he hated the cold and haughty Master as the primary cause of all his misery, and the memory of the degrading blow, so ruthlessly dealt by his hand, burned like a plague-spot on his soul, if we may use such a simile.

Gradually, however, sleep stole upon him, but not repose, for he had strange shuddering fits, nervous startings, and perpetual dreams of vague and horrible things, which he could neither understand nor realize.

Once he sprang up with a half-stifled cry, having imagined that the hand of a strange man had clutched his throat! So vivid was this idea, that some minutes elapsed before he fully recovered his self-possession.

"The wound on my head and the consequent loss of blood cause these unusual visions," thought he, not unnaturally. "Oh, that I could but sleep—sleep soundly, and forget everything for a little time!"

The rain and the wind had ceased now, and he heard only the cawing of the rooks in the echoing ruin. He could see the morning star shining with diamond-like brilliance, but coldly and palely through a loophole of the vault, and with a sigh of impatience for the coming day he was composing himself once more to sleep, when suddenly his hand came in contact with the fingers of another, protruding from the straw near him—the straw on which he was lying!

His first emotion was terror at being there with some person unknown, without other weapon than a walking-cane.

His next thought was flight from this silent companion, whom he addressed thrice without receiving other reply than the echo of his own voice reverberating in the vault.

It had been no dream; a hand must indeed have been on his throat—a hand that if he stirred or breathed might clutch him again; but whose hand?

Prepared to make a most desperate resistance, he listened, but heard only the beating of his heart, and the drip, drip, dripping of moisture from the ivy leaves without, or the occasional rustle of the straw within the vault. Fearfully he put forth his hand to search again, for a streak of dim light was glimmering through a loophole, and again his hand came in contact with the other. Cold, rigid, motionless, it was, he knew, with a thrill of horror, the hand of a corpse!

With an irrepressible and shuddering cry, Quentin sprang up, and as he did so he could now see, half-hidden amid the straw on which he had slept, and literally beneath him, the dead body of a man—the features white, pale, and pinched; the hands half-upraised, as if he had died in the act of resistance or in agony. A bunch of wooden ladles, porridge spurtles, and horn spoons that lay near, all covered with blood, showed that he was a gipsy, who had been slain in one of the scuffles which were of frequent occurrence between adverse tribes of those lawless wanderers, and that he had been concealed in the vault of Kilhenzie, or had crawled there to die. Quentin conceived the former to be the most probable cause for the body being there.

All that the foregoing paragraph has embraced Quentin's eye and mind took in with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, and snatching his portmanteau, he sprang out of the vault, rushed down the slope on which the old castle stands, and shivering with disgust, affright, and the cold air of the damp morning, found himself again on the highway that led to Maybole.

The birds were singing and twittering merrily in the green hedgerows and among the dew-dripping trees, as the August day came in. Already the roads were almost dry, and as a blue-bonneted ploughboy passed with a pair of huge Clydesdale horses afield, whistling gaily, Quentin shrunk behind a hedge, for his clothes, damped by the rain over-night, were nowise improved in aspect by the bed he had selected; and now on examining them, he perceived to his dismay and repugnance that they exhibited several spots of blood, and his hands wore the same sanguine hue. Whether these ominous marks had come from his own veins or from those of the corpse near which he had so unpleasantly lain, Quentin knew not, but in great haste he sought a runnel that gurgled by the wayside, and there with the aid of a handkerchief he removed the stains with as much dispatch and care as if they had been veritable signs of guilt and shame.

We have said that blood gouts had been found in the gipsy bivouac, and Farmer Crossgrane had mentioned incidentally that the vagrants had been fighting. They were notorious for the free and reckless use of their knives and daggers, so doubtless, the body lying in Kilhenzie was the result of a recent affray. Quentin now discovered that he had lost his walking-cane, and that in his flight from the ruin he had left it in the vault beside the dead man. He regretted this, as the cane was a present from Lord Rohallion, and had his initials graven on its silver head; but he could not overcome his repugnance sufficiently to face again his ghastly bedfellow, or to return, and so hastened from the vicinity of the old castle.

