The paragraph of the morning had called up a multitude of sad thoughts that had long been buried, and she felt melancholy, almost miserable, and opening her escritoire, she looked long and earnestly on the relics of Quentin's father--his commission in the French service, the letter in the poor man's pocket-book, and the ring that was taken from his finger, bearing the name of Josephine--the boy's mother, doubtless. The dominie, to whom the quartermaster lost no time in hastening with the intelligence, like the old Lord, was stout in his belief that Quentin would, as he phrased it, "cast up again." "Disappeared," he repeated two or three times; "the bairn no since heard o'; the thing's no possible! He will, he shall return again, be assured, to receive his reward, for he is worthy of a crown of gold--worthy of it, yea, as ever were Manlius Torquatus or Valerius Corvus, ilk ane o' wham, as we are told in Livy, slew a Gaul in single combat." This classic reward did not seem very probable, when a few weeks after, a long official letter was brought to Rohallion, and added greatly to the anxiety and perplexity of the inmates thereof. In this missive the military secretary, by direction of H.R.H. the Duke of York, "presented his compliments to Major-General Lord Rohallion, K.C.B., and regretted to acquaint him that it was impossible to entertain his request with regard to Mr. Quentin Kennedy, a volunteer with the 25th Foot, as matters had transpired which might render his clearance before a general court-martial necessary." CHAPTER XIV. THE WAYSIDE CROSS AND WELL. "If in this exile dark and drear, To which my fate has doomed me now, I should unnoticed die--what tear, What tear of sympathy will flow? For I have sought an exile's woe, And fashioned my own misery; Who then will pity me?" _Cancionero de Amberes_, 1557. As Quentin walked on in solitude after Rowland Askerne left him, he could not help musing, as he frequently did, on the changes a short time had wrought in him and in his ideas. It would seem that from a mere day-dreaming schoolboy, whose most onerous purposes were to fill his basket with trout from the Girvan, the Doon, or the Lollards' Linn; to supply the cook with an occasional brace of ptarmigan from the oakwood shaw, or of blackcock from the Mains of Kilhenzie; from trying a pad for Flora, or culling the flowers which he knew she loved most, he had risen to be a man and a soldier, valued by his comrades, all officers of bravery and position, trusted by his superiors, and charged with a great and confidential duty--a portion of the vast game of war and politics now played by Britain for the deliverance of Spain; and yet, withal, he longed for a companion, and to hear the voice of a friend, for a sense of intense loneliness gradually stole over him as the twilight deepened, and the purple shadows grew more sombre on the hills of Portuguese Estremadura.