While Adelaide thus soothed her perturbed spirit, Warenne’s rose as he approached the scene of danger. His dark eye sparkled, and his noble brow expanded, when he again looked upon his old comrades, with whom he had passed triumphantly through so many fields; he turned his mind from the busy reminiscences of love, and with that power of abstraction, which practical men possess, fixed it on the probable events of the coming evening. Adelaide’s form, perhaps, sometimes met his mental eye, when it should have fallen upon the serried ranks of armed warriors; but he did not suffer even her form to occupy him to the prejudice of his duty. Its only effect was to stimulate him to a desire of fresh honours, that, whether he stood or fell, he might be deserving of her good opinion. He arrived at Charnstead about three o’clock, and found there the troop he had sent forward, and the Charnstead troop, neither of them having yet started on their route to Fisherton. An express had arrived in the morning from Major Stuart, stating that in consequence of information he had received, he should only send the Fisherton troop as far as Swalesford, a place about five miles from Fisherton, and begging Captain Paulet to join them there, in time for them to enter Fisherton in a body shortly after dusk. Warenne immediately proceeded forward with the two troops, and picked up the Fisherton troop at Swalesford; when about a mile from the town, he galloped forward by himself, in order to communicate with Stuart about the disposition of the troops. He found that officer, and Mr. Seaforth, occupying his old quarters at the inn. “I thought,” said his friend Stuart, holding out his hand, “that yours would be the first soldier’s face we should see to-night.” “And you would rather have seen any other,” answered Warenne laughing. “A senior officer is a sad bore on occasions like this. But what shall we have to do?”