Moore drew off his glove, shook Quentin's hand with friendly cordiality, and rode away at a canter, leaving our sentinel in a very bewildered state of mind indeed.
CHAPTER XVI.
PIQUE.
"These hands are brown with toil; that brow is scarred;
Still must you sweat and swelter in the sun,
And trudge with feet benumbed the winter snow,
Nor intermission have until the end.
Thou canst not draw down fame upon thy head,
And yet wouldst cling to life!"—ALEXANDER SMITH.
"A lieutenant in the 7th, or Royal Fusiliers!—am I actually so?" was the question Quentin asked of himself repeatedly.
There could be no doubt about it; the general had said so, and the Gazette confirmed it, that he, Quentin Kennedy, volunteer with the 25th Foot, had been appointed to that regiment, one of the oldest corps of the line—a "crack one," too—commanded by General Sir Alured Clark, G.C.B. Long known as the South British Fusiliers, to distinguish them from the Scottish corps and the famous Welsh Fusiliers, armed with the same weapon, the 7th were without officers of the rank of ensign until a year or two ago; thus, at the time we refer to, their two battalions had no less than sixty-four lieutenants.
This sudden promotion, which put him so completely beyond the power of his rival and enemy, the Master of Rohallion, and which gave him independence and a position in society too, puzzled Quentin for a time; but briefly so, as reflection showed him that he must owe it to the great interest possessed by Lord Rohallion, who, he was aware, had now traced him to the Borderers; and this, indeed, was the secret of the whole affair.
And Flora Warrender—she must have seen his appointment in the Gazette long before it had thus casually met the sharp eye of Sir John Moore, and could he doubt that she rejoiced at the event?
To be raised at once from a position so subordinate and anomalous, so unrecognised and so fraught with useless peril as that of a gentleman volunteer, from the ranks as it were of that army whose dreadful sufferings he shared and whose many dangers he risked—to be raised to the rank of an officer in a regiment so distinguished as the Royal Fusiliers, and to be at once, temporarily though it were, placed on the general's staff, and beyond the reach of Cosmo's coldness, pique, and hauteur, was indeed to be independent, and to taste of happiness supreme!
His heart was full of joy, of enthusiasm, and gratified ambition; but sincere gratitude and increased regard for the kind and fatherly old Lord to whom he owed it were not wanting now; and Quentin resolved to write a letter pouring out his thanks, and expressive of all he felt, on the first opportunity. He was right to make the last reserve mentally, for opportunities for committing one's lucubrations to paper were sadly wanting now when within musket shot of the French advanced guard.