'My poor darling! To remember me, to be constant to me in memory, while another's wife.' 'I cannot realise that even now, still less what my life will be in the future, with you not in it.' A long, clinging kiss and he was gone, while Eveline sank down on the stone seat within the belvidere in a state of semi-consciousness, in which she was discovered by Sir Paget. CHAPTER XVII. THE ROUTE. Few scenes are more stirring than the departure of a regiment for the seat of war, in Scotland, perhaps, more than anywhere else, when it is the departure of a national regiment endeared to the people by historical and warlike associations, combined with those of clanship and kindred. The last toast at the mess, ere it was broken up, was '_Tir nam Bean, nan Glean, s nan Gaisgaich_;' and now, till more peaceful times, its magnificent and trophied mess-plate was stored away, among it that gigantic silver tripod, with its fluted bowl, weighing eighteen hundred ounces, bearing, with other mottoes, these:--_Na Tir chaisin Buardh son Eiphart_ 21 _Mar,_ 1801' and--'_O'Chummin Gaidhculach d' on Freicudan Dhu, na_ 42 _Regiment_.' About seven in the morning the pipers of the Black Watch blew the gathering, waking the echoes of that grand old fortress, which is the focus of so much Scottish history, and from the gates of which by sword or spear the tide of war was so often rolled back in the stormy days of old; and now the sound of the pipes found a deeper echo in the hearts of the thousands who were mustering in the streets below to bid the regiment farewell, and wish it God-speed in the land it was going to. The August morning was a lovely one, and the shadows formed by the golden sunshine lay purple and deep in the glens of the Pentlands, and in the valleys and hollows spanned by the bridges of the city and overlooked by the towering edifices of its terraced streets, amid which rose every spire and pinnacle tipped with ruddy splendour. The woods and gardens were still in all their summer beauty and greenery, and the corn-fields in the distance were ripe with golden grain over all the sun-lighted landscape. Ere that corn was all gathered, many of those who came gaily forth, mustering to the sound of the pipes, were to find their graves in the sand of the Egyptian desert, where the Black Watch had gathered so many laurels in the wars of other years. All the city was astir as it had never been since the King's Own left the same fortress for the shores of the Crimea, and the hum of the gathering thousands filled the clear air of the dewy morning.