“But he must keep clear of the petticoats, Graheme,” Colonel Munro laughed; “evidently danger lurks for him there, and if he is caught napping again some Delilah will assuredly crop the hair of this young Samson of ours.”
“There was not much of Delilah in that fury who felled me with a mallet, colonel,” Malcolm laughed; “however, I will be careful in future, and will not give them a chance.”
“Ah! it may come in another form next time, Malcolm,” Munro said; “this time it was an old woman, next time it may be a young one. Beware, my boy! they are far the most dangerous, innocent though they may look.”
A laugh ran round the circle.
“Forewarned forearmed, colonel,” Malcolm said sturdily, “I will be on my guard against every female creature, young or old, in future. But I don't think that in this affair the woman has had much to boast about—she and her friends had best have left me alone.”
“That is so, Malcolm,” the colonel said warmly. “You have borne yourself well and bravely, and you have got an old head on those young shoulders of yours. You are as full of plans and stratagems as if you had been a campaigner for the last half century; and no man, even in the Green Brigade, no, not Hepburn himself, could have held that church tower more ably than you did. It will be a good tale to tell the king as we ride on the march tomorrow, for he loves a gallant deed, and the more so when there is prudence and good strategy as well as bravery. He has more than once asked if you have been getting into any new adventures, and seemed almost surprised when I told him that you were doing your duty with your company. He evidently regards it as your special mission to get into harebrained scrapes. He regards you, in fact, as a pedagogue might view the pickle of the school.”
There was a general laugh at Malcolm's expense.
“I don't know how it is I am always getting into scrapes,” the lad said half ruefully when the laugh subsided. “I am sure I don't want to get into them, colonel, and really I have never gone out of my way to do so, unless you call my march to help the Count of Mansfeld going out of my way. All the other things have come to me without any fault of my own.”
“Quite so, Graheme,” the colonel said smiling; “that's always the excuse of the boy who gets into scrapes. The question is, Why do these things always happen to you and to nobody else? If you can explain that your whole case is made out. But don't take it seriously, Malcolm,” he continued, seeing that the lad looked really crestfallen.
“You know I am only laughing, and there is not a man here, including myself, who does not envy you a little for the numerous adventures which have fallen to your lot, and for the courage and wisdom which you have shown in extricating yourself from them.”