“I’m jalousin,” said the stranger, with an expressive smile, as he eyed some of the fragments of military costume which were still about Gordon’s person—“I am jalousin that ye hae been oot, young man. Do ye ken a place they ca’ Shirramuir?” he added, with a knowing, but good-humoured look, which at once induced Gordon not only to acknowledge that he did, but to tell him his precise situation, together with all that had lately befallen him.
“Aweel, aweel, freen,” said the man, when Gordon had concluded—“It’s a’ the same to me what side ye war on, for I carena a sheep’s head for ony o’ them. Sae, ye’ll come alang wi’ me, an’ I’ll gie ye a nicht’s quarters, and some refreshment, o’ whilk ye seem to me to staun muckle in need; for, in troth, lad, ye are sair forfochten like.”
Having said this, the kind-hearted shepherd conducted Gordon to his house, which was close at hand, and gave him all the entertainment he had so generously promised. Here Gordon remained all night; and, on the following morning, prepared for his departure, having now resolved to return to his old friends, the gipsies.
Previous to his setting out, his kind host suggested that he should strip himself of everything about his apparel that might discover the side to which he had belonged—a suggestion with which Gordon immediately complied; when his entertainer supplied the deficiencies thus occasioned, by presenting him with a shepherd’s plaid and bonnet, to which he added a small sum of money.
Thus provided, refreshed, and, we may add, disguised, Gordon took the road, and on the third day thereafter, arrived in safety at the encampment of his old friends, which, knowing their haunts, he had no difficulty in finding.
The joy of the whole gang, and particularly of Jean and her daughter, on seeing him so soon again, was excessive. Jean hugged him to her bosom, and in a rapture of delight, poured out upon him a torrent of the most endearing epithets; while her daughter, though not less overjoyed, sought, with maidenly modesty, to conceal the happiness she felt. But it would not hide. The smile and the tear which she could not suppress, betrayed the secret of her feelings. This excitement over on all sides, Gordon gradually fell into his former position in the little community, and resumed the habits and wandering life which his short, but eventful military career had interrupted; and in this way time ran on until other three or four years had elapsed.
About the end of this period, as Gordon, with two or three more of his associates, was one day passing through Jedburgh, where there was, at the time, a recruiting party stationed, two soldiers, after looking earnestly at him for some minutes, suddenly made up to him, and asked if his name was not Gordon, and if he had not once belonged to the —— Regiment of Foot. To both of these questions Gordon at once replied in the affirmative, not being aware that he had any reason to do otherwise; for it had never occurred to him that, by not rejoining his regiment after the battle of Sheriffmuir, he had rendered himself liable to a charge of desertion; still less did he think that he had actually been all this time a deserter. But so it certainly was; and so he now found it to be.
“Then,” said one of the soldiers, on his acknowledging both circumstances, “you come along with, us, my lad; you are our prisoner.” And both the men drew their side-arms to make good their capture.
Gordon was now carried to the quarters of the commanding officer of the recruiting party, and by him was immediately sent off, escorted by three soldiers, to Edinburgh Castle, to stand trial for desertion from his Majesty’s service.
In a few days after his arrival there, a court-martial was summoned, when Gordon’s identity, and the facts of his enlistment and desertion having been proven, he was condemned to be shot—the utmost penalty of military law having been adjudged him, as the desertion had taken place in time of war, and at a period when fidelity was most especially required.