sternly bent upon the inside of his hat "Before
morning at the very most," he said in his odd low-country voice. No more
than that, and still it thundered at her soul like an infernal doom. Up
she gathered her apron, up to her face, and fled in among her pots and
pans, and loudly she moved among them to drown her lamentation.

Dr. Colin came later and prayed in the two languages over a figure on
the bed, and then went home to write another sermon than the one already
started. The room he left was silent for a while, till of a sudden the
eyes of the General opened and he looked upon the sorry company.

"Bring me MacGibbon," said he in a voice extremely sensible.

Gilian ran up the street and fetched the old comrade, who put his hand
upon the General's head.

"Dugald, do you ken me?" said he.

"Do I ken you?" said the General with an unpractised smile. "You're the
laddie that burned the master's cane. I would know your voice if you
were in any guise, and what masquerade is this that you should be so
old? We're to be the first to move in the morning, under arms at scream
of day.... Lord, but I'm tired! Bob, Bob, they're not thinking of us
at home in the old place I'll warrant, and to-morrow we may be stricken
corpses for the king without so much as Macintyre's stretching-board to
give us a soger's chest and shoulders."

"Was there anything I could do, Dugald?" said the comrade, a ludicrous
man with his paunch now far beyond the limit of the soldier's belt he
used to buckle easily, wearing in a clownish notion of deference to this
soldier's passing a foolish small Highland bonnet he had donned in old
campaigns.

"There was something running in my mind," said the man in the bed.
"I think I would be wanting you to take word home in case anything
happened. I was thinking of--of--of--what was her name, now? You know
the one I mean--her ladyship in Glen Shira. Am I not stupid to
forget it? that's the worst of the bottle! What was her name, now?...
_Battalion will form an hollow square_.... The name, the name, what was
it?... _On the center companies, 'kwards wheel_.... I'm wearied to the
marrow of my bones, all but the right arm, that's like a feather, that's
like a... _By the right angle of the front face; sub-divisions to the
right and left half wheel. Re-form the square. Hall! Dress!_... What's
that piper doing out there? MacVurich, come in! This is not a reel at
a Skye wedding.... Let me see, I have the name on the t