r would make him, for soldiering was in the air. The red-coats
gaily filled the street; parade and exercise, evening dance and the
continuous sound of pipe and drum left no room for any other interest in
life. Heretofore there was ever for the boy in his visions of the Army a
background of unable years and a palsied hand, slow decay in a parlour,
with every zest and glamour gone. But here in the men who stepped always
to melody there was youth, seemingly a singular enjoyment of life, and
watching them he was filled with envy.

When the day came that they must go he was inconsolable though he made
no complaint. They went in the afternoon by the lowlands road that bends
about the upper bay skirting the Duke's flower gardens, and with the
Cornal and the Paymaster he went to see them depart, the General left
at home in his parlour, unaccountably unwilling to say good-bye. The
companies moved in a splendour of sunshine with their arms bedazzling to
look upon, their pipers playing "Bundle and Go."

"Look at the young one!" whispered the Cornal in his brother's ear,
nudging him to attention. Gilian was walking in step to the corps, his
shoulders hack, his head erect, a hazel switch shouldered like a musket.
But it was the face of him that most compelled attention for it revealed
a multitude of emotions. His fancy ran far ahead of the tramping force
thudding the dust on the highway. He was now the Army's child
indeed, stepping round the world to a lilt of the bagpipes, with the
_currachd_--the caul of safety--as surely his as it was Black Duncan the
seaman's. There were battles in the open, and leaguering of towns,
but his was the enchanted corps moving from country to country through
victory, and always the same comrades were about the camp-fire at night.
Now he was the foot-man, obedient, marching, marching, marching, all
day, while the wayside cottars wondered and admired; now he was the
fugleman, set before his company as the example of good and honest and
handsome soldiery; now he was Captain--Colonel--General, with a horse
between his knees, his easy body swaying in the saddle as he rode among
the villages and towns. The friendly people ran (so his fancy continued)
to their close-mouths to look upon his regiment passing to the roll and
thunder of the drums and the cheery music of the pipes. Long days of
march and battle, numerous nights of wearied ease upon the heather, if
heather there should be, the applause of citadels