"I scarcely ken, dominie; by the death of Ranulph Crawford in a foreign land, it would probably fall to some far-awa cousin, after the lands had been frittered among disputants in the Court of Session, and the auld patent that King James signed on a kettle-drum head, had been hacked to rags by a Committee of Privileges. Confound the law, say I, wi' a' my heart! However, the old Lord, Heaven bless him! is a hale man and strong yet, so let us not anticipate evils, which are sufficient for their own day." "Four weeks--a whole month to-night, John, since we last saw Quentin," said the dominie, to change the subject. "Poor Quentin!" "As a bairn how bonnie he was--yea, beautiful as Absalom!" The quartermaster sighed with impatience, it might be with a little air of disappointment, as he pushed his toddy-jug aside, and proceeded energetically to refill the bowl of his pipe. Why, thought he, has Quentin never written to me, according to his promise? It was September now. The bearded grain that had been yellowing on the long corn-rigs of Rohallion was already gathered in; the harvest-kirn or home had been held in the great barn of the Home Farm, and the tawny stubbles gave the bared land a sterile aspect, till they disappeared as the plough turned up the shining furrows, where the black ravens flapped their wings, and the hoodie-crows sought for worms. The leaves were becoming brown and yellow as sienna tints spread over the copsewood, and the sound of the axe was heard at times, for now the husbandman looked forward to the closing year, and remembered the rhyming injunction:-- "Ere winter preventeth, while weather is good, For galling of pasture get home with thy wood; And carry out gravel to fill up a hole, Both timber and furzen, the turf and the coal." "Four weeks--ay, it is September now," said the quartermaster. "And I fear me the lad will return no more." "Say not so, dominie; he may come upon us when we least expect him." "It may be, for, of a verity, life is full of strange coincidences." "Strange, indeed! I have told you many a soldier's yarn, dominie; but did you ever hear of the strange meeting I had with an old man of the clan Donald?" "Where--in the Highlands?" "No, in America." The dominie shook his head as a negative. "Then fill your pipe, brew your toddy, draw your chair nearer the fire, and I'll tell you about it. "Ye see, dominie, it was in the winter of '75, when Rohallion was lieutenant in the Light Company, and I but a corporal, that, with a detachment of ours, we joined Major Preston and Captain--afterwards the unfortunate Major--André in the stockaded fort of St. John, on the Richelieu River, in Lower Canada. In the fort were seven hundred rank and file, chiefly of the Cameronians and the 7th or Royal Fusiliers, and our orders were to defend the place to the last!