"Relations?"
"Yes," I replied, flushing to the temples with anger.
"Friends, I should have said."
"None."
"Right!" exclaimed Corporal Charters, bitterly; "friends and relations are often very different people."
"Come," added Kirkton, "be one of us—you are just a lad after old Preston's heart."
"Old Preston—who is he?"
"Zounds, man! don't you know? He is Colonel of the Greys—our idol! we all love the old boy as if he was our father—and a father he is indeed to the whole regiment. Come, then, I say, be one of us—the lads who are second to none."
"Second to none!" echoed the corporal, draining his glass with enthusiasm, for this is yet the proud motto of his regiment; "you have still your brave heart, boy—the king will give you a sword, and you will ride with us against the French as a Scots Grey dragoon."
The fumes of the potent alcohol I was imbibing had already mounted to my head; the idea of becoming a soldier had frequently occurred to me, and these troopers had only anticipated a proposal I was about to make them.