"Ay, sir!" replied a soldier, dressed in his white shell-jacket and kilt, as he rode a horse up to the door and dismounted.
"You are a punctual fellow. Desire Senor Raphael, the inn-keeper, to give you a canteen full of aquardiente. Are the holsters on, the pistols loaded, and fresh flinted?"
"A's richt, sir," replied the groom, raising his hand to his flat bonnet.
"I will see you again, lads, when we get under arms in the morning," said Campbell, enveloping himself in an immense blue cloak.
"How, major! Are you so fond of bivouacking, that you mean to sleep with the out-picquets?"
"Not quite, Alister; but I mean to finish the night at Fassifern's billet, and fight our battles and broils in Egypt over again for the entertainment of his host, a rich old canon, who is said to have in his cellars some of the best wine on this side the peak of Ossian."[*]
[*] A high peak of the Pyrennean mountains.
"Do not forget, senor, to make the reverend Padre's borachio-skins gush forth like a river," said the condé. "A priest would as soon part with his heart's blood, as his wine to a stranger."
"I am too old a soldier to require that advice, Balthazzar," said Campbell, wrapping his mantle around his gigantic figure, which the Spaniard surveyed with a stare of surprise. "I regret you have not all invitations; but be as much at home here as you can, and be careful how you trust yourselves within any of Senor Raphael's couches. Peninsular—pardon, condé!—I mean Portuguese posadas are none of the most cleanly; and if you would wish to avoid being afflicted with sarna for twelve months to come, it would be quite as safe and pleasant to repose on the floor."
"The sarna! major," exclaimed Stuart; "what does that mean?"