Yet while he declined all proffers of assistance, Robert Wodrow's mind was full of thoughts—soft, subduing, and kindly thoughts—of his reverend father, his mother so sweet and meek, so abiding and confiding in the will and goodness of God, and the old sequestered manse embowered among the bonnie birks of Invermay—the manse of Kirktoun-Mailler.
By midnight the returned expedition marched into the lines of the camp at Jellalabad.
'You have acted bravely to-day, Captain Colville,' said the brigadier, shaking his hand as the troops were dismissed to their tents; 'and so sure as the stars look down on us you shall have your V.C. for saving the rash hussar and killing the Moollah Khalil. I wish you had polished off Mohammed Shah, too, while you were about it.'
'Who is he?' asked Colville, to whom the name seemed somehow familiar.
'One of the sirdars of the Ameer, and a very distinguished one, now with the Mohmunds.'
'By Jove! that was the fellow who pretended to be a hadji, and whom I had for a night in the Bala Hissar—in the citadel actually.'
'A lesson for you to be more careful and less hospitable in future,' said the brigadier, laughing.
Colville was duly complimented in general orders, and weeks after the latter was read and duly appreciated by one who then was—far, far away!