He had not, however, proceeded two miles or so, before the alarming idea occurred to him, that this cane, if found beside the dead man, might serve to implicate him in the affair; and through the medium of his active fancy he saw a long train of circumstantial evidence adduced against him, and in his ruin, disgrace, it might be death, a triumph given to Cosmo Crawford which even he could not exult in.

These terrible reflections gave the additional impulse of fear to urge him on.

The morning was sunny, breezy, and lovely; the sky a pure deep blue, and without a cloud; the light white mists were rising from the shady glens and haughs where the wimpling burns ran through the leafy copse or under the long yellow broom, when from an eminence Quentin took his last farewell of scenery that was endeared to him by all his recollections of childhood and youth, and heavy, heavy grew his heart as he did so. He could see the glorious Firth of Clyde opening in the distance, and all the bold and beautiful shore of Carrick stretching from the high Black Vault of Dunure away towards the bluff and castle of Rohallion.

Dunduff and Carrick's brown hill had mist yet resting on their summits, and afar off, paling away to greyish blue, was Ailsa Craig, rising like a cloud from the water—the white canvas of many a ship, homeward-bound or outward-bound, merchantman, privateer and letter-of-marque, like sea birds floating on the bosom of the widening river. On the other side he saw the rich undulations that look down on the vast and fertile plains of Kyle and Cunninghame, and in the middle distance Maybole, amid the golden morning haze, the quaint little capital of Carrick, with its baronial tower and Tolbooth spire.

There he considered himself as certain of being recognised by some of the vintners, ostlers, or by Pate, the town piper, for the place had been a favourite turning point with him and Flora Warrender in their evening rides; and he also knew that if he were not recognised, the smallness of his portmanteau suggested that the estimate which might be formed of him by Boniface, by waiters and others, would not be very high.

He therefore resolved to avoid that ancient Burgh-of-Barony altogether, and the carrier for Ayr coming up at that moment, he struck a bargain with him for conveyance thither. Remembering how Roderick Random and other great men had travelled by this humble mode of locomotion, he gladly took his seat by the side of the driver, a lively and cheerful fellow, who knew all the cottars and girls on the road, and who whistled or sang incessantly varying marches, rants, and reels, with Burns' songs, every one of which he knew by heart—and he knew Burns too, having, as he boasted, "flitted the poet from Irvine to Mossgiel in '84—just four-and-twenty years sinsyne."

He blithely shared his humble breakfast of sour milk in a luggie, barley meal bannock and Dunlop cheese, with our hero, whose spirits seemed to rise as the morning sun soared into the cloudless sky, and he seemed to feel now the necessity of ceasing to mope, of becoming the maker of his own fate, the arbiter of his own destiny, and he determined, if possible, to "wrestle with the dark angel of adversity till she brightened and blessed him."

When left to himself, however, lulled by the monotonous rumble of the waggon wheels, he lay back among the carrier's bales, and gave himself up to day-dreams and his old trade of airy castle-building.

He had forty guineas in his pocket, he was sound wind and limb, and had all the world before him!

All tinted in rosy and golden colours, he saw the future scenes in which he was to figure—kings being at times but accessories and "supers" of the grouping. He held imaginary conversations with the great, the noble, and the wealthy; he was the hero of a hundred achievements, but whether on land, on sea, or in the air, he had not as yet the most remote idea; but they all tended to one point, for his fancies, ambitions, and hopes seemed, not unnaturally, to revolve in an orbit, of which Flora Warrender and Lady Rohallion—for he dearly loved her too—were the combined centre of attraction.

Full of himself and of the little world of fancy he was weaving, he cared not where he went or how the time passed, for he was just at that delightful and buoyant period of life when novels and tales of adventure fill the mind with sentiments and imageries that seem quite realities; thus, he felt assured that like some of the countless heroes, whose career he had studied at times in history but much oftener in fiction, he was destined for a very remarkable and brilliant future.

