Wat smilingly promised, and went on to tell of his winter adventures among the clans, as if they were all he thought about.
"Good-night, and a sweet sleep to you, Wat, lad!" said Will Gordon. "In three days, I promise you, you shall ride forth, well mounted and equipped."
And so, smiling once more on his cousin, he went down the stair.
Then Wat Gordon laid his head on the pillow as obediently as a child.
But he only kept it there till his cousin was out of the room and he heard his footsteps die down the street. In a trice he was out of bed and trying all the fastenings of the windows of his room. He was alone in his dormitory, but on either side of him were rooms containing wounded men of the Cameronians, to whom night nurses came and went, so that it behooved him to be wary.
One of the windows was barred with iron outside, while the sash of the other was fixed and would not open at all.
Wat threw open the barred window as far as he could and shook the iron lattice. It held firm against his feeble strength, but upon a more minute examination the stanchions seemed only to be set in plaster.
"That's better; but I wish Jack Scarlett would come!" murmured Wat, as he staggered back to his bed. He kissed his hand towards the South with something of his old air of gallant recklessness.
"On the tenth I shall be with you, dear love, to redeem my pledge, or else—"
But before his lips could frame the alternative he had fainted on the floor.