Left for some minutes to himself, he stood, bundle in hand, irresolutely surveying, with a dejected and crest-fallen air, the great and silent court. A gentleman in very plain attire, with a short wig, a well-worn beaver, and steel-hilted sword, who was slowly promenading under the arcade, suddenly turned, and the wanderer was greeted by his old friend Finland.
"Welcome to the poor cheer of St. Germain-en-laye!" cried this merry soldier (whom no fall of fortune could daunt), grasping Walter's hand. "My bon camarade, welcome to France. By all the devils, I was often grieved for thee, poor lad, and deemed thou wert doing penance in some rascally Tolbooth for our brave camisade in the north."
Walter was so much oppressed in spirit, and so weak in mind and body, that the tears rushed into his eyes, and he could only press his hand in silence.
"What the devil——my poor lad, thou seemest very faint and exhausted!"
"I have travelled on foot from Boulogne-sur-mer. I spent my last franc at St. Juste, my last sou an hour ago for a glass of vin ordinaire, and for three days no food has passed my lips."
"My God!" exclaimed Finland, striking his flushed forehead, "and my last tester went for dinner today! how shall I assist you? Travelling for three days without food! Surely the fortunes of the cavaliers are now at the lowest ebb."
"Then the tide must flow again."
"I now begin to fear it will flow no more for us. What says the player?
'There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'
Once at least in life, every man's fortune will be at the flood, and if he misses the tide his bark is stranded on the shore for ever. But thee, poor lad! how shall I get thee food?—we are all as poor as kirk rats here. There are not less than two hundred officers of Dundee's army, and other loyal gentlemen of the Life Guards and Scottish Brigade, subsisting here on the small bounty of our gracious king, (whom Heaven in its mercy bless!) until some turn of fortune again draws forth their swords. We have each but fourpence a day, and are in great misery from lack of the most common necessaries of life. Yet we never forget that we are Scottish gentlemen, and daily attend the king's levée, with as gallant an air as if we trod the long gallery of Holyrood in our feathers and lace as of old. His grace of Gordon, my Lords of Maitland, Dunbarton, Abercorn, and others dine daily at a poor Restaurateur's, on plain stew and cabbage broth, while I have to content myself with bread and onions, and a keen appetite for sauce; while it affords me no consolation to reflect that my old ancestral tower of Finland—the gift of the Black Douglas to his favourite son—and all the fertile lands that spread around it, are now possessed by some vile, canting, crop-ear. The Earl of Dunbarton——"