Travelling in the corner of a carrier's waggon, after sharing the proprietor's sour milk and home-baked bannocks, did not look very like it; but was not this simply the beginning of the end?

When again they met, how much would he have to tell Flora, commencing with the very first night of his departure, and that horrible adventure in the vault of Kilhenzie.

But how if she married the Master, with his sneering smile and cat-like eyes?

This fear chilled him certainly; but he felt trustful. Hope inspires fresh love as love inspires hope, for they must grow and flourish together; and so on and on he dreamed, until a sudden jolt of the waggon roughly roused him, and he found that it was just crossing "the auld brig o' Ayr," the four strong and lofty arches of which first spanned the stream when Alexander II. was king.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE QUEEN ANNE'S HEAD.

"Well, suppose life be a desert? There are halting-places and shades, and refreshing waters; let us profit by them for to-day. We know that we must march on when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our destiny onward."—THACKERAY.

Having amply satisfied the worthy carrier, Quentin quitted the waggon, and proceeded through the bustling, but then narrow, unpaved, and ill-lighted streets of Ayr, towards one of the principal inns, the Queen Anne's Head, the only ONe in the town with which he was familiar, as Lord Rohallion's carriage occasionally stopped there. It was a large, rambling, old-fashioned house, with a galleried court, ample stabling, low ceiled rooms; with dark oak panels, heavy dormant beams, and stone fire-places; wooden balconies projecting over stone piazzas, tall gables, and turret-like turnpike stairs; and a mouldered escutcheon over the entrance door showed that in palmier days it had been the town mansion of some steel-coated lesser baron.

Hotels were still unknown in the three bailiwicks of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunninghame; thus in the yard behind the Queen Anne's Head, the stage coach, his majesty's mail (whose scarlet-coated guard bore pistols, and a blunderbuss that might have frightened Bonaparte), the carrier's waggon, the farmer's gig, and the lumbering, old-fashioned coaches of my Lord Rohallion, or the Earls of Cassilis and Eglinton, with their wooden springs and stately hammercloths, might all be seen standing side by side. Though war rendered the continent a sealed book to the English, Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels had not as yet opened up all Scotland to the tourists of Europe and Cockneydom. The kingdom of the Jameses could not be "done" then as now, by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, with knapsack on back (with Black's Guide and Bradshaw's Table, tartan peg-tops and paper collars), in a fortnight by rail and steam; hence a traveller on foot, and portmanteau in hand, was apt to be considered in the rural districts as an English pedlar or worse. Indeed, Scotland and England were then very little changed from what they had been in the days of William and Mary, and but for worthy old James Watt they might have been so still.

"I'll be extravagant—I'll have a jovial dinner and a glass of wine," thought Quentin, who, though pale and weary, had the appetite of a young hawk, notwithstanding all his doubts and troubles. "Which way?" he inquired of a surly-looking waiter, who stood at the inn door, with a towel over his arm; but this official, instead of replying, very leisurely surveyed Quentin from head to foot, and then glanced superciliously at his portmanteau.

His wetting over night, his repose among the straw, and the subsequent journey among the carrier's bales and butter firkins had not improved his external appearance. Quentin felt aware of this, and reiterated angrily.

"Which way—did you not hear me?"

"You've taen the wrang gate, my friend, I'm thinking," replied the waiter, shaking his head.

"Wrong way! What do you mean, fellow?"

"Nae mair a fellow than yoursel'," said the waiter, saucily. "The 'Blue Bell,' doon the next wynd, or the 'Souter Johnnie,' opposite the Tolbooth, will better suit ye than the 'Anne's Head.' They are famous resorts for packmen and dustifute bodies."

"I mean to remain where I am. Show me to a bedroom, and order dinner for me in the dining-room," said Quentin, flushing up with sudden passion. "The best in the house, and lose no time!"

"Some military gentlemen are in the best chamber," urged the waiter, whom this manner did not fail to impress, as he lingered with his hand on the lock of a door.

