CHAPTER XXIII.

NEW FRIENDS.

"Why unite to banish care?
Let him come our joys to share;
Doubly blest our cup shall flow
When it soothes a brother's woe;
'Twas for this the powers divine
Crowned our board with generous wine."
                                                                    TANNAHILL.

"The first skirmish, perhaps, and the first general action certainly, will see you an officer; you shall be one yet, my boy, and a gallant one, I hope," said Warriston, shaking Quentin's hand.

The weird sisters' prophecy was not more grateful to the ears of the Scottish usurper than these words were to Quentin Kennedy; but he asked,—

"If I should be disabled before appointment?"

"Ah, the devil! don't think of that; you would get only a private soldier's pension."

"That is not very encouraging."

"'Tis better for the volunteer to be shot outright than merely mutilated. But remember, that many of our best officers have joined the army as simple volunteers. There was Lord Heathfield, the gallant defender of Gibraltar, began life as a volunteer with the 23rd at Edinburgh; and one of our Highland regiments, the 71st, I think, had as many as fifteen such cadets serving in its ranks during the American war, and splendid officers they have all become. I did not serve in America, for our corps was then in the Dutch service. The Prussian army under old Frederick was the Paradise of such volunteers, and I know one instance in which a soldier of my father's regiment was made a general in one year, by Frederick's mere caprice."

"A general!" exclaimed Monkton, who was somewhat soured by the slowness of his promotion.

"It was at the battle before Prague, and while my father, John Warriston of that ilk, then a very young man, commanded the senior battalion of the Prussian Foot Guards, that Marshal Daun forced Frederick to raise the siege and retire. As the Prussians fell back, their left wing became confused by the fury of the Austrian advance. Frederick's aides-de-camp were all killed, and he was compelled to gallop about, giving his own orders, accompanied by a single orderly, Strutzki, the old Putkammer Hussar, in whose arms he died thirty years after. The ground was rough and his horse was weary, so it stumbled suddenly and threw him at a place where the field was covered by the killed and wounded of my father's battalion, which was then retreating, but in good order. As Frederick gathered himself up, a soldier who lay near him wounded, exclaimed,—

"'Sire, sire, get a brigade of guns into position on yonder eminence, or it is all up with your left wing!'

"'How so, fellow?' asked the king, whose temper was no way improved by his tumble.

"'Because there is an ambuscade in the valley beyond it.'

"'I have twice tried to make a stand, comrade.'

"'Try a third time, Father Frederick.'

"'Why?'

"'A third chance is ever the lucky one.'

"'Good; I'll throw forward the Putkammer Hussars, and let the brigade of Seydlitz support them.'

"'But try the effect of a few round shot in the defile,' persisted the wounded man. 'A devil of a day this for us, Father Frederick! Macchiavelli, in his 'Art of War,' declares the invention of gun-powder a mere matter of smoke, not to be deemed of the smallest importance. Ach, Gott! I wish he was here before Prague with this Austrian bullet in the calf of his leg.'

"'What, my friend, you are a reader as well as a soldier?'

"'Yes, sire, I have had the honour to read all the works of your majesty.'

"'A man of sense!" said Frederick, taking a pinch of rappee; 'your name?'

"'Peter Schreutzer, of Colonel Warriston's battalion of the Guards.'

"Frederick drew from one of his fingers a ring of small value (he was not a man given to trinkets or adornment), and gave it to the soldier, saying:

"'If you escape this field of Prague, bring this ring to me yourself, comrade Peter.'

"Mounting his horse, he galloped after his retreating army, and overtaking a few pieces of artillery he posted them on the height indicated by Schreutzer, and opened fire on the wooded defile—a measure which dislodged a great ambuscade of Marshal Daun's infantry, and saved from destruction the Prussian left wing, the retreat of which was nobly covered by the Warriston battalion.

"Three months after this, when Frederick was seated in his tent, surrounded by his staff and dictating orders, a private of the Guards limped in, supported by a stick, and kneeling presented him with a ring.

"'Ach, Gott, what is this?' said Frederick; 'Oho, 'tis my student of Macchiavelli; well, comrade, I followed your advice and saved my left wing.'

"'Thank God, who inspired me with the idea!' said Schreutzer.

"'For that day's work I name you a captain in the Line,' exclaimed the king.

"At Rosbach, where in the same year Frederick defeated the French, Peter gained his majority in the morning and his lieutenant-colonelcy in the evening. Then came the affair of Dresden, where the advice given by him at a council of war was so sound and skilful that he was appointed major-general. What think you of that, my young volunteer—in one year to have the private's shoulder-knot replaced by the aiguilette of a general officer?"

"It was talent, but strangely favoured by kingly caprice," said Monkton.

"Schreutzer succeeded my father in command of the Guards, when he fell under Frederick's displeasure and quitted the Prussian service in disgust. Remind me on the march to-morrow to tell you how that came about, for it is rather a good story."

"And now to bed," said Monkton, who had imbibed a considerable quantity of wine; "at last we may put our 'beating orders' in the fire, for march is the word!"

"What are they?" asked Quentin.

"Warrants to raise men by beat of drum," explained the captain, politely. "They are originally signed by the royal hand, but copies are taken from them, and signed by the secretary of state for war, and without them no officer can beat a recruiting drum anywhere. You have raised nearly a hundred men here, Dick, and must have made something of it."

"Much need," grumbled the lieutenant, making ineffectual attempts to buckle on his sword, as if he was going to bed with it. "I am Dick Monkton, of Monkton in Lothian, of course; but in name only, for those paternal acres are so covered by original sin in the shape of mortgages that never a penny comes to me; so I am compelled to live and be jolly on six shillings and sixpence per diem, less the infernal income-tax; and being a fellow of a generous disposition, I am always losing my heart and my money among the fair sex."

"Good night, Mr. Kennedy," said Captain Warriston; "if you are still in the same mood of mind to-morrow, you may turn my letter to some account. The drum will beat at daybreak."

"Put your pride in a knapsack or wherever else it can be conveniently carried, my boy," said Monkton, making a fearful lurch over a chair; "volunteer and come with us to fight Nap and his Frenchmen." Then he began to sing, tipsily:

"'Since some have from ditches
    And coarse leather breeches
Been raised to be rulers and wallowed in riches,
Prythee, Dame Fortune, come down from thy wheel;
    For if the gipsies don't lie
I shall be a general at least ere I die!'

"Ah, damme, but we are not in the Prussian service, like that old cock, Peter Shooter, or what's his name?"

Monkton was becoming seriously tipsy, so Quentin, on receiving a warning glance from Captain Warriston, took his candle and retired to No. 20 for the night, feeling sensibly that he had imbibed more wine than he was wont to do after supper at Rohallion.

