"I ought at least to thank you, sir, for the offer of your advice," he said hurriedly; then came to a pause; and then, as if vainly seeking for some explanation of the reason why he rejected it; "I am, however, only a recruit for the sergeant, not for the Colonel," he added, with sudden confusion. "It is because of this that I appear churlish and ungrateful in declining your offer. My dress is a deception. I have no right to be treated as a gentleman." "These are strong words," said the Colonel. "I presume, then, that you have done something by which you forfeit your natural rank?" A violent colour rushed to the young man's face--"No!--No!--twenty times No!"--he cried, with a sudden effusion of feeling, half made up of anger, and half of the grief which lay in wait for him to catch him unawares; "and will not, if I should starve or die!" "It seems to me," said Colonel Sutherland, looking round in vain for Kennedy, who had taken the favourable moment to escape, "that you are in a very excited condition of mind; if you will take my advice, you will not do anything in your present state of feeling, and, above all, don't enlist. Kennedy's story is the common recruiting fable, dressed up to suit your particular palate. The old fellow cannot forget his old successes in that way, I suppose. It is as foolish to 'list in haste as to marry in haste, my young friend. It is a thing much easier to do than to undo. Keep yourself out of temptation, and consult your friends." Having said so much, the Colonel gave a slight kindly bow to his companion, and was about to pass on, but, looking at him again, waited to see if he had anything to say. "Is it better to take the plough-stilts than the shilling?" exclaimed the young man; "you know nothing about me--but you look at my distress with a kind face. You know the world and life as they really are, and not as they appear to us here, becalmed on the shores of the sea. I have no friends to consult, no one to be grieved for me whatever I do. I have not much wit, and less education; I have only what the brutes have--strength. What shall I do with it. Is it best to be a ploughman or a soldier?--I will abide by your decision--which shall it be?" "Walk down with me to my inn," said Colonel Sutherland, "and tell me who you are, and how this has happened to you." The young man turned with an implicit, instantaneous obedience. He made no preface, no explanation. He had reached to that extreme agitation of mind in which a listener, interested and friendly, is salvation to the self-consuming spirit, when that spirit is of the kind which can disclose itself; as in this case it happened to be.