"If the devil himself were there, what is it to me? Do as I order, or I will kick you into the street!"

The waiter, who, as tourists and idle travellers were then unknown in Ayr, was utterly at a loss to make out the character of this new guest, bowed and ushered him into a bedroom, after which, he hastened away, no doubt to report upon the dubious kind of occupant, who had almost forced his way into No. 20.

Though the contents of Quentin's portmanteau were limited, he speedily made such an improvement in his toilet, that when he came forth he received a very gracious bow from Boniface, who had been hovering about the corridor on the watch; and he was ushered into the principal dining-room of the establishment, a long and rather low-roofed apartment, having several massive tables and oval-backed old-fashioned chairs, a gigantic sideboard, within the brass rail of which stood three upright knife and spoon cases, several plated tankards, salvers, and branch candlesticks of quaint and antique form.

The room was decorated with prints of Nelson's victories, the Siege of Gibraltar, the Battle of Alexandria, and other recent glories of our arms by sea and land; while over the mantel-piece was one of Gillray's gaudily-coloured political caricatures, which were then so much in vogue—for he was the H.B. and Punch of the Regency.

Two officers in undress uniform, with blue facings (their swords, sashes, and caps lying on the table beside them) were lounging over some brandy and water, and laughing at Gillray's, not over-delicate print, while Quentin retired to a remote corner of the room, and smarting under the waiter's impertinence, now felt more lonely and depressed than he had done since leaving home. He could remember that his last reception in that very house had been so different, when, in Lady Rohallion's carriage, he and Flora Warrender had driven up to the door and ordered luncheon.

One of the military guests was a tall, weather-beaten, soldier-like man, about thirty-five years of age, a lieutenant apparently by the bullion of his epaulettes; the other was slender, fair-haired, and rather plainly featured, and proved to be the ensign of his recruiting party, which was then beating up at Ayr. As the churlish waiter passed them after putting some wine before Quentin, the lieutenant asked, in a low voice—

"What is he?"

"Who, sir?"

"That young fellow in the corner."

"Too proud for a recruit—an officer, I think," said the waiter, with a grin.

"A sheriff's officer?—that boy, do you mean?"

"No, sir—in the army," whispered the waiter, with a still more impertinent grin, and retired before Quentin could hurl the decanter at his head, which he felt very much inclined to do.

He was seriously offended, but affected to look out of the window, while the two subalterns, turning their backs on him, resumed their conversation as if he had not been present.

"And so, Pimple," said the senior, "when you proposed for the Bailie's daughter you were deep in love—"

"Yes—very."

"And in debt and drink, too?"

"I was in love, I tell you," said the ensign, angrily.

"For the twenty-fifth time, eh?"

"Not exactly, Monkton; but you are aware that fathers have flinty hearts, and seldom see with—with—"

"With what—out with it, old fellow.",

"Their charming daughters' eyes," sighed the ensign.

"True, or I should have been seen to advantage long ago. But an ensign under orders for foreign service is not the most eligible of sons-in-law."

"True—but in my ease, at least," continued the ensign, who was quite serious, while his senior officer was purple with suppressed laughter, "in my case, as a young gentleman possessed of moderate fortune, moderate accomplishments——"

"And moderate virtue—eh, Pimple?"

"You are very impertinent, Monkton," remonstrated the other, upbraidingly.

"But truthful, my dear boy, very truthful," said the quizzing lieutenant, for half the conversation was mere "barrack-room chaff," to use a phrase then unknown; "and if old Squaretoes——"

"Who do you mean?"

"Mean? why this rich old flax-spinner, the father of your fair one. If he should come down handsomely, we fellows of the 25th would consider you quite as our factor—eh, Pimple?"

