"Twelve has just struck on the kirk clock without," replied the soldier; "and the night is wild and eerie yet. You can hear the sough of the wind among the trees, and the roar of the Tay, too." "You are, I think, a south-country man, by your accent," said MacGregor. "Yes," replied the trooper, drily, as he was loth to become too familiar with a prisoner of a character so formidable, and, moreover, the sergeant might be awake. "Take another taste of the whisky, man: there is a drop in the quaich yet. What part of the south are you from?" The trooper drained the little wooden cup, and replied-- "I come from Moffatdale; my auld mother bydes in a bit thatched housie at Cragieburnwood. Weary fall the day I ever left it to become a soldier!" "Moffatdale," said Rob, ponderingly; "many a good drove of short-legged Argyleshires I have had driven through it to the southern markets at Carlisle and Penrith. I know well the place, the Hartfell----" "And Queensbury Hill, Loch Skene, and the Greymare's Tail, and Yarrow wi' a' its dowie dens!" added the soldier, with kindling eyes. "Once when there I fought some militiamen, and gave them good cause to remember Rob Roy; though perhaps the loons knew not my name." "When was this?" asked the soldier, earnestly. "A year or so after the Union. It was in a summer gloaming, when I was riding northward near Moffat village, I heard the cries of a woman in anguish. They came from a deep, dark hollow called the Gartpool Linn----" "Weel ken I the place," said the soldier. "A true Highlander has ever his sword at the service of a friend, or the defenceless. I rode into the dark dingle, and found some rascally militiamen, with a queen's officer, about to hang some unfortunate gipsies; but, by my faith! I gave them their kail through the reek. I threw one half of them into the water, drove off the rest, and passed two feet of my claymore through the body of the officer, who must have been a tough fellow, for he seemed never a bit the worse when I saw him last at the field of Sheriffmuir. I cut down the poor gipsies, who hung on the lower branch of a tree, but they were dead----" "All?" "All, except one--a boy about the age of Coll--my own boy Coll, whom I may never see again; in this world, at least," added MacGregor, with a burst of emotion. The soldier, who had listened to this anecdote with deep interest, said,-- "You did more, MacGregor; you gave some money to the poor harmless lassie that lay at the foot of the tree--money to comfort her ere you went away." "Yes, perhaps I did; but how know you that?" "She was my sister, and I am the half-hanged gipsy lad whom you saved, MacGregor." "You!" exclaimed the other, with astonishment in his tone.