There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my dander strangely.
"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to complain."
"You have my name, I perceive"--he bowed to me with his arms crossed--"though it's one I must not use myself. Well, there is a publicity--I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards of my enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I know not."
"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."
"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent folk that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman, your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with my battalion."
"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I, for I was ready for the surgeon now.
"The same, sir," said James More. "And since I have been fellow-soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."
He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as though he had found a brother.
"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I heard the balls whistle in our lugs."
"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I, drily, "and I ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."