“‘I cauna say ower muckle for my _taste_, my leddy, but ae thing I _will_ say,--I’ve a most damnable _smell!_’ “I hear that never since the auld walls stood was there ever the like o’ the laughing that followed; the puir duke himsel’ was carried away, and nearly had a fit, and a’ the grand lords and leddies a’most died of it. But see here, the earle has nae left a drap o’ whiskey in the flask.” “The last glass I drained to your respectable uncle’s health,” said Quill, with a most professional gravity. “Now, Charlie, make a little room for me in the straw.” The doctor soon mounted beside me, and giving me a share of his ample cloak, considerably ameliorated my situation. “So you knew Sparks, Doctor?” said I, with a strong curiosity to hear something of his early acquaintance. “That I did: I knew him when he was an ensign in the 10th Foot; and, to say the truth, he is not much changed since that time,--the same lively look of a sick cod-fish about his gray eyes; the same disorderly wave of his yellow hair; the same whining voice, and that confounded apothecary’s laugh.” “Come, come, Doctor, Sparks is a good fellow at heart; I won’t have him abused. I never knew he had been in the infantry; I should think it must have been another of the same name.” “Not at all; there’s only one like him in the service, and that’s himself. Confound it, man, I’d know his skin upon a bush; he was only three weeks in the Tenth, and, indeed, your humble servant has the whole merit of his leaving it so soon.” “Do let us hear how that happened.” “Simply thus: The jolly Tenth were some four years ago the pleasantest corps in the army; from the lieutenant-colonel down to the last joined sub., all were out-and-outers,--real gay fellows. The mess was, in fact, like a pleasant club, and if you did not suit it, the best thing you could do was to sell out or exchange into a slower regiment; and, indeed, this very wholesome truth was not very long in reaching your ears some way or other, and a man that could remain after being given this hint, was likely to go afterwards without one.” Just as Dr. Quill reached this part of his story, an orderly dragoon galloped furiously past, and the next moment an aide-de-camp rode by, calling as he passed us,-- “Close up, there! Close up! Get forward, my lads! get forward!” It was evident, from the stir and bustle about, that some movement was being made; and soon after, a dropping, irregular fire from the rear showed that our cavalry were engaged with the enemy. The affair was scarcely of five minutes’ duration, and our march resumed all its former regularity immediately after. I now turned to the doctor to resume his story, but he was gone; at what moment he left I could not say, but O’Shaughnessy was also absent, nor did I again meet with them for a considerable time after.