you?"
"Tell me first," answered the soldier, "for whom are you?--the

strongest party should speak first."
"We are for God and King Charles," answered the first speaker.--"

Now tell your faction, you know ours."
"I am for God and my standard," answered the single horseman.

"And for which standard?" replied the chief of the other party
--"Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?"

"By my troth, sir," answered the soldier, "I would be loath to
reply to you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of

fortune and a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming
veracity, it is necessary I should myself have resolved to whilk

of the present divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately
adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely

ascertained."
"I should have thought," answered the gentleman, "that, when

loyalty and religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour
could be long in choosing his party."

"Truly, sir," replied the trooper, "if ye speak this in the way
of vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I

would blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel
with my single person against you three. But if you speak it in

the way of logical ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my
youth at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove

to ye LOGICE, that my resolution to defer, for a certain season,
the taking upon me either of these quarrels, not only becometh me

as a gentleman and a man of honour, but also as a person of sense
and prudence, one imbued with humane letters in his early youth,

and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars under the
banner of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and

under many other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist,
Papist and Arminian."

After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger
gentleman replied, "I should be glad, sir, to have some

conversation with you upon so interesting a question, and should
be proud if I can determine you in favour of the cause I have

myself espoused. I ride this evening to a friend's house not
three miles distant, whither, if you choose to accompany me, you

shall have good quarters for the night, and free permission to
take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no

inclination to join with us."
"Whose word am I to take for this?" answered the cautious

soldier--"A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an
ambuscade."

"I am called," answered the younger stranger, "the Earl of
Menteith, and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a

sufficient security."
"A worthy nobleman," answered the soldier, "whose parole is not

to be doubted." With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his
back, and with another made his military salute to the young

nobleman, and continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him
--"And, I trust," said he, "my own assurance, that I will be BON

CAMARADO to your lordship in peace or in peril, during the time
we shall abide together, will not be altogether vilipended in

these doubtful times, when, as they say, a man's head is safer in
a steel-cap than in a marble palace."

"I assure you, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that to judge from your
appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort;

but, I trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of
valour, as I expect to conduct you to good and friendly

quarters."
"Good quarters, my lord," replied the soldier, "are always

acceptable, and are only to be postponed to good pay or good
booty,--not to mention the honour of a cavalier, or the needful

points of commanded duty. And truly, my lord, your noble proffer
is not the less welcome, in that I knew not preceesely this night

where I and my poor companion" (patting his horse) "were to find
lodgments."

"May I be permitted to ask, then," said Lord Menteith, "to whom I
have the good fortune to stand quarter-master?"

"Truly, my lord," said the trooper, "my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your

honourable service to command. It is a name you may have seen in
GALLO BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High

Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my
lord, having by unthrifty courses reduced a fair patrimony to a

nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was eighteen years auld,
than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at the Mareschal-

College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of
Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs

conform, to the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier
of fortune. My lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead

than either my gentle kin or my book-lear, and I found myself
trailing a pike as a private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick

Leslie, where I learned the rules of service so tightly, that I
will not forget them in a hurry. Sir, I have been made to stand

guard eight hours, being from twelve at noon to eight o'clock of
the night, at the palace, armed with back and breast, head-piece

and bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter frost, and
the ice was as hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping an

instant to speak to my landlady, when I should have gone to roll-
call."

"And, doubtless, sir," replied Lord Menteith, "you have gone
through some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk

of?"
"Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that

hath seen the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to
have seen pitched battles. And one who hath witnessed the

intaking of Frankfort, and Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth,
should know somewhat about leaguers, storms, onslaughts and

outfalls."
"But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by

promotion?"
"It came slow, my lord, dooms slow," replied Dalgetty; "but as my

Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of
those valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany,

began to fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with
the sword, why we, their children, succeeded to their

inheritance. Sir, I was six years first private gentleman of the
company, and three years lance speisade; disdaining to receive a

halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I was ultimately
promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which

signifies an ancient), in the King's Leif Regiment of Black-
Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master,

under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant
faith, the Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the

Victorious."
"And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that

rank corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--"
"The same grade preceesely," answered Dalgetty; "ritt-master

signifying literally file-leader."
"I was observing," continued Lord Menteith, "that, if I

understood you right, you had left the service of this great
Prince."

"It was after his death--it was after his death, sir," said
Dalgetty, "when I was in no shape bound to continue mine

adherence. There are things, my lord, in that service, that