"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but I know that I may take the liberty of talking to you, for when I lay in hospital at Minden, wounded, sick, and dying as I thought, no hand was more ready than yours to help me. Never did my auld mother at hame, when I was a yellow-haired bairn, tread mair lightly by my cradle than you did by my straw pallet, to see that I took those devilish draughts of old Drs. Blackstrap and Probe of ours."
"But what about all that now, Hob?—to the point."
"Well, sir, if I might recommend—I'm an older soldier than you—we should go threes about now, and get back, for the bridge is undermined, and that Major Shirley——"
"Well?" said I, as Hob paused.
"He had a queer twinkle in his eye as we rode off."
"What, Hob—you do not mean—you cannot insinuate——"
"Pardon me, sir," said the big burly trooper, lowering his voice; "but he laughed in the faces of the dead at Minden—faces that in life he was grave enough before, and I dinna like a bane in his body."
"Come, come, Hob, you must not speak in this way to me. The major is esteemed a good officer."
"I know that, sir," replied the trooper, dryly; "but by whom?"
"Well," said I, impatiently, "by whom?"