"My poor lad,"' said the former, laying a hand kindly on his shoulder, "all this that you have related was a sad trial for you--a great test of courage and discretion for one so young to be subjected to, especially in a foreign country, and among a people so fierce and lawless." "Your pistols were always my friends," said Quentin, laughing; "I thought of them in every extremity, Captain Askerne; but fortunately never had to use them." "Then keep them, Quentin, my boy, as a little present from me," said the grenadier. "But to deprive you----" "Matters nothing--I took a handsome pair of silver-mounted pops from the holsters of a French officer the other day." "Askerne has but anticipated me," said Warriston; "I had resolved to give you mine, though they were a gift to me from my father's old friend the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere, when the Scots Brigade came home and turned their backs upon honest old Holland for ever." "Well, Kennedy," said Monkton, with a droll twinkle in his eye, "we've heard all your adventures, at least _so much_ as you wisely, prudently, and discreetly choose to tell us; but I cannot help thinking that we could make a few interesting notes on the time spent in that ruined Château en Espagne. Was the donna young, black-eyed, beautiful, and all that sort of thing, eh?" "By Jove," added Colville, in the same tone, "you are a regular St. Francis, or St. Anthony! But unlike you, if the donnas on the other side of the frontier think me worth their while, I am ready to be subjected to any amount of seduction the dear creatures may choose to put in practice." Affecting neither to hear Monkton's banter nor Colville's addition, Quentin turned to Askerne, admiring the order that glittered on his left breast. "This is Portuguese?" said he. "Yes, Quentin--the Tower and Sword--given to me by the Junta of Oporto for capturing an exploring party, consisting of an officer and ten French dragoons of Ribeaupierre's regiment, whom I cut off in a narrow valley near Portalegre (on the very day after you left us), where I had been sent with twenty of ours to bring in forage." "Askerne, I do envy you this decoration!" said Quentin, whose eyes sparkled with genuine pleasure and admiration, for medals were almost unknown in the British army then, and the Bath, as now, was only given to field officers; "and they were, you say, dragoons of Ribeaupierre?" "The same corps with some of whom you fell in among the Spanish mountains. They are quartered in Valencia de Alcantara." "Ribeaupierre!" said the bantering Monkton; "there is a name for an intelligent young man to go to bed with! It smacks of Anne Radcliffe's mysterious romances of 'Sicily' and 'The Forest.'" "Yet it is the name of an officer as brave as any in France," said Quentin; "the general who bears it was a subaltern with Napoleon in the Regiment of La Fere, a town on an island of the Oise, where it was originally raised."