?"

"And if we did, Scottie, we made up for it later," bawled one of the two
dragoon non-commissioned officers.

"Ay? And whan was that, lad? At Falkirk, belike!"

"No, it wasn't at Falkirk, Scottie. But fine sport we had when we went
huntin' down them rebels about your Border country, after Culloden had
settled their business. By G----! I mind once I starved an old Scotch
witch that lived up there among your cursed hills. She was preaching,
and psalm-singing, and bragging about how the Lord would provide for the
widowed and fatherless, or some cant of that sort. But _I_ soon put her
to the test."

"Ay?" said a stern-faced, youngish man, dressed in the uniform of a
private of Sempil's Regiment, jumping up hurriedly in front of the
dragoon, "ay? And what did ye do?"

"Do?" replied the cavalryman; "why, I just sliced the throat of the old
witch's cow, and I cut all her garden stuff and threw it into the burn.
I'm thinking it would take a deal o' prayer to get the better o' that!
But, oh! no doubt the Lord would provide, as she said," sneered the man.

"And was that in Nithsdale?" asked the young Borderer.

"It was," said the dragoon.

"An' ye did that, an' ye hae nae thocht o' repentance?"

"Repentance! What's there to repent? D---- you, I tell you she was a
witch, and I gave her no more than a witch deserves," roared the
half-tipsy dragoon.

"Then, by God! I tell _you_ it was my mother that you mishandled that
day. Draw! you bloody dog! Draw!" shouted the now thoroughly roused
Borderer, snatching from its scabbard the sabre of a dragoon who stood
close at hand.

It was no great fight. The cavalryman had doubtless by far the greater
skill with the sabre; but drink muddled his brain and hampered his
movements, and the whirlwind attack of the younger man gave no rest to
his opponent nor opportunity to steady himself. In little more than a
minute the dragoon lay gasping out his life.

"Had ye rued what ye did, ye should hae been dealt wi' only by your
Maker," muttered the Borderer as the dead man's comrades bore away the
body. "Little did I look to see _you_ this day after a' they years, or
to have _your_ bluid on my hands. It was an ill chance that brought us
thegither again, and an ill day for me an' mine that lang syne brought
you into our quiet glen."

But the incident did not end here. The private soldier had slain his
superior in rank, and but for the strenuous representations of his
company commander