“I began with the reveille, though it was a properer hour for the tattoo, playing it lightly, so that while it silenced the hooting owls it did not affright the whole forest. She came through the trees timidly, clothed, as I remember, in a gown of green. She might have been the spirit of the pine-plantings; she might have been a dryad charmed from the swinging boughs. ‘Margory! Margory!’ I cried, my heart more noisy than my drum had been, and clasped her to my arms. ‘Here’s a poor drummer, my dear,’ I said, ‘and you a queen. If you do not love me you were less cruel to take this dirk and stab me to the heart than act the heartless coquette.’ “She faintly struggled. He hair fell loose in a lock or two from under her hat, surged on her shoulder, and billowed about my lips. Her cheek was warm; her eyes threw back the challenge of the silver moon over the tops of pine. “‘For a young gentleman from a kirk manse, Master Drummer, you have considerable impertinence,’ said she, panting in my arms. “‘My name, dear Margory, is George, as I have told you,’ I whispered, and I kissed her. “‘George, dear George,’ said she, ‘have done with folly! Let me hear the drumming and go home.’ “I swung her father’s drum again before me and gave, in cataracts of sound, or murmuring cascades, the sentiments of my heart. “‘Wonderful! Oh, wonderful!’ she cried, entranced; so I played on. “The moon went into a cloud; the glade of a sudden darkened; I ceased my playing, swung the drum again behind, and turned for Margory. “She was gone! “I cried her name as I ran through the forest, but truly she was gone.” Urquhart stopped his story and eagerly dashed some lines upon the clay. “Pardon!” he said. “Just like that, for a moment. Ah! that is something like it!” “Well, well!” I cried. “And what followed?” “I think—indeed, I know—she loved me, but—I went back to the war without a single word from her again.” “Oh, to the deuce with your story!” I cried at that, impatient. “I did not bargain for a tragedy.” “In truth it is something of a farce, as you shall discover in a moment,” said the sculptor. “Next day the captain sent for me. ‘Do you know General Fraser?’ said he, looking at a letter he held in his hand. I told him I had not the honour. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it looks as if the family had a curious penchant for the drum, to judge from the fact that his brother gave yours to the regiment, and also’—here he smiled slyly—’from the interest of his niece. He is not an hour returned from Spain to his native town when he asks me to send you with your drum to his house at noon.’ “‘Very good, sir,’ I answered, with my heart thundering, and went out of the room most hugely puzzled.