So it was on this night, when returning from Monkton's billet to his own, with a head none of the clearest, after talking a vast deal, smoking cigars and drinking the country wine, that Quentin was startled—completely sobered, in fact—by his servant placing in his hand a letter, and saying briefly that "the mail had come up that evening from the rear," which meant from Lisbon.
This letter was covered by such a multitude of post-marks that some time elapsed before Quentin—all unused to receive such documents—could bring himself to examine the contents; nor, in his mute astonishment, did he do so, until he had fully deciphered the address, which was in old John Girvan's hand, and the seal, an antiquated button of the 25th Foot, with the number, of course, reversed.
Every word seemed like a voice from home, and all the past—faces, forms, scenes, and places, came like a living and moving panorama on his memory.
Then, almost giddy with delight, a heart tremulous with anxiety, and eyes that grew moist—so moist, indeed, that for some seconds he could see no more than that the letter was dated more than a month back, Quentin was striving to read the square, old-fashioned writing of his early friend, when something dropped from between the pages—a tiny note, sealed by blue wax—the crest a hare sejant, the cognisance of the Warrenders.
Excited anew, he opened this with extreme care but tremulous haste. It was a single sheet of note-paper, on which two words were written, in a hand he knew right well—From Flora—and in it was a valuable ring, studded with precious stones.
We are compelled to admit that Quentin kissed the words and the ring some dozen times or so before he put the paper containing the former next his heart, in the most approved manner of all lovers, and the circlet on his finger, where he continued to admire it from time to time, while deciphering the long and somewhat prosy, but kind letter of his worthy old friend, who evidently knew nothing about the unlucky court-martial being on the tapis when he wrote it, Lord Rohallion's startling reply from the Horse Guards not having then arrived.
"MY DEAR QUENTIN,—And so by God's providence, through the humble medium of a stray newspaper, we have found you at last! Ye rash and ungrateful callant to leave us all in such a fashion, and well-nigh unto demented lest you had come to skaith or evil. I'll never forget the night the news first came to Rohallion that you had been found. You mind o' my auld Flanders greybeard—the Roman amphora, as the dominie calls it—he and I, wi' Spillsby and auld Jack Andrews, emptied it to the last drop, drinking your health, pouring forth libations in your honour, as Symon Skail hath it, and singing 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot' as we have never sung it since Robbie Burns left Mossgiel.
"And so, Quentin, my lad, ye have gone forth even as I went, nigh half a century ago, and have joined the glorious old 25th too! The Lord's blessing be on the old number, wherever it be—even on the head of a beer barrel! I joined the Borderers with little more than my father's benediction on my head, and, what served me better, one of my mother's pease-bannocks in my pouch. After Minden I came home a corporal, and proud I am to say, that I was the poor wayworn soldier-lad whom Burns saw passing the inn at Brownhill, and whom he invited to share his supper on the night he wrote his song—
"When wild war's deadly blast had blawn."
But ere long, by putting my trust in Providence (and a gude deal in pipeclay), I became, as I am now, and hope you one day shall be, a commissioned officer!