“I hope we shall—and I thank you. But I shall be fast asleep ere then.” And so he was; but not the less for that did the stalwart young man watch over him, sitting erect in one of the high-backed chairs, until the first pale light of dawn came stealing in through the latticed casement, and the shrill cry of the early cock announced the morning of another day. CHAPTER IV. _The Lovesuit._ He either fears too much, Or his deserts are small, Who would not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all. MONTROSE. The earliest cock had barely crowed his first salutation to the awakening day, and the first warblers had not yet begun to make their morning music in the thick shrubberies around the cottage, when aroused betimes by his anxiety for Jasper, Sir Miles made his appearance, already full dressed, at the door of the room in which his son was sleeping. For he was still asleep, with that hardy young man still watching over him, apparently unmoved by the loss of his own rest, and wholly indifferent to what are usually deemed the indispensable requirements of nature. “You are afoot betimes, sir,” said the youth, rising from his seat as the old cavalier entered the room; “pity that you should have arisen so early, for I could have watched him twice as long, had it been needful, but in truth it was not so. Your son has scarce moved, Sir Miles, since you left the chamber last night. You see how pleasantly and soundly he is sleeping.” “It was not _that_, young sir,” replied the old man, cordially. “It was not that I doubted your good will, or your good watching either; but he is my son, my only son, and how should I but be anxious. But as you say, he sleeps pleasantly and well. God be thanked therefore. He will be none the worse for this.” “Better, perhaps, Sir Miles,” replied the other, with a slight smile. “Wiser, at least, I doubt not he will be; for in good truth, it was a very boyish, and a very foolish risk to run.” The old man, for the first time, looked at the speaker steadfastly, and was struck by the singular expression of his countenance—that strange mixture of impassive self-confident composure, and half-scornful audacity, which I have mentioned as being his most striking characteristics. On the preceding evening, Sir Miles had been so much engrossed by the anxiety he felt about his son, and subsequently by the feelings called forth in his inmost heart by the discovery of an old comrade in the person of William Allan, that in fact he had paid little attention to either of the other personages present.