, the smile of girls.
The smile of girls! It came on him, that, with a rush of blood to his
face and a strange tingling at the heart as the one true influence to
make the soldier. For what should the soldier wander but to come again
home triumphant, and find on the doorstep of his native place the
smiling girls?

"Look at him, look at him!" cried the Cornal again with a nudge at his
brother's arm. They were walking over the bridge and the pipes still
were at their melody. Jiggy Crawford's braid shone like moving torches
at his shoulder as the sun smote hot upon his horse and him. The trees
upon the left leaned before the breeze to share this glory; far-off
the lonely hills, the great and barren hills, were melancholy that they
could not touch closer on the grandeur of man. As it were in a story of
the shealings, the little ones of the town and wayside houses pattered
in the rear of the troops, enchanted, their bare legs stretching to the
rhythm of the soldiers' footsteps, the children of hope, the children
of illusion and desire, and behind them, sad, weary, everything
accomplished, the men who had seen the big wars and had many times
marched thus gaily and were now no more capable.

"It is the last we'll ever see of it, John," said the Cornal. "Oh, man,
man, if I were young again!" His foot was very heavy and slow as he
followed the last he would witness of what had been his pride; his
staff, that he tried to carry like a sword, roust go down now and then
to seek a firmness in the sandy foot-way. Not for long at a time but in
frequent flashes of remembrance he would throw back his shoulders and
lift high his head and step out in time to the music.

The Paymaster walked between him and Gilian, a little more robust and
youthful, altogether in a different key, a key critical, jealous of the
soldier lads that now he could not emulate. They were smart enough, he
confessed, but they were not what the 46th had been; Crawford had a good
carriage on his horse but--but--he was not----

"Oh, do not haver, Jock," said the Cornal, angrily at last; "do
not haver! They are stout lads, good lads enough, like what we were
ourselves when first the wars summoned us, and Crawford, as he sits
there, might very well be Dugald as I saw him ride about the bend of the
road at San Sebastian and look across the sandy bay to see the rock we
had to conquer. Let you and me say nothing that is not kind, Colin; have
we not had our own day of it w