"Jest not--jest not," said the dominie, with, we are sorry to say, half-tipsy solemnity, as he drained his _deoch_ to the last drop, tied a large yellow bandanna over his three-cornered hat and under his chin, assumed his walking-staff, and prepared to depart. "I hope the servant-lass will air the night-cap that she puts wi' the Bible at my bedside every night." The quartermaster laughed slily, as he knew that the cap referred to was a stoup of strong ale, which, in the old Scottish fashion, the dominie's servant always placed with the Bible on a stool near his bed. The poor dominie's potations mounted to his head as he began to move, and, striking his cane emphatically as he stepped away, he sung, in somewhat uncertain tones:-- "My kimmer and I lay down to sleep, Wi' twa pint stoups at our bed's feet: And aye when we wakened we drank them dry, Sae what think ye o' my kimmer and I? Toddling butt and toddling ben, When round as a neep ye come toddling hame!" And so he departed in the dark, in a mood that neither brownie nor bogle could scare. CHAPTER X. FLORA WARRENDER. "Lovely floweret, lovely floweret, Oh! what thoughts your beauties move-- When I pressed thee to my bosom, Little did I know of love. In Castile I never entered-- From Leon too, I withdrew, Where I was in early boyhood, And of love I nothing knew." _Poetry of Spain_. So without change, the joyous and dreamy period of Quentin's boyhood glided rapidly away, in studies, amusements, and occasionally mischief, such as throwing kail-castocks down the dominie's _lum_, and blowing tam-o'-reekies* through his keyhole, until about his seventeenth year, when the Castle of Rohallion became the home of another inmate. * Lighted tow blown through a cabbage-stock. Mrs. Warrender of Ardgour, widow of Lord Rohallion's old friend and companion-in-arms, Colonel John Warrender, who, as we have related, fell at the head of the Corsican Rangers in the Egyptian expedition, died in London, bequeathing to the care, tuition, and trust of Lady Winifred her only daughter, in charge of whom Lady Eglinton arrived from England in the summer of 1806, accompanied by her two unmarried daughters, Lilias and Mary, now growing up into tall and handsome young women, with whom Quentin could scarcely venture to romp and race as in former days. It was evening when an outrider, as a sort of avant-courier, arrived from Maybole to announce that the Countess was coming with her charge; so Lady Rohallion assumed her black silk capuchin, her husband his cane and jaunty old-fashioned triangular Nivernois (to which he rigidly adhered, despite the almost general adoption of the present form of round hat), and summoning Quentin, who was busy among the firearms in the gun-room, they set forth for a stroll along the avenue to meet their friends. "Poor Jack Warrender!" said Lord Rohallion, musingly; "I wonder whether his girl resembles him?"