Whether Gretchen Viborg was married to the next tallest grenadier, or to the miller on the Spree, I know not, for that very day my father doffed the uniform of which he was so proud--the trappings of the 1st Guards--the same uniform in which Frederick was buried six years after at Potsdam, and resigned his commission, in which he was succeeded by Peter Schreutzer, the king's new favourite. Entering the service of the States General, he was made Colonel-in-Chief of their Scots Brigade, then consisting of six battalions, in one of which I obtained a cadetship; so you may perceive the strange chain of events by which--because Gretchen Viborg had to meet her miller, and her note found another bearer--I ultimately find myself a captain in His Britannic Majesty's 94th Foot, and in the service of my native country." We shall have other marches of more importance to detail than the first essay of our young volunteer, who, though cheered from time to time by the merry music of the drums and fifes (which, in fact, are more inspiring and martial than any brass band can ever be), found the route weary enough by the pre-macadamite roads of those days, which were somewhat like the dry beds of mountain burns. So marching was rough and weary work, yet Quentin never flinched, as they proceeded by the dark, heathy, and solitary hills of the Muirkirk-of-Kyle, by Carnwath, where a party of the Gordon Highlanders, under Logan of that ilk, joined them, and by Kirknewton, where, from an eminence over which the roadway wound, he saw, for the first time, the wooded expanse of the beautiful Lothians, with the swelling outline of Arthur's Seat, the blue Firth, widening to a sea, the fertile hills of Fife, the lordly Ochil mountains, and those of thirteen counties, stretching far away even to the distant Lammermuirs, and in the middle distance, grey, dim, and smoky, the "Queen of the North, upon her hilly throne." Then the soldiers hailed her with a cheer and a roll on the drums, announcing that there ended their last day's march. CHAPTER XXVI. COLCHESTER BARRACKS. "Hail, sweet recruiting service, pleasing toil, Ball-room campaigns, tea-parties, dice and Hoyle! Ye days when dangling was my only duty, Envied by cits, caressed by every beauty; Envied by cits, so scared by every glance, Shot at their daughters, going down the dance." _Military Magazine_, 1812.