He could not sleep, however, till the night was far advanced, and the knowledge that drum was to beat by daybreak kept him nervously wakeful, lest he might not hear it, and perhaps be left behind. The drum was to beat, and for him! There was a strange charm in the idea: it seemed to realize somewhat of his old day-dreams and romantic aspirations. Already he felt himself a soldier, and bound for service and adventure! How much would he have to relate when he wrote to the good old quartermaster, announcing that he was off to join the army, and his own old corps, the 25th, whose memory he so treasured, though his name, alas! was long since forgotten in its ranks.

And there was Flora—dear, loving, gentle Flora. When was he to write to her, and through what channel? Ah, if he could calculate on promotion like that of Peter Schreutzer! He had only been absent from Flora a night and a day, just four-and-twenty hours, and already weeks seemed to have elapsed, (what would months—what would years seem?) while the arrival of Cosmo and long prior events seemed to have happened but yesterday. Under these circumstances, severance frequently causes the same inverted ideas of time, that a sudden death or other great calamity occasion.

At the moment Quentin was dozing off to sleep, and to dream of past pleasures or of future triumphs (the ensign being long since in deep slumber on a sofa), he heard his two new friends parting in the corridor after having had one bottle more.

"I say, Warriston, old boy, see me to my door, and just shove me in—there's a good fellow—here it is—thanks," stammered Monkton; "may you not have been rash in giving such a fi—fi—fiery old Turk as Middleton of ours, a letter for—for—damme, a perfect stranger—perfect stranger?"

"Not at all," he heard Warriston reply; "the lad has a bearing I like, and on his own good and unerring conduct as a gentleman and volunteer must depend his chances of ever wearing these honourable badges on his shoulders. (He shook his large gold epaulettes as he spoke.) One o'clock—in three hours the drum will beat! I hope we shall have a fine day; last night the rain fell as if old Noah had hove up his anchor again. Good-night, Monkton—sleep if you can."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE YOUNG VOLUNTEER.

"When I was an infant, gossips would say
    I'd when older be a soldier;
Rattles and toys I'd throw them away,
    Unless a gun or sabre.
When a younker up I grew,
I saw one day a grand review,
    Colours flying set me dying,
To embark in a life so new.
Roll drums merrily—march away!"
                                                                Old Song.

Quentin had been asleep—to him it seemed but five minutes, though two hours had elapsed—when he started as if he had received an electric shock. The warning drum was being beaten loudly and sharply under his window, and soon after followed the long roll, whose summons admits of no delay, even to the most weary soldier.

Half asleep and half refreshed, he sprang from bed; grey daylight was stealing faintly in, and all Ayr seemed yet a-bed, the shutters closed, the chimneys smokeless. The morning mist was curling in masses along the slopes of the uplands; the summits of the town steeples and the gothic tower of St. John were reddened by the first rays of the sun that was yet below the horizon, and the little drummer boy, as he paced slowly to and fro, in heavy marching order, with a black glazed knapsack strapped on his back, and a white canvas havresack slung crosswise over his pipeclayed sword-belt, seemed to be the only person abroad in the streets as yet.

"Rouse!" cried a voice, which Quentin knew to be that of Captain Warriston, who knocked sharply on the room door; "pack your traps, Kennedy, as quickly us you can. My man will put your portmanteau on the baggage-cart. A cup of hot coffee awaits you in the dining-room. Never march with an empty stomach, unless you can't help it."

While dressing hurriedly, Quentin heard the worthy captain rousing his lieutenant, which seemed a process of some difficulty, and productive of considerable banter and vociferation. As for the ensign, he had never undressed or been in bed, so he was already awake, and accoutred with sword, sash, and gorget, and looked very pale and miserable as he swallowed his hot coffee in the twilight of the wainscoted dining-room.

The early morning air was chilly, and Quentin, but half awake, felt his teeth chattering as he issued into the street. The reflection flashed on his mind that it was not yet too late to retrace his steps, and alter his intentions. But why do so? asked reason. What other course was open to him? On this morning, with his new friends and patrons—particularly Warriston, for whom he had conceived a great friendship—he felt his position was very different from what it was yesterday, when, without views, objects, or a defined future, he awoke among Gibbie Crossgrane's straw in the vault of Kilhenzie.

Already the soldiers of the recruiting-parties, with their various recruits, were falling in. There were three sergeants, three corporals, three privates, three drummers, and three fifers of the 25th, the 90th (Lord Lynedoch's Greybreeks), and the 94th, with fifty-five recruits, all sturdy rustics, with cockades of tricoloured ribbon streaming from their bonnets, for that most hideous of headdresses, the round hat, was almost unknown then among the peasantry of Scotland.

All seemed sleepy, heavy-eyed, and were yawning drowsily, as they shouldered against each other, and shuffled awkwardly while forming line and answering to their names, which were called over by Monkton's sergeant, a portly old halberdier, named Norman Calder.

"Now then, Master William Monkton, are we to march, without you, or must I detail a fatigue party to tumble you out of bed?" cried Warriston, angrily, in the hall of the inn. "There goes the last roll of the drum, and all are present but you!"

"Ugh!" said the lieutenant, as he came forth adjusting his regimentals in the street, tying his sash, and buckling his sword-belt, and certainly not looking the better for his potations overnight; "as Scott of Amwell says, 'I hate that drum's discordant sound'—'pon my soul, I do! Such a restless dog you are, Warriston! Two hours hence would have done just as well for you, and immensely better for all, than this. Half-past four, A.M.—damme!" he added, glancing up at a church-dial which was glittering in the rising sun; "this is a most unearthly proceeding, and likely to be the death of poor Pimple. Good morning, Kennedy, my young volunteer; how do you like this kind of work?"

Quentin felt bound to say that he enjoyed it very much.

"Bah! after being two hours in bed, having to tumble up in this fashion, is just as pleasant as having to go out with a dead shot in the honeymoon, or in the morning on which you have made an assignation with a pretty girl on your way home; or having a bill returned on your hands; a horse lamed when the starting-bell rings, or when you are about to ride a steeple-chase, or lead a charge; or any other thing that annoys you, by jingo!"

As Quentin had never experienced any of the five grievances enumerated by Monkton, he could only laugh, and ask—

"Then what about 'the lark at Heaven's gate'—has his voice no charms?"

"I'd rather hear his morning reveille when going home to my quarters."

The scene had now become very animated. The soldiers, fifteen in number, were all in heavy marching order, with only their side-arms, however, and were all sturdy, weatherbeaten fellows, with whom Quentin found himself rather an object of interest, as he had given Sergeant Calder a couple of guineas to enable them all to drink his health.

