"The first skirmish, perhaps, and the first general action certainly, will see you an officer; you shall be one yet, my boy, and a gallant one, I hope," said Warriston, shaking Quentin's hand. The weird sisters' prophecy was not more grateful to the ears of the Scottish usurper than these words were to Quentin Kennedy; but he asked,-- "If I should be disabled before appointment?" "Ah, the devil! don't think of that; you would get only a private soldier's pension." "That is not very encouraging." "'Tis better for the volunteer to be shot outright than merely mutilated. But remember, that many of our best officers have joined the army as simple volunteers. There was Lord Heathfield, the gallant defender of Gibraltar, began life as a volunteer with the 23rd at Edinburgh; and one of our Highland regiments, the 71st, I think, had as many as fifteen such cadets serving in its ranks during the American war, and splendid officers they have all become. I did not serve in America, for our corps was then in the Dutch service. The Prussian army under old Frederick was the Paradise of such volunteers, and I know one instance in which a soldier of my father's regiment was made a general in one year, by Frederick's mere caprice." "A general!" exclaimed Monkton, who was somewhat soured by the slowness of his promotion. "It was at the battle before Prague, and while my father, John Warriston of that ilk, then a very young man, commanded the senior battalion of the Prussian Foot Guards, that Marshal Daun forced Frederick to raise the siege and retire. As the Prussians fell back, their left wing became confused by the fury of the Austrian advance. Frederick's aides-de-camp were all killed, and he was compelled to gallop about, giving his own orders, accompanied by a single orderly, Strutzki, the old Putkammer Hussar, in whose arms he died thirty years after. The ground was rough and his horse was weary, so it stumbled suddenly and threw him at a place where the field was covered by the killed and wounded of my father's battalion, which was then retreating, but in good order. As Frederick gathered himself up, a soldier who lay near him wounded, exclaimed,-- "'Sire, sire, get a brigade of guns into position on yonder eminence, or it is all up with your left wing!' "'How so, fellow?' asked the king, whose temper was no way improved by his tumble. "'Because there is an ambuscade in the valley beyond it.' "'I have twice tried to make a stand, comrade.' "'Try a third time, Father Frederick.' "'Why?' "'A third chance is ever the lucky one.' "'Good; I'll throw forward the Putkammer Hussars, and let the brigade of Seydlitz support them.'