And so ended this—to Quentin—most crushing interview.
"What the devil is up now?" said Monkton to Colville; "it is evident that our new bashaw doesn't like gentlemen volunteers."
"Then he is devilishly unjust—that's all," said Askerne the Grenadier who had begun his military life as a volunteer.
Quentin could have furnished the clue to all this; but to speak of the friendless childhood which cast him among the household at Rohallion, and, more than all, to speak of Flora Warrender, and to make her name the jest of the heedless or unfeeling, were thoughts that could not be endured. He was, silent, and his tongue seemed as if cleaving to the roof of his mouth, while wearily and sadly he turned away to seek the solitude of his bare and scantily-furnished little room.
Middleton, who had followed unobserved, entered after him, and just when Quentin, to relieve his overcharged heart, was on the point of giving way to a paroxysm of rage, even to tears, the worthy old field officer caught his hand kindly, and said with earnestness—
"Don't be cast down, my boy, by what has occurred to-day. He was cold and haughty to every one of us, but it is evidently his way, and may wear off after a time. I hope so, for our Borderers won't stand it. Take courage, lad—take courage, and don't fret about it; Jack Middleton will always be your friend, though a hostile commanding officer is a dangerous rock ahead."
"Oh, major, you are indeed kind and good," said Quentin, as he seated himself at the hard wood table, and covered his burning face with his trembling hands; "but you know not all I have suffered—all I think, and feel, and fear!"
"Chut, Kennedy, look up! 'The English pluck that storms a breach or heads a charge is the very same quality that sustains a man on the long dark road of adverse fortune,' says an author—I forget who—not he of the 'Eighteen Manœuvres,' however; so, Quentin; don't, let Scottish pluck be behind it. To follow the drum is your true road in life, boy, and who but God can tell when that road may end?"
"Major Middleton," said Quentin, bitterly, "the colonel's chilling manner, and more than you can ever know, have crushed the heart within me. I never knew my father—of my mother I have barely a memory," he continued in a broken voice—"a memory, a dream! Fate has made me early a victim—a plaything—a toy! Advise me—I feel my condition so desolate, so friendless again. What future can there be for me, if I continue to serve under him; and how can I hope for happiness, for justice, or advancement under such as he?"
"Obey and suffer in silence; bear and forbear, and you will be sure to triumph in the end. 'He that tholes overcomes,' says our Scottish proverb, and the poor soldier has much to thole indeed; but do your duty diligently, and you may defy any man—even the king himself."