Many of the townspeople were crowding round to see them depart; and many a repentant recruit now bade a last farewell to sobbing parents, to brother, or sister, or sweetheart, all deploring the step which they deemed would lead him to ruin and death, for there were no marshal's batons to be found in the knapsacks of the 25th or 94th, as in those of "the Corsican Tyrant," whose name was as that of a bogle for nurses to scare their children with.

While Warriston, an indefatigable officer, bustled about, getting the motley party into something like military order, and detailed a corporal and three men to take charge of the impressed cart which was to carry their baggage, with some of the soldiers' wives and children, his lieutenant lounged at the door of the Queen Anne's Head, smoking a pipe, with his shako very much over one of his wicked eyes, as he joked and bantered those about him.

"Come, landlord," said he to the sulky Boniface, who made his appearance with a red Kilmarnock nightcap on his head; "give us a farewell smile, do, there's a good fellow; I'll take a kiss from your wife, too, on credit (I'm her debtor a long way already), and you may put both in the bill when next we halt here. Gad, Kennedy, these people hate the sight of a billet-order as the devil hates holy water. Those who grudge the British soldier a night's lodging should have a trial of a few Cossacks or Austrians; but it all comes of the levellers, the opposition, and the democrats, damme! So Pimple, my boy, have a dram—you have had your run of flirtation with the flax-dresser's daughter, and yet have got off without having to propose for the passée heiress, or go out about sunrise with the incensed parent."

"Yes," replied the ensign, playing with the tassels of his sash, and assuming a would-be gallant air; "close run, though—once thought I was nearly in for it."

"Ah, you're safe now; but what says the couplet?"

"What couplet? I don't know."

"It says that to you, my friend,

"From wedlock's noose thus once by fate exempt,
The next may prove, alas! a noose of hemp!"

The ensign was about to make an angry retort, when Warriston gave the command,

"Threes right—quick march! come, come, move off, gentlemen." The sharp drums and shrill fifes struck up merrily in the echoing streets (it was the unvarying 'Girl I left behind me'); a lusty cheer from the departing recruits was loudly responded to by the people around and from those at many a window. Others followed, loud, long, and hearty, and catching the spirit of enthusiasm from those about him, Quentin felt every pulse throb, every nerve and fibre quicken, as his heart became light and joyous, and as Warriston drew his arm through his own, and falling into the rear of the party, they departed from the inn.

How different were Quentin's emotions now, when compared to the sense of dejection and desolation, with which, portmanteau in hand, he had entered that ancient caravanserai yesterday!

"Now for your first day's march, Kennedy," said the captain; "never mind the past—it is gone for ever, and is useless now."

"Unless it afford me some hint to guide me for the future."

"Right," said the captain; "faith! boy, I like your spirit and reflective turn."

The cheers of the people and the rattle of the drums, as the party marched over the new bridge of Ayr, defied every attempt at conversation. All viewed the departing band with interest, for, ere long, they would be all sent to the seat of war, and be before the enemy; and of those blue-bonneted recruits who were leaving the banks and braes of Ayr, and old Coila's hills and glens, few or none might ever return. But there was then a high spirit in all the British Isles.

The long dread of invasion from France, political and religious rancour, with years of continued victory by sea and land—the glories and the fall of Nelson and Abercrombie, the brilliant but terrible career of Napoleon following close on the atrocities of the French Revolution—all conspired to fill honest Mr. Bull's heart with a furore for military fame; he ceased to smoke the pipe of peace, and the worthy man's funny red coat and warlike pigtail were never off. Gillray's coloured caricatures of French soldiers in cocked hats and long blue coats, and of their "Corsican tyrant," in every ridiculous and degrading situation that art could conceive or malevolence inspire, filled every print-shop; and the press, such as it was, groaned alternately under puffs of self-glorification and scurrilous abuse of France and its emperor, with a systematic expression of true British contempt for anything foreign and continental. Thus the whole country swarmed with troops of every arm, and all Britain was a species of garrison, from London to Lerwick, and from Banff to Bristol.

They had been some hours on the march before Quentin thought of obtaining a very requisite piece of information—to wit, their destination, when he was informed by Captain Warriston that the three recruiting parties were to embark at Leith on board an armed smack or letter-of-marque, for Colchester barracks in England, where the three Scottish regiments were stationed.

"After I travel so far," said Quentin, "I do sincerely hope the commanding officer will approve of me."

"Rest assured that he will," replied Warriston, confidently; "he is a plain, sometimes rough old soldier, but he knows me well."

"Who is colonel of the regiment?"

"Lieutenant-General Lord Elphinstone is our colonel," said Monkton; "and our lieutenant-colonel being aged—an old Minden officer, indeed—has permission to sell out. Jack Middleton, the major, is in command at present, and as he is too poor to purchase, he is revenging himself upon the regiment."

"How?" asked Quentin, with surprise.

"Though our corps is a crack one (what corps is not so in its own estimation?) he harangues us daily on the bad discipline and disorder in which his predecessor has left us; so all have gone to school again, from the oldest captain down to the youngest fifer."

"Indeed," said the bewildered volunteer; "that is very hard!"

"So it is, damme! but old fellows who smelt powder against Washington at Brandywine, and under the Duke in Holland, at Alkmaar and Egmont-op-Zee, are now at the goose-step and pacing-stick; and woe to the private who fails to have the barrel and lock of his musket bright as silver, and his pouch bottled to perfection, so that he might shave or dress his pigtail in it. We have punishment parades, extra drills, kit-inspections, drums beating, bugles sounding all day, and often check-rolls thrice in the night, and orderlies flying all over the barracks like madmen, and all because old Jack Middleton has not enough of tin to purchase the lieutenant-colonelcy. There is little Pimple—by Jove! he'll not be in Colchester a week before the major frightens him into the measles."

"Who is to succeed the lieutenant-colonel?" asked Warriston, who laughed at the subaltern's angry description of the state of matters at headquarters.

"The Horse Guards, those Fates who sit on high over the British soldier, alone know. Some good kind of fellow, I hope, before I rejoin; for rather than serve under old Middleton (excuse me, Warriston, as he is a friend of yours) I'd send in my papers—go recruiting for the 2nd West India at Sierra Leone, or join that fine body of men, the York Rangers!"

"What are they?"

"A condemned corps, named for the good duke; but whose officers, damme, sleep at night with loaded pistols under their pillows, for fear of their own men."

"This is not very cheering for you, Kennedy," said Warriston, laughing heartily; "but you must not mind all Monkton says."

"No matter; I have given my word, and go I shall."