On hearing this number, which was so familiar to his ear, Quentin Kennedy turned to observe the speakers more particularly, when a third officer, a very handsome man, about forty years of age, with a nut-brown cheek, a rollicking blue eye, and a hearty laugh, a square, well-built form, clad in full regimentals, scarlet-faced and lapelled with green and gold to the waist, and wearing large loose epaulettes, burst into the room, noisily and without ceremony. As he did so, he threw his arms round a very pretty chambermaid, who was tripping past with something from the sideboard, and kissing the girl, who was half pleased and half scared, he shouted in a tragi-comic manner, a passage from the Merchant's Wife, a now forgotten play:—

"Woman thou stol'st my heart—just now thou stol'st it,
A cannon-bullet might have kissed my lips
And left me as much life!"

"If the sour-visaged landlord catches you kissing any of his squaws"——suggested the lieutenant.

"It is a custom we learned in the Dutch service," replied the new comer, laughingly.

"Have you got the route for to-morrow, Warriston?" asked the lieutenant.

"All right," said the other, flourishing an oblong official paper; "it was brought by an orderly dragoon—here it is. His majesty's will and pleasure, &c., to civil (query, uncivil) magistrates and others and so forth, to provide billets for the noisy, carriages for the drunken, and handcuffs for the disorderly, of three officers, three sergeants, and seventy rank and file, proceeding by Muirkirk and Kirknewton to Edinburgh—a seventy miles' march."

"Ugh!" groaned the lieutenant.

"So, Pimple, your love affair must be off like ourselves, by beat of drum to-morrow."

The ensign heaved a kind of mock sigh, and raised his white eyebrows.

"Now, waiter, quick with dinner—the best in larder and cellar," said the captain to that churlish attendant, who laid a knife and fork for Quentin at the extreme end of the long table.

"Who is the solitary or exclusive person that is to be carved for there, half a mile off?" asked the captain.

The waiter glanced towards Quentin.

"Nonsense," said the Captain of the 94th, "lay his cover with ours—absurd to dine alone at the end of this devilish long table. You'll join us, eh?"

"With pleasure," said Quentin, bowing.

"A glass of wine with you. What are you drinking?"

"Sherry."

They filled their glasses, bowed, and drank, after which Quentin came forward and joined them.

"I'm Dick Warriston, 94th. My friends, Mr. Monkton and Mr. Boyle, 25th."

"Mr. Kennedy," said Quentin, introducing himself, with a heightened colour.

Quentin soon learned from their conversation that the captain had been recruiting for the 94th, and the other two officers for the 25th, in Ayrshire, with considerable success; that they had obtained a sufficient number of men, and were under orders to march for the head-quarters of their respective corps by daybreak on the morrow. He also heard, incidentally, some of the little secrets of recruiting, and the tricks played by knowing sergeants to trepan men into paying smart-money, and so forth; that the lieutenant had been "rowed" with a threat of being summoned to head-quarters for enlisting men beneath the proper height, his sergeant having supplied them with false heels, five feet seven being the minimum for "the Borderers;" and next, that he had narrowly escaped a court-martial for sending some half-dozen O'Neils and O'Donnels (all Irish) to the regiment, as MacNeils and MacDonnels from the Western Isles.

The three officers, in their jollity, thoughtlessness, laughter, and general lightness of heart, formed a strong contrast to poor Quentin's dejection of spirit. He envied them, and asked of himself why was he not happy and merry too—why was he not one of them?

Richard Warriston, the senior, had begun life as a subaltern in General Sir Ralph Dundas's Regiment of the Scots-Dutch, as they were named—the famous old Scots brigade of six battalions, which served their High Mightinesses the States of Holland from the days of James VI. to those of the French Revolution—in all the bloody wars of two centuries, bearing themselves with honour and never losing a standard, though they had captured many from every army in Europe. They volunteered, as the 94th Foot, into the British service about the end of the last century, and came back to Scotland clad in the old Dutch yellow uniform; hence Warriston's stories and memories were all of Holland and Flanders, Prussia and Austria, and many a strange anecdote he had to tell at times.

Desirous of showing the suspicious landlord and impertinent waiter how other persons viewed him, Quentin ordered another bottle of wine.

