“‘Very good, sir,’ I answered, with my heart thundering, and went out of the room most hugely puzzled.
“I went at noon to the tall white house, and was shown into a room where sat Margory, white to the lips, beside the window, out of which she looked after a single hopeless glance at me. A middle-aged gentleman in mufti, with an empty sleeve, stood beside her, and closely scrutinised myself and my instrument as I entered.
“‘This is the—the person you have referred to?’ he asked her, and she answered with a sob and an inclination of her head.
“‘You have come—you are reputed to have come of a respectable family,’ he said then, addressing me; ‘you have studied at Edinburgh; you have, I am told, some pretensions to being something of a gentleman.’
“‘I hope they are no pretensions, sir,’ I answered warmly. ‘My people are as well known and as reputable as any in Argyll, though I should be foolishly beating a drum.’
“‘Very good,’ said he, in no way losing his composure. ‘I can depend on getting the truth from you, I suppose? You were with the 71st as drummer at Ciudad Rodrigo?’
“‘I was, sir,’ I replied. ‘Also at Badajos, at Talavera, Busaco—’
“‘An excellent record!’ he interrupted. ‘I might have learned all about it later had not my wound kept me two months in hospital after Ciudad. By the way, you remember being sent as drummer with a picket of men down a lane?’
“I started, gave a careful look at him, and recognised the General whose life I had doubtless saved from the pillaging Portuguese.
“‘I do, sir,’ I answered. ‘It was you yourself who sent me.’