"Ah, indeed! a devilish fine fellow he was; but perhaps he is changed by matrimony, which always spoils a true soldier, and cuts up the _esprit de corps_ which we Highland troops have imbibed so strongly. I heard that he had married an English heiress, and now commands some foreign battalion in our service up the Mediterranean." "The Greek Light Infantry." "A splendid climate, their station. Little drill and duty,—wine to be had like water; and then the white-bosomed Grecian girls, with their bare ankles and black eyes! Ah! it beats Egypt, which is a very good place to live in, if one is a sheikh or pacha. And so you are really a nephew of my old crony and bottle-companion, Lodowick Lisle? I remember his first joining us at Aberdeen, when we were embodied in 1794. A handsome fellow he was! standing six feet three in his shoes; but I over-topped him by four inches." "I have often heard him mention your name—Colin Campbell, at Inchavon, with terms of singular affection and respect." "Have you, really? Honest Lodowick," replied the major, his eyes glistening. "Would that I had something in my canteen to drink his health with! Did he ever tell you of our march to Grand Cairo, when we were in Egypt with Sir Ralph?" "I do not remember." "’Twas a most harassing affair, I assure you." "Now for an Egyptian story," thought Ronald, observing the major composing his vast bulk more easily in his saddle. "It was sad work, Mr. Lisle, marching over dusty plains of burning sand; the scorching sun glaring fiercely above us in a cloudless sky, blistering and stripping the skin from our bare legs and faces; while our parched throats were dry and cracked, but not a drop of water could be found to moisten them with in the accursed desert through which we marched. Our shoes were worn out completely, and the hot rough sand burned our feet to the bone; and I assure you we were in a most miserable state when we halted among the mosques and spires, the gaudy kiosks and flowery gardens of Grand Cairo,—a place which at a distance appears like a city of candlesticks and inverted punch-bowls. Old Wallace, the quarter-master, (a queer old carle he was,) was sent about to provide shoes for the corps, who, by his exertions, were in a short time all supplied with elegant pairs of Turkish slippers, embroidered and laced, and turned up at the toes. Droll-looking brogues they were, certainly, for the Gordon Highlanders, in their gartered hose and filleadh-begs; yet, certes, they were better than nothing. But I was not so lucky as the rest. In all Grand Cairo there was not a pair of their canoe-looking slippers to be found which would suit me,—my foot, you see, is a size above a young lady’s. And so I might have marched the next day in my tartan hose, had not Osmin Djihoun, a shoemaker, (whose shop occupied the very site of the great temple of Serapis, which was destroyed by Theophilus the patriarch,—as you, having just come from