"Supper first, Winny, egad! I don't like surprises; we had enough of them in Holland, and they were not at all to our taste. Eh, Jack Andrews--do you remember our night march for Valenciennes?" he asked, turning to his old valet, who grinned an assent as he deposited a pair of silver-mounted holster pistols in a mahogany case. To Rohallion this veteran, Jack Andrews, was all that Corporal Trim was to Uncle Toby (both of whom, according to Sterne, had served in the 25th Foot, then known as Leven's Regiment), a servant, and at times friend and companion, and perpetual resort or reference on military matters. Long and hard service together, community of sentiment on most matters, combined the sympathy of camaraderie with the steady faith of a Scottish servitor of the old school in Andrews, who was a sour-featured, thin, and erect old fellow, in a powdered wig (though, by the Act of 1795, hair powder cost a guinea per head), with a pigtail, and the family livery, grey faced with scarlet; and somehow on old Jack it always looked like a uniform. Attended by this valet, both well mounted, and having holster pistols at their saddles, he had ridden from Ayr, through Maybole, and was now ready for supper, braced by the keen December blast, and feeling happy and jovial to find himself once more at home from London, which, so far as travelling and the ideas of the time are concerned, was then nearly as distant from the Scottish capital as Moscow is to-day; and a perfect picture they formed, that gentle, high-bred, and loving old couple in powdered hair, seated at supper, with their antique equipage, conversing in the plain old Scottish accent, which was still used, with a Doric word here and there, by the Scottish aristocracy. "Andrews and I would have been here an hour earlier," said his lordship, slicing down a daintily-roasted capon, "but the old piper of Maybole, in the burgh livery, would play before us all the way through the town and two miles beyond it, according to use and wont--a glass of wine, Andrews--but Pate is growing old, Winny, now; he fairly broke down in playing 'Lord Lennox March,' so I think we must add something to his piper's-croft and cow's-mailing. They scarcely keep the poor fellow, when meal, malt, and everything are at such prices. I had, moreover, to inspect the Maybole volunteers. I say, Andrews, did you see how they shouldered arms?" "Ay, my lord; knocking all their fore-and-aft cocked hats off, as they canted their firelocks from right to left," replied the valet, with a grim smile. "Then we had to see an effigy of Tom Paine burned in front of the Tolbooth, with a copy of the 'Rights of Man,' while we drank Confusion to the French, the Friends of the People, the National Convention, and Charles Fox. So you see, Winny, my time was fully occupied."