e of Aberdeen.
Better so than be smothered like a cadger's pony in some flow-moss,
or snow-wreath, which was like to be his fate if this winter campaign
lasted longer. But it has pleased his Excellency" (making an inclination
to Montrose) "to supply his place by the gift of a noble steed, whom
I have taken the freedom to name 'LOYALTY'S REWARD,' in memory of this
celebrated occasion."

"I hope," said the Marquis, "you'll find Loyalty's Reward, since you
call him so, practised in all the duties of the field,--but I must just
hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently
rewarded with a halter than with a horse."

"Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty's Reward is
as perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure.
Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept
till now inferior company."

"Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope," said Lord Menteith.
"For shame, Sir Dugald!"

"My lord," answered the knight gravely, "I am incapable to mean anything
so utterly unbecoming. What I asseverate is, that his Excellency, having
the same intercourse with his horse during his exercise, that he hath
with his soldiers when training them, may form and break either to every
feat of war which he chooses to practise, and accordingly that this
noble charger is admirably managed. But as it is the intercourse of
private life that formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend
that of the single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of
the corporal or the sergeant, or that of Loyalty's Reward to have been
much dulcified, or ameliorated, by the society of his Excellency's
grooms, who bestow more oaths, and kicks, and thumps, than kindness or
caresses, upon the animals intrusted to their charge; whereby many a
generous quadruped, rendered as it were misanthropic, manifests during
the rest of his life a greater desire to kick and bite his master, than
to love and to honour him."

"Spoken like an oracle," said Montrose. "Were there an academy for the
education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair."

"Because, being an ass," said Menteith, aside to the General, "there
would be some distant relation between the professor and the students."

"And now, with your Excellency's permission," said the new-made knight,
"I am going to pay my last visit to the remain