The donning of a scarlet tunic instead of a round jacket, and the substitution of a helmet for a pot-hat, made very little difference in Ronald. Several of his brother officers had known him personally at Eton, so that the character he had obtained there preceded him, inspiring a wholesome awe of him before he appeared on the scene; and he had not been two days in barracks before he was voted a prig and a bore. There was no sympathy between the dry, pedantic, rough young Scotsman and those jolly genial youths. His hard, dry, handsome clean-cut face, with its cold gray eyes, thin aquiline nose, and tight lips, cast a gloom over the cheery mess-table around which they sat; their jovial beaming smiles, and curling moustaches, and glittering shirt-studs reflected in the silver _épergne_, with its outposts of mounted sentries and its pleasant mingling of feasting and frays at the Temple of Mars and the London Tavern. His grim presence robbed many a pleasant story of its point, which indeed, in deference to him, had to be softened down or given with bated breath. The young fellows--no younger than him in years, but with, O, such an enormous gulf between them as regards the real elasticity and charm of youth--were afraid of him, and from fear sprung dislike. They had not much fear of their elders, these youths of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous modesty. They had a wholesome awe, tempering their hearty love, of Colonel Jefferson; but less on account of the strictness of his discipline and of a certain _noli-me-tangere_ expression towards those whom he did not specially favour, than on account of his age; and as for the jolly old Major, who had been in the regiment for ever so many years,--for him they had neither fear nor respect; and when he was in command--which befell him during the cheerful interval between July and December--the lads did as they liked.