It was evident that Monkton was a little soured, for he alternately vowed himself tired of the service and then an enthusiast for it, and his corps in particular; but he was rather blue-devilled this morning, and uncheered by the blue sunny sky and golden cornfields, the songs of the birds and mild morning breeze, he swore at the long dusty road and grumbled at the slowness of his promotion, and that by circumstances beyond his control, after fifteen years' service and having seen much fighting, he was only a lieutenant still; "but you will learn, ere long, Kennedy," he added, "that the lieutenants are the salt of the service, and do all the actual work. Middleton will judge of you, not from others, but from yourself alone. The battalion will likely go abroad under his orders; a month more may see us before the enemy, and you in possession of your epaulettes, if some poor sub—say Pimple here—is knocked on the head."

"Thank you," said Boyle; "why not suggest yourself—one sub is the same as another."

"Not all—not at all; it would be no use. They never hit me seriously in Flanders or Denmark, and they won't do it in Spain or North Holland."

"My old friend Middleton must have changed sorely to have become the Tartar and martinet you describe him," said Warriston; "if so, he would have suited old Frederick of Prussia to a hair."

"You told us to remind you of a story which was worth telling."

"About Frederick and my father?"

"Exactly," said Quentin.

"And how he and I came to be in the Dutch service. Well, the story has something droll in it, and though some may have heard the affair, as it found its way into the newspapers, I shall give you the version which I gave to Mr. Thomas Holcroft, when he was preparing that very light and most readable work on the Life, Times, and Works of the Great Frederick, in thirteen huge royal octavo volumes."

"Then it is to be found there?"

"On the contrary, he omitted it, not considering it quite a feather in his hero's cap."

"And the story——"

"Occurred in this way."

But the story with which Warriston beguiled a few miles of the morning march deserves, perhaps, a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PRUSSIAN GRENADIER.

"There was a criminal in a cart
    A-going to be hanged;
Respite to him was granted,
    And cart and crowd did stand,
To know if he would marry a wife
    Or rather choose to die;
''Tother's the worst, drive on the cart,'
    The criminal did reply."—Old Ballad.

You have all heard I presume (the captain began), of the singular predilection which the late King of Prussia had for tall swinging grenadiers, how he raked all Germany and Pomerania to procure them, and had them formed into corps and companies, sparing nothing in their equipment to add to their vast stature and warlike aspect—giving them the highest of heels to their boots, the tallest bearskin caps, and the longest and largest feathers that could be worn with safety to the neck and vertebral column. Those cross-belted Goliaths were quite a passion with him, and the first battalion of his Foot Guards, which my worthy father had the honour to command, was, no doubt, the most gigantic regiment in the Prussian army, perhaps in Europe; and to see its twelve companies of giants marching past in review order, and in open column, on that little meadow near Halle, which, from the time of the old Dessauer,* has been the training ground of the Prussian infantry, was truly a sight to marvel at and remember.

* Prince Leopold, of Anhalt Dessau, born there in 1676, the bravest of three generations who held the highest rank in the Prussian army.—General Seydlitz's Life.

The Battalion Von Warriston was, to Frederick the Great, his pet band—the flower and pattern corps of his carefully-trained and well-developed army!

Now it chanced that one day, about the year 1780, he had been riding in the environs of Berlin, attended only by Strutzki, his old Putkammer orderly, with the gunpowder-spotted visage. As he pottered along on his old shambling horse, with a pair of large spectacles on his nose—the royal nose, I mean—one eye was fixed on his bridle and the other on Herr Doctor Johann Georg Zimmerman's then famous but dreary work on Solitude, with his flap pockets stuffed with letters from Voltaire and Hume, general orders, proof-sheets of plays, and other rubbish, he suddenly saw something in the opinions of the Herr Doctor which displeased him, and jotting off a note on the subject, he despatched it by Strutzki.

Then resuming his meditations he rode on alone into the fields, smoking a pipe which had belonged to his old and faithful comrade, Seydlitz, and which he had picked up on the field of Rosbach, when that general gave his usual signal for the Hussars to charge by flinging his pipe into the air.

In a lonely place he came suddenly upon a peasant girl who possessed remarkable beauty, but that which he greatly preferred, astonishing stature. She was fully six feet, and so splendidly proportioned that Frederick reined up his horse and slung his pipe at his button-hole to observe her, which he could do for some time unobserved, as she was busy twining creepers and flowers over the front paling of a cottage named the Wild Katze, a wayside tavern.

"Bey'm Henker!" thought he, "could I but get you married to one of my grenadiers, my long-legged Fraulein, what sons you might have! What recruits—what a progeny of giant children to recruit the next generation of my guards!"

The tall girl now perceived the king observing her, and curtseyed and laughed, for she had no idea of his rank. His horse furniture was shabby, and his own appearance was far from being stately or imposing. He stooped about the shoulders, and had a snuffy drop at the end of his nose. Over his uniform and decorations he wore a greasy old military surtout-coat of blue cloth, lined with white merino, its buttons, sleeves, and all of the plainest kind; an old battered cocked-hat, with what had once been a white feather binding the edge of it, and its rim being perforated by musket-shot; a pair of common dragoon pistols in holsters without flaps, and a pair of rusty spurs on long jack-boots that had never been blackened since they left the maker's hands, though they were greased by Strutzki every morning.

"What is your name, my handsome fraulein?" he inquired, while lifting his hat.

"Gretchen Viborg," replied the tall beauty.

"Are you married?" he asked with increasing suavity.

"No, mein herr."

"But anxious to be, doubtless," said Frederick, perpetrating a wink.

Then the girl, supposing that this funny old man was about to make some proposal to her, burst into a fit of laughter, in which the king good-humouredly joined, and then asked,

"How old are you?"

"Nearly twenty, mein herr."

"Good. Are you the keeper of the Wilde Katze?"

"No—my father is."

"Would you like to earn easily a rix-dollar?"

"That will I do readily, mein herr," said the girl, coming briskly forward, for a rix-dollar was then about the value of four of our guineas.

"Then you must deliver a note for me?"

"Where?"

"In the city."

"And to whom, mein herr?

"To the Colonel von Warriston at the palace near the Wiesse Saal.

The girl, little suspecting what was in store for her, curtseyed and signified her readiness, while the king, drawing forth his tablets, and using his holster for a desk, wrote to my father in this manner:—

"MY DEAR COLONEL VON WARRISTON,

"On receipt of this order, you are to marry the tallest of your grenadiers to the bearer thereof, taking particular care to have the ceremony performed in your own presence; and for the execution of this, I hold you responsible.

"FRIEDRICH."

"P.S.—If he refuse, to Spandau with him, until further orders."

"Can you read, fraulein?" asked he, while folding this remarkable order.

"No, mein herr."

