"Woe is me, Rohallion! and you are again going to follow the drum!" he replied, shaking his queue and queer old wig: "it was invented by Bacchus, who, as Polysenus declares, used it first in the Indian war, but from the sorrow created by its sound, I verily believe its inventor to be the devil--the great author of the bagpipe." "Hush, dominie," said his lordship, laughing, "for here comes Pate of Maybole." This was the piper of the barony town, in the burgh livery, who now appeared; and as the coachman whipped up his horses, the sobs of the servants were drowned in the skirl with which Pate blew out his bag to the air of the good Lord Moira's Farewell to Scotland: "London's bonnie woods and braes, I maun leave them a', lassie, For who can thole when Britain's faes, Wad gie Britons law, lassie?" And striding as only a Scottish piper strides and swaggers, he played before the carriage down the avenue and out upon the high road; while there was not an eye unmoistened at that time-worn castle gate, as its old lord and his lady went forth upon their way "to the wars in the far-awa land." It was a silent house that night in Rohallion. CHAPTER XIII. THE RETREAT. "Lords and dukes and noble princes, On thy fatal banks were slain; Fatal banks that gave to slaughter All the pride and flower of Spain. Furious press the hostile squadrons-- Furious he repels their rage; Loss of blood at length enfeebles-- Who can war with thousands wage?" _Old Spanish Ballad._ On the llth of December the division of Sir John Hope quitted Alva and marched towards Tordesillas. By this time Sir John Moore had discovered that Bonaparte, abandoning his project of entering the southern provinces, was on the march to intercept his retreat towards the sea-coast and Portugal, while another column was advancing against him from the direction of Burgos. To frustrate a design that might prove so fatal to his slender army, Moore was compelled to relinquish all hope of fighting the Duke of Dalmatia; so, countermanding the order for the advance of his various divisions, he requested Romana to defend the bridge of Mansilla-de-los-Mulos, and while he fell back towards the Douro, ordered all the heavy baggage to be conveyed to Astorga. On hearing of these movements, Bonaparte exclaimed energetically to Soult, who related it to Major Charles Napier of the 43rd-- "_Moore is the only general now fit to contend with me; I shall advance against him in person._" Marching to his left, Moore crossed the Douro at Toro, to form a junction with Sir David Baird on the 21st December at Vallada. On the day before this, near the magnificent Abbey of Sahagun, nine hundred French cavalry pressing on, were met by four hundred of ours under Lord Paget, who repulsed them by one brilliant charge, sabreing thirty, and taking two hundred and sixty prisoners.