"When you so narrowly escaped hanging by those rascally thieves, I suppose? Don Alvaro gave you ample reparation, so far as he could do, by drawing fifty human necks, like the thraws of so many muir-hens. A fine fellow, that Alvaro! only rather lank and sombre in visage. Faith! I shall never forget the supper his pretty sister gave us the first night we halted at Merida. Every dish had garlic, olive oil, and onions in it!"
"Hooch, deevils and warlocks!" said Sergeant Macrone, grasping the truncheon of his pike. "Oh! had I peen there peside you, sir, whan thae reiver loons spake o' a tow to you, many a sair croon wad hae peen among them!"
"I'm much obliged to you, Macrone; but, with a dozen of our blue bonnets, I would soon have made a clear house of them."
"Oich!" continued the sergeant, growing eloquent in his indignation, "it wad hae peen a fera tammed unpleasant thing to pe hanget, especially an officer and shentleman. But wad the reivers no hae shot yer honour, kindly and discreetly, just if ye had asked them as a favour, ye ken?"
"I never thought of that, Macrone," replied Ronald, laughing heartily; "both modes were equally unpleasant, though not equally honourable."
"Poor Cameron! and so we have lost him at last," observed Campbell, in a half-musing tone, while his eyes glistened. "I often look at the head of the column, and half imagine I see him riding along there, on his tall black horse, as of old; his figure erect and stately, and his long feathers drooping down on his right shoulder. Many a day I have watched him with pleasure, as he led the line of march over the long plains of Spain, when we have been moving from sunrise to sunset, on the tall spire of some distant city. I shall obtain the command, but He who reads the human heart knows that I would rather have remained always major, that Cameron might have lived."
"Brave Fassifern! we were always proud of him, but more so now than ever," said Stuart, and his eyes glittered with enthusiasm while he spoke. "'Tis but two hours since I beheld him expire in Waterloo yonder."
"That d—ned old house near Quatre Bras!" exclaimed Campbell; "I am sorry we left one stone of it standing on another. Poor Fassifern fell at the head of the grenadiers, while assaulting it in front. I carried it in rear, beating down the back door with my own hand, and scarcely a man was left alive in it. Our men fought like furies after the colonel fell. Ay," he continued, emphatically, "John Cameron was a true Highland gentleman, and possessed the heart of a hero."
"Och!" muttered Macrone, "he was a pretty man, and a prave man, and nefer flinched in ta front o' the enemy."
"And never did one of his name, Duncan," whispered a comrade, in Gaëlic. "I myself am a Cameron—"