"Good; then there is the less use for a seal, which I have not here." He placed the note and the rix-dollar in the large fair hand of the girl, and added, "I have noted this place—the Wilde Katze in my tablets, and I trust to your honesty and fidelity, Gretchen, in delivering my note without delay, as the matter is of great consequence to me, and may not prove unpleasant to yourself." And giving her a look that somehow impressed her, he put spurs to his old charger, and shambled off.

As ignorant of the contents of the letter as of the exalted rank of its writer, Gretchen Viborg was hurrying along the road towards Berlin, when she suddenly remembered that she had to keep an appointment with her lover, a remarkably jealous little fellow, who had a mill on the Spree—an assignation which the delivery of this note would completely mar! While pausing to consider this dilemma, honesty impelling her forward, and love or fear staying her steps, she met an old crone who was employed by her at the Wilde Katze, to till the ground, carry wood and do other out-door work; and supposing it was all one who delivered the note, provided that it safely reached its destination, she offered her a ducat to bear it to the palace near the White Hall.

Now this old crone could read; she scanned the note, saw the whole bearings of the case, and knew who the writer was in an instant. She grinned a horrible grin of intense satisfaction, undertook the mission, and already beheld in prospect her victim—the tallest grenadier!

This cunning hag was past fifty years of age, and one of her legs was shorter than the other leg at least by half an inch; she stooped in gait and was not much more than four feet high, and was remarkably hideous, even for a continental woman, her face being a mass of wrinkles, her pointed chin covered with wiry sprouts of grey hair, while her teeth were reduced to a few yellow fangs; thus, great was my father's astonishment, when he perused the note which she gave him faithfully at the palace-gate, just as he was mounting his charger to join the evening parade of his boasted battalion of the Guards.

He was too familiar with the handwriting of the great Frederick to doubt for a moment the authenticity of the note; but he could by no means reconcile its singular contents with the extreme years and appalling aspect of the old witch who brought it, and he surveyed them alternately for some time, in utter bewilderment, till the "P.S." about Spandau, that formidable state prison in Brandenburg, made him dread a trip there in person, if the king's orders were trifled with or delayed; so turning with repugnance from the woman, who continued to grin and drop endless curtsies by his side, he summoned the sergeant-major.

"Who is the tallest of our grenadiers?" he asked.

"Otto Vogelwiede," replied the sergeant, with a profound salute.

"How tall is he?"

"Six feet, eight inches and a quarter."

"Is he on parade with his company?"

"No, Herr Colonel—on duty."

"Where?"

"With the guard at the Zeug-haus." (This was the arsenal on the narrow bridge over the Spree.)

"Have him relieved by the next file for duty, and brought here immediately."

Private Vogelwiede, a sturdy Silesian campaigner, who had been wounded at Cunnersdorf, and had served under my father in all the great battles of the Seven Years' War, soon appeared at the palace, with a mingled expression of surprise and alarm on his large visage, supposing that some misdemeanour was to be alleged against him; but this soon changed into downright horror, when my father, with a manner oddly indicative of half comicality and entire commiseration, read the king's peremptory order, and pointed to the blooming bride.

"Sturm und Gewitter!" swore the luckless grenadier in great wrath; "do you mean to say, Herr Colonel, that I am to marry this old bag of bones—this very shrivling?"

"My poor Vogelwiede, it is marry, or march to Spandau."

"Ach Gott, what an old vampire it is!" said Vogelwiede, shuddering.

"I am utterly bewildered, comrade," said my father.

"In mercy to me, Herr Colonel, tell me what I have done that I am to be punished thus?"

"I can't say, my poor fellow, that I understand the affair in any way; but we all know our father Frederick, and that the dose, however nauseous, must be swallowed. You must either be chained to her, or to a thirty-six pound shot in Spandau—a companion you will not get rid of, even by day."

"Der teufel! der teufel!" groaned the grenadier, who was actually perspiring with the idea of the whole affair, while the old woman, with her grey hairs, yellow fangs, and grimy wrinkles, grinned like some gnome sent by the Ruberzahl, or a witch from the Blocksberg; and to him it seemed as the sentence of death when my father said,—

"Send for the chaplain of the brigade, and desire him to bring his prayer-book and surplice."

"Oh, Colonel, remember Cunnersdorf, and how when a boy I held Velt-marshal Keith dying in my arms at Hochkirchen—I was his favourite orderly," urged poor Vogelwiede, melted almost to tears; but it was espouse or Spandau, and he was married in the military chapel, to his own intense misery, to the utter bewilderment of his comrades, who knew not what to make of the affair, and to the exulting joy of the hideous old crone.

Six months after, Frederick returned from the reviews at Halle to Berlin, and desired my father to bring before him the couple who had been married by his orders.

"Ach Gott!" he exclaimed, on seeing the grinning hag and the miserable grenadier, who already looked grey and worn; "what the devil is this you have done, Herr Colonel?"

"I obeyed your majesty's singular command," replied my father, haughtily.

"Is this the woman to whom you have married Otto Vogelwiede, the premier grenadier of my Guards?"

"'Tis the woman who bore your majesty's somewhat peremptory order, as all the corps can testify."

"Der teufel! she is no more to compare to the one who received it, than a cup of Dresden dima is to a bowl of Bunzlau clay! But I shall find her out yet, and married she shall be to the next tallest man in the battalion, so sure as Heaven hears me! and as for you, Colonel—dummer teufel—as for you——"

"No more dummer teufel (blockhead) than yourself, Frederick of Prussia," exclaimed my father, furiously. "This to me? Have you forgotten my services, and that day at Amoneburg, when side by side we built up breastworks of the fallen dead, and fired over them?"

"I have not Herr Colonel; but potztausend!—"

"Remember that I am the well-born Warriston von Warriston, which in plain Scottish means of that ilk, and I shall not be sworn at even by a king of Prussia."

Frederick danced with rage in his old jackboots, and dashed his Rosbach pipe upon the floor, exclaiming—

"Out of my sight, sir! Begone to your Bergschotten.* I have done with you!"

* Scots Highlanders; this is a true anecdote of Frederick's caprice.

Whether Gretchen Viborg was married to the next tallest grenadier, or to the miller on the Spree, I know not, for that very day my father doffed the uniform of which he was so proud—the trappings of the 1st Guards—the same uniform in which Frederick was buried six years after at Potsdam, and resigned his commission, in which he was succeeded by Peter Schreutzer, the king's new favourite. Entering the service of the States General, he was made Colonel-in-Chief of their Scots Brigade, then consisting of six battalions, in one of which I obtained a cadetship; so you may perceive the strange chain of events by which—because Gretchen Viborg had to meet her miller, and her note found another bearer—I ultimately find myself a captain in His Britannic Majesty's 94th Foot, and in the service of my native country."

