"Whilom our gallant colonel—how I long for an interview!"
"He is gone to Versailles to visit le Mareschal Noailles, anent the unfortunate gentlemen who are starving here around us. He will be back tomorrow. Oh, Walter, when I see how might can triumph over right, and wickedness over more than Spartan virtue, I am almost tempted to believe there is no governing power in this wretched world; that all is the effect of chance or fate."
"Chance and fate are the reverse of each other, and this sentiment agrees not with your previous idea of 'the tide in the affairs of men.'"
"Tush! I am in a dozen minds in an hour. Let us leave these topics to such men as Mr. Ichabod Bummel. You remember that apostle of the covenant? ha, ha! A word in your ear. You saw our fair ones ere you left Scotland, I doubt not?"
"Alas, no."
"The deuce! how came that to pass? But you must dine, and where? for I have not a brass bodle, as we say at home in poor old Scotland, (God bless her, with all her errors!) I have it! the officer of the guard will lend me—or give—'tis all one; they are fine fellows, these French, and share their poor pay with us, in a spirit of charity that the apostles could not have surpassed. The gentleman and the soldier seldom seek a boon from each other in vain."
Finland calculated rightly; the French chevalier commanding the guard, on learning the cause of his present necessity, at once divided the contents of his purse, and enabled the happy borrower to lead his wearied friend to a tavern, where dinner was ordered and discussed with wonderful celerity.
"Now, Walter, I shall be glad to hear thy adventures," said Finland, when the waiting girl had cleared the dinner board and laid a decanter of wine, from which he filled their glasses. "Frontiniac dashed with brandy—you remember how often we have drank a bottle of it at Hughie Blair's, and the White Horse Hostel. How the times are changed since then! I was not at the Haughs o' Cromdale, being en route for Ireland to crave succour from James——"
"After the dispersion consequent to that ill-managed affair, I wandered from place to place, enduring such miseries as few can conceive, and was a thousand times in danger of being captured by Mackay's dragoons, who were riding down the country in every direction. Assisted by the kind and beautiful Countess of Dunbarton (who is yet intriguing in England), I procured some money, and, disguised as a Norlan drover, reached the western borders, for escape by sea from Scotland was impossible, the whole coast being watched by the English and Dutch fleet. In England my money was soon spent, and I despaired of ever reaching the port of Colchester, where I heard there lay a ship that in secret frequently transported our persecuted people to France. My bonnet and grey plaid, though they ensured my safety in the Lowlands, caused me to be viewed with hatred, jealousy, and mistrust, as soon as the Cheviot hills were left behind me, and I had not money wherewith to procure a change of costume. I travelled principally by night, and slept in ditches or thickets by day, for the villagers assailed me with stones and abuse whenever they saw me, using every bitter epithet that national animosity could inspire, while every country boor that had a couple of beagles at hand, uncoupled them to track and hunt me."
"Would to heaven I had been with thee, lad! Well."