"The deuce!" he heard the captain whisper to Monkton; "we can't permit this mere boy to treat us to wine."

"Two bottles, and be sharp, waiter," said Quentin, whose pride the well-meaning officer had piqued.

"He is a regular trump," said Monkton, adjusting his napkin.

"A gentleman—a phrase I prefer," added Warriston in the same undertone, as he proceeded to slice down a gallant capon; for he could perceive at once, by Quentin's bearing at the dinner-table—the truest and best test—that he knew all its etiquette and had been used to good society. As the wine circulated and reserve thawed (not that there was much of it, certainly, in the present quartet) Quentin asked Monkton if he remembered an officer named Girvan in his corps.

"Girvan—Girvan—remember him?—yes; an old quartermaster—rose from the ranks, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"He left us on a half-pay commission in the year I joined, during Lord Rohallion's lieutenant-colonelcy. (By-the-bye, his lordship lives somewhere hereabout; should leave our cards for him, but have no time.) Girvan was a queer old fellow, who always wore a yellow wig—do you know him?"

"Intimately. I have known him from my childhood," said Quentin, his eyes sparkling and heart swelling with pleasure, that he could speak of some one at home.

"Any relation of yours?" asked Monkton; and so weak is human nature that Quentin blushed that any one should think he was so, and then blushed deeper still that he was ashamed of his true and sterling old friend.

"Perhaps he is your father?" suggested the ensign, mischievously.

"Sir, I said my name is Kennedy; my father was a captain of the Scots Brigade in the French service."

"Ah—indeed!" said Warriston, becoming suddenly interested; "is he still alive?"

"Alas, sir, no!"

"Killed in action, likely?"

"He was drowned at sea, after an engagement with a French ship off the mouth of the Clyde."

"And where have you come from, that you travel thus alone?"

"I cannot say."

"Then where are you going to?" asked the ensign.

"I don't know," replied Quentin, sadly.

"Can't say and don't know!" said the captain of the Scots Brigade; "then my advice would be to stay where you are."

"That is not possible."

"You are an odd fellow—quite an enigma," said Monkton, laughing.

"Perhaps I am," replied poor Quentin, with a sickly smile.

"Do you know, my young friend, that I have been observing you closely for some time (pardon me saying so), but with something of friendly interest, and I perceive an air of dejection about you that shows there is something wrong—a screw loose somewhere," said Captain Warriston, kindly.

"Wrong?" repeated Quentin, flushing, and in doubt how to take the remark.

"Yes; I have seen so much of the world that I can read a man's face like an open book."

"And the reading of mine——"

"Is satisfactory; but there is something in your eyes that tells me you are in a scrape somehow—at home, perhaps?"

"Home!" exclaimed Quentin, in a voice that trembled, for the wine was affecting him; "I have none!"

The three officers glanced at each other, and the fair-haired ensign's white eyebrows went up rather superciliously.

"I find that I must talk with you, my young friend," said Warriston—"will you have a cigar?" he added, offering his case after the cloth was removed.

"Thank you—no; I am not a smoker."

In fact, Quentin had never seen the soothing "weed" in such a form, until his foe, the Master, came to Rohallion.

"Waiter, bring candles—another bottle, and then be off; these decanters are empty—fill again; le Roi est mort—vive le Roi!"

"In short, Mr. Kennedy, you have run from college or home, I fear," said Monkton; "what have you been about—making love to some of your lady-mother's maids, and got into a double scrape, or what? See how he flushes—there has been some love in the case, at least."

"Were you never in love?" asked Quentin, who certainly did redden, but with annoyance.

"Who—I—me?—what the devil—in love!" and the bulky lieutenant lay back in his chair and fairly laughed himself crimson, either at the idea or the simplicity of the question. "I have long since learned that there is nothing so variable in the world as woman's temper."

"The Horse Guards excepted," said Warriston; "the great nobs there never know their own minds for three days consecutively; witness all the vacillation about who is to command the Spanish expedition."