We shall have other marches of more importance to detail than the first essay of our young volunteer, who, though cheered from time to time by the merry music of the drums and fifes (which, in fact, are more inspiring and martial than any brass band can ever be), found the route weary enough by the pre-macadamite roads of those days, which were somewhat like the dry beds of mountain burns. So marching was rough and weary work, yet Quentin never flinched, as they proceeded by the dark, heathy, and solitary hills of the Muirkirk-of-Kyle, by Carnwath, where a party of the Gordon Highlanders, under Logan of that ilk, joined them, and by Kirknewton, where, from an eminence over which the roadway wound, he saw, for the first time, the wooded expanse of the beautiful Lothians, with the swelling outline of Arthur's Seat, the blue Firth, widening to a sea, the fertile hills of Fife, the lordly Ochil mountains, and those of thirteen counties, stretching far away even to the distant Lammermuirs, and in the middle distance, grey, dim, and smoky, the "Queen of the North, upon her hilly throne."

Then the soldiers hailed her with a cheer and a roll on the drums, announcing that there ended their last day's march.

CHAPTER XXVI.

COLCHESTER BARRACKS.

"Hail, sweet recruiting service, pleasing toil,
Ball-room campaigns, tea-parties, dice and Hoyle!
Ye days when dangling was my only duty,
Envied by cits, caressed by every beauty;
Envied by cits, so scared by every glance,
Shot at their daughters, going down the dance."
                                                                Military Magazine, 1812.

Faithful to his promise, before embarking, Quentin Kennedy wrote from Edinburgh to his friend the old quartermaster, informing him of the step he had taken, of the lucky chance that had turned up for him in the Queen Anne's Head at Ayr, and that he was off to join the army as a simple volunteer; but being resolved to owe all to himself and to his own spirit, courage, and energy, and to prevent his old friend, Lord Rohallion, from doing anything, strange to say, he did not mention what regiment of the line he had chosen, though he knew well that the mystical No. 25 would have made the hearts of the veteran general and the quartermaster leap within them, while poor old Jack Andrews would be certain to get helplessly groggy in honour of the occasion.

He sent no messages or memories to any one, for the letter was indited amid the hurly-burly of Poolers gay and then well-known military coffee-house in Princess-street, nearly opposite the North Bridge; and Captain Warriston, who was standing fully accoutred with a group of other officers of various Scottish regiments, all talking, laughing, and smoking, urged him "to be sharp," as they had not a moment to lose before the mail started, and that the smack, Lord Nelson, had her topsail loose; so he sent no remembrance to his dear Flora Warrender, though he sealed his letter with a sigh, and his soul seemed to go with it to her.

Sailing in an armed Leith ship, without convoy, Captain Warriston's detachments of recruits, after beating against a head wind for two weeks, but without encountering a storm, a gale, or an enemy's ship of Avar, made the coast of Essex, landed at Harwich, and marched to Colchester Barracks, where each subaltern reported himself to his commanding officer, and handed over his detachment of recruits, doubtless glad to be rid of them.

How often were the last scene with Flora, those last words and those last kisses, under the old sycamores in the avenue, rehearsed over and over again.

"Ah," thought he, "could I but persuade myself that she will not entirely forget me; that some tender recollections, some soft memory of the poor lonely and friendless lad, who loved her so well, will remain in her heart, now that I am far away—gone she knows not where, but gone for ever! For ever!—then what will love or memory avail me?"

The novelty of his situation, the sudden and remarkable change of scene, the short sea voyage, the crowded and somewhat noisy barracks of Colchester, then filled with troops, preparing by hourly training, prior to their departure for the seat of war; squads undergoing manual, platoon, and pacing-stick drill, others worked up in companies, battalions, and brigades, the general bustle and light-heartedness of all around him; the new occupation, new faces and new episodes, all so different from his former monotonous life in that old castle by the Firth of Clyde—a life that seemed like a dream now—soon weaned Quentin from his sadder thoughts, and he was startled to find that, after a time, instead of brooding over Flora's image and idea perpetually, he could only think of her occasionally, and ere long, that he began to take an interest in the crowds of ladies who came to view the evening parades, to promenade with the officers who were not on duty, and to hear the bands play. "Love sickness, according to our revised medical code, is nothing more than a disarranged digestion," says a writer; so, in this year of the world—five thousand and odd, according to Genesis, and Heaven knows how many more according to geology—no one dies of love, and, in the jovial barracks of Colchester, our friend Quentin showed no signs of the malady.

But we are anticipating.

The battalion of the 25th, or the King's Own Borderers, to which he was attached, occupied a portion of the stately and spacious barracks, which were built for the accommodation often thousand infantry, and had a fine park of artillery attached to them. These have all been since pulled down by an absurd spirit of mistaken economy, so that there are barely quarters for a single regiment in the town.

On the day after his arrival, anxious to create a good impression, he made a most careful toilet, and with a throbbing heart was introduced by Monkton to the officer commanding, the irritable Major Middleton, of whom he had heard so much, and to whom he presented the letter of introduction and recommendation given by his good friend Captain Warriston, who unfortunately was compelled to be absent elsewhere.

The major was a fine-looking old man, who had entered the service from the militia somewhat late in life, and hence the extreme slowness of his promotion, for he was now near his sixtieth year. He had a clear, keen, and bright blue eye; a suave, but grave and decided manner, with a deep and authoritative tone of voice. He still wore his thin hair queued, though after being reduced to seven inches in length, by the general order of 1804, by another order in 1808, the entire army was shorn of those appendages.

Fearing a mutiny, or something like it, the obnoxious mandate was countermanded the next day, but, Ichabod! the glory had departed. The regimental barbers had done their fatal work, and not a pigtail remained in the service, from the Life Guards to the Shetland Volunteers, save among a few privileged men of the old school, who stuck to it in defiance alike of taste and authority, and one of these was Major Middleton, who now appeared in full uniform, with his snow-white shirt-frill peeping through his gorget,—a badge retained till 1830—and a spotless white waistcoat covering the comely paunch, while his queue, seven inches long, with its black silk rosette, wagged gracefully at the back of his fine old head, which was powdered by time to a whiteness his servant could never achieve with the puff.

He cordially shook hands with Quentin and with Monkton, and welcoming the latter back to head-quarters, bowed them to chairs with great formality, his sword and pigtail going up and down like pump-handles the while, and then with his sturdy back planted against the chimney-piece, he proceeded to read over the letter of Warriston, Quentin in the meantime undergoing the pleasant process of being occasionally eyed askance with those clear, keen eyes—and a steady glance they had—the glance of one who had often been face to face with death and danger, in the East Indies and the West, in America, and wherever conquests were to be added to Britain's growing empire.

