‘For time will rust the brightest blade, And years will break the strongest bow; Was ever wight so starkly made, But time and years would overthrow?’” “We are well pleased you will stay, brother,” said Lady Margaret; “I will take my old privilege to look after my household, whom this collation has thrown into some disorder, although it is uncivil to leave you alone.” “O, I hate ceremony as I hate a stumbling horse,” replied the Major. “Besides, your person would be with me, and your mind with the cold meat and reversionary pasties.--Where is Edith?” “Gone to her room a little evil-disposed, I am informed, and laid down in her bed for a gliff,” said her grandmother; “as soon as she wakes, she shall take some drops.” “Pooh! pooh! she’s only sick of the soldiers,” answered Major Bellenden. “She’s not accustomed to see one acquaintance led out to be shot, and another marching off to actual service, with some chance of not finding his way back again. She would soon be used to it, if the civil war were to break out again.” “God forbid, brother!” said Lady Margaret. “Ay, Heaven forbid, as you say--and, in the meantime, I’ll take a hit at trick-track with Harrison.” “He has ridden out, sir,” said Gudyill, “to try if he can hear any tidings of the battle.” “D--n the battle,” said the Major; “it puts this family as much out of order as if there had never been such a thing in the country before--and yet there was such a place as Kilsythe, John.” “Ay, and as Tippermuir, your honour,” replied Gudyill, “where I was his honour my late master’s rear-rank man.” “And Alford, John,” pursued the Major, “where I commanded the horse; and Innerlochy, where I was the Great Marquis’s aid-de-camp; and Auld Earn, and Brig o’ Dee.” “And Philiphaugh, your honour,” said John. “Umph!” replied the Major; “the less, John, we say about that matter, the better.” However, being once fairly embarked on the subject of Montrose’s campaigns, the Major and John Gudyill carried on the war so stoutly, as for a considerable time to keep at bay the formidable enemy called Time, with whom retired veterans, during the quiet close of a bustling life, usually wage an unceasing hostility.