"My old friend Warriston recommends you highly, Mr. Kennedy—very highly indeed," said the major, as he folded the letters and again shook Quentin by the hand; "but I hope that the step you are taking has the full concurrence of all who are interested in your welfare?"

With a heightened colour, Quentin begged the worthy major to be assured that it had.

"I need not tell you, my young friend, that no ordinary bravery is required of the gentleman volunteer, for something more dashing than mere service in the ranks is necessary to win the notice of those in authority and to obtain a commission in His Majesty's service. I trust, therefore, that you have weighed well and examined your mind, and are assured that you possess the qualifications necessary for the profession—I may well say, the perilous career—on which you are about to enter."

"Qualifications, sir?" stammered Quentin, who was somewhat oppressed by the major's exordium, and began to think of Dominie Skaill's Greek and Latin roots.

"Yes; for the task before you requires a daring spirit, and a most stoical indifference to privation, to suffering, and to death, as you will have to bear a voluntary part in every dangerous or arduous enterprise, on every desperate duty; and have to volunteer for every forlorn hope and reckless adventure."

"I have weighed well, major, and I shall shrink from nothing! I long only for the opportunity of showing that I shall be—shall be what my father was before me," said Quentin, with flashing eyes and quivering lips, while he felt that these were not the kind of men to boast before.

The old major regarded the lad attentively, and said—

"Give me your hand again; I like your spirit, and hope ere long to wet your commission and welcome you as a brother officer. I enforce the strictest obedience, and some term me severe, yet I hope you will like me; for, if pleased with you, your future prospects shall be my peculiar care."

"I thank you, sir," said Quentin, with a very full heart.

"I like to regard the regiment as one large family; and when we consider the manifold clangers we dare, and the sufferings we endure together, all soldiers—officers and men alike—more than any other human community, have reasons for strong mutual attachment, and for feeling themselves indeed brothers. There are some of the brotherhood, however, over whom I have, at times, to keep a tight hand—yourself, for instance—Dick Monkton, eh!"

"True, major, the adjutant has come to me in his harness more than once for my sword; but like a good fellow, you always sent it back again," said Monkton, laughing.

"Two remarks of the great General Monk should always be borne in mind by those who enter the service," said the major, who seemed a well-read and intelligent officer; "and in youth I learned them by rote, and so have never forgotten them since. 'War, the profession of a soldier, is that of all others which, as it conferreth most honour upon a man who therein acquitteth himself well, so it draweth the greatest infamy upon one who demeaneth himself ill; for one fault committed can never be repaired, and one hour causeth the loss of that reputation which hath been thirty years acquiring!' Elsewhere he says, 'A soldier must be always ready to confront extremity of danger by extremity of valour, and overtop fury with a higher resolution. A soldier ought to fear nothing but God and Dishonour, and the officer who commands should feel for him as a parent does for his child!' And now, to become more matter of fact, Monkton will tell you, Mr. Kennedy, all about a volunteer's outfit; the plainer, and the less there is of it, the better."

"Thanks, sir; you are most thoughtful."

"You shall have to carry the arms and accoutrements of a private, and a knapsack too, perhaps, under some circumstances, till luck turns up a commission for you. In all respects you will be treated as a gentleman; but doing the duty and yielding the implicit obedience of a private soldier. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, sir," replied Quentin, cheerfully.

"As for the knapsack," said Monkton, "its weight matters little if your heart be light, my friend."

Quentin smiled, as if he meant to confront fortune boldly, and the future too.

"We are now under orders to hold ourselves in readiness for foreign service, and a fortnight at farthest will see the regiment on board ship."

"For where?" asked Monkton.

"The continent of Europe."

Quentin was glad to hear this, as he knew that his funds would not last him long in Colchester, and if reduced to his volunteer pay of one shilling per diem, current coin of this realm, what would become of him then?

"You shall dine with me at the mess to-day as my guest, Mr. Kennedy," said the major, "and I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to the corps."

"And as my guest to-morrow, Quentin," said Monkton; "it is the last time we shall have our legs under its blessed mahogany, as it is to be broken up."

"What—the table?"

"No, the mess. Adieu till the drum beats, major."

With Monkton, Quentin quitted Middleton's quarters, extremely well-pleased with his interview, convinced that the lieutenant must have quizzed him about the major's alleged severity, and now with satisfaction feeling himself in some manner a member of the corps and of the service, a part or portion of the 25th Foot.

His uniform, a plain scarlet coatee, faced, lapelled and buttoned like that of an officer, with two little swallow-tails nine inches long (then the regulation), though destitute of lace or epaulettes, with his other requisites, made a sad hole in his little exchequer; and, as he sat in his room that night, and counted over the fifteen that remained of the good quartermaster's guineas, he felt something like a miser, and trembled for the future.

However, fifteen guineas were more than a subaltern's pay for a month; he was only to be two weeks in barracks, and when once in camp, a small sum with rations would go a long way. He had a subaltern's quarters assigned him, with an officer's allowance of coal, candle, and barrack furniture—to wit: one hard wood table; two ditto chairs, of the Windsor pattern; an elegant coal-box, like a black iron trough, bearing the royal arms, and the huge enigmatical letters B.O., of which he could make nothing; a pair of bellows, fire-irons, fender, and an iron candlestick, unique in form and colour.

These, with a pallet, formed his principal household gear, and for two at least of the remaining fourteen days, he would have the luxury of the festive mess, the perfection of a dinner table; and thereafter, as he had been told, it would be broken up, its rich old plate and appurtenances consigned to iron-bound chests, and left behind in the barrack stores, and many who dined therewith might never meet around that jolly table more, for war and peril were before them, and the dust would be gathering on the forgotten mess chests, as the grass would be sprouting on the graves of the slain.

But little thought "The Borderers" of that—for the soldier, luckily for himself, is seldom of a very reflective turn—when the orderly drum and fife struck up "The Roast Beef" in front of the mess-house to announce that dinner was being served; and there Quentin hurried, in company with the major and Monkton.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LOST LETTER.

"And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear:
And he that speaks doth grip the hearer's wrist,
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes."
                                                                                SHAKESPEARE.

As Quentin's heart foreboded, the Master of Rohallion made the best use of his time with Flora Warrender; but without much avail. Late events had engendered in her breast a spirit of obstinacy and antagonism to his proposals, together with a desire for freedom of thought and liberty of action that proved very damaging to the cause of Cosmo, and in a fit of spleen he departed for a week or two, to visit Earl Hugh at Eglinton; for though by no means a marrying man, the Honourable Cosmo, as we have stated, conceived that, in the present state of his finances, he might get through the world,—"battle the watch," as he phrased it,—pretty well, if he obtained the lands of Ardgour, the accumulated rents of which had been so long under trust, and would prove to him a very lucky accession, even though encumbered by Flora Warrender as a wife or appendage. But on obtaining the command of a regiment of the line, with all the perquisites which then attended that appointment, he did not despair of ultimately getting rid of his bêtes noires, the children of Judah.

Thus his cold hauteur and nonchalance on one hand, and Lady Rohallion's steady resolve on the other to bend her to their will, together with sorrow for Quentin, whom she viewed as a victim, rendered Flora Warrender inexorable in her opposition, and, as Lord Rohallion said, their own mismanagement still continued to spoil the whole affair.

After an absence of some days Cosmo returned, and resolved to make a last effort with Flora, and thought to pique her by praises of the fair daughters of Earl Hugh, the Ladies Jane, Lilias, and Mary; but this artifice was so shallow that she merely laughed when she heard him, while poor simple Lady Rohallion feared that his heart had really been affected in another quarter.

"And so you really admire Lady Lilias Montgomery, our old friend's daughter?" she asked, as they sat in the bay window of the old yellow drawing-room.

"I always did so," replied the Master; "there is certainly an exquisite air of refinement about the girl, and she has a splendid seat on horseback."

"Her air is peculiar to all the Montgomerys; I remember me well of Earl Alexander, who was shot by the villain Mungo Campbell, and he had the air of a prince! But what do you think of Lady Lilias?"

"Think?" pondered Cosmo, dreamily, as he lay back in a satin fauteuil, and gazed on the far-stretching landscape that was steeped in sunny haze.

"Yes," said his mother, anxiously.

"I think she has not the lands and rental of Ardgour, or their equivalent."

"Cosmo, Cosmo," said Lady Rohallion, with asperity, "I would have you to love Flora for herself, and herself only."

"My dear mother, you old-fashioned folks in Carrick here are sadly behind the age; but I am booked for foreign service, and a wife would only prove a serious encumbrance after all."

"Flora Warrender may change, or, what would be better, she may know her own mind before, or long before, you come back."

"Perhaps," sneered Cosmo; "love of change or change of love effects miracles in the female heart at times. Till then, we must content ourselves with drawing stakes, while I march off, not exactly with the honours of war, but with the band playing 'the girl I left behind me'—very consoling it is no doubt, damme!"

"Do you really love that girl, Cosmo?" asked the old lady, looking up from a mysterious piece of needlework, with which she always believed herself to be busy, and mistaking Cosmo's wounded self-esteem for a softer sentiment.

"Love her—yes, of course I do—that is, well enough, perhaps, to marry her, as marriage goes now-a-days; but" (and here he spoke with concentrated passion) "I hate the beggar's brat who has come between her and me!"

"Oh, Cosmo, don't say so, I implore you?" said Lady Rohallion, sighing bitterly; "after all the past, and with the doubt and mystery that overhang his future, I cannot bear to hear our lost Quentin spoken of thus."

"Poor chick—our lost darling!" said Cosmo; "but after seventeen years spent in the Household Brigade, to be out-manoeuvred by a country Dolly such as Flora and a fellow like this Quentin of yours, is simply and decidedly absurd!" he added, with fierce grimace, while his father, who entered at that moment and overheard him, laughed heartily at his chagrin.

And now about this time John Legate, the tall spindle-shanked running footman, brought, among other letters from Maybole, one for the Master, endorsed "on His Majesty's Service," and another for Mr. John Girvan, so worn, frayed, and covered with postage-marks, that the good man was quite puzzled by its appearance, and thrice wiped his spectacles to decipher all the names and dates, until the dominie, who was seated by him, beside a friendly jug of toddy, suggested that candles should be procured, as the twilight was deepening into night, and the interior of the missive would resolve all their doubts and expectations.

It was opened, and proved to be from Quentin Kennedy—from Quentin, and dated at Poole's Military Coffeehouse, Edinburgh, more than a month back! He had addressed it simply to the castle of Rohallion, and it had gone by mail and stage over all Britain, until some chance hand, endorsing "try Ayrshire," sent it to its destination.

"Awa soldiering as a volunteer! Wae is me, wae is me, but this is pitiful, exceedingly pitiful!" exclaimed the dominie, lifting up his hands and eyes; "think of my wasted latinity!"

"Dominie, you are a gowk! I like the lad's spirit, and respect it," said the quartermaster, whose eyes were so full that he could scarcely peruse the letter; "but he's ower young, he's far ower young for such hard work. I mind well of what I had to go through in my time in Germany and America."

"Ower young, think ye?"

"But he is hardy and manly."

"According to Polybius, in his sixth book, the Romans could be soldiers, indeed, had to be soldiers, in their seventeenth year."

"Bother your Romans! fill your jug—a steaming brimmer, and drain it to Quentin's health and success, and his safety too."

Then standing up erect, the quartermaster drained his jug at a draught, a process promptly followed by the dominie; but after what they had imbibed already, it had the effect of rapidly multiplying the lights and other objects, and also tended to make their utterance thick and indistinct.

"I must away to my lord wi' this braw news," said Girvan; "the puir lad! he didna deceive me after all, but wrote when he had time. And this Captain Warriston who befriended Quentin—(God bless him, say I!)—befriended him, dominie, because he was a soldier's son. Ah, dominie, dominie!—that is the freemasonry of the service, which makes all in it brothers—the true spirit of camaraderie! Another jorum to the health of this captain, whoever he be."

"Bring forth the amphora—the greybeard o' whisky; but John, John," said the dominie, shaking his old wig sententiously, "what saith Habakkuk?"

"How the deevil should I ken? and it is but little I care," added the irreverent quartermaster.

"He saith, 'Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that putteth a bottle to him, and maketh him drunken,'" said the dominie, balancing himself by turns on each leg; and opening and shutting each eye alternately.

"Drunken, you whaislin precentor?"

"Yea, as thou, wicked quartermaster, hast made me, and when we are close on the hour 'o' night's black arch the keystone,' as puir Burns has it."

"Never mind, dominie, the night is dark, and naebody will see you," stammered Girvan; "stick your knees into the saddle—gie your powny the reins, and he'll take you straight home, as he usually does. But I must away to my lord with this news; and so good-night. Now, dominie, steady—eyes front if you can!—hat cocked forward, cockade over the left eye—queue dressed straight with the seam of the coat—head up, little finger of each hand on the seam of the breeches—left foot thrown well out—pike advanced—forward, march! and hip, hip, hurrah for Quentin the volunteer!"

And arm in arm the two old topers quitted the "snuggery," the dominie to go home in care of his pony, and his entertainer to seek Lord and Lady Rohallion before they retired for the night.