"This is all my tale, monsieur, in elucidation of the singular scene you saw acted here this evening. I trust I have not wearied you in this sketch of my life: although a humble one, it has been full of sorrows. I never thought again to have recalled them so fully to my mind; but the unexpected appearance of their author under my roof, has rolled back the tide of years to the hour in which we first met,—I knew the fine and noble features of his race the moment he laid aside his helmet. But I will not detain you longer from rest, monsieur. Take another cup of this simple wine, and permit me to bid you, as we say here in Spain, _Buenos noches_,—Good night." *CHAPTER XIII.* *AN ARREST.* "Guerre et pitié ne s’accordent pas ensemble." _French Military Proverb._ The next morning by day-break Ronald and his prisoner quitted Villa Macia. The young Scot was disgusted with the levity and carelessness with which, at their departure, De Mesmai treated the tears and sorrow of his daughter, and the pious admonitions of the reverend _cura_. "Body o’ the Pope!" said he, as they cantered under the shade of the cork trees which lined the road, "what a rare blockhead has become monsieur my old gardener, now curate of Villa Macia. How D’Erlon and his aiguletted staff would laugh, if they knew I had become quite a family man! I am always apprehensive that some of my wild pranks will come unluckily to light, as this affair of poor Justine Rosat’s has done; but I am too old a soldier to be put to the blush. Blush! I have no blood to spare,—the bleeding of twenty years’ campaigning has cured me of that. How the poor girl wept! What the deuce! surely she did not expect me to take her with me? Captain Maurice de Mesmai, of Monsieur le Compte d’Erlon’s staff, with a family! _Corboeuf!_ the idea is most excellent! ’Tis well Victor d’Estouville and our first major, Louis Chateaufleur, know nothing of this; otherwise they would quiz me out of the service. However, I commend my daughter to the long visaged and noble cavalier Don—Don,—what the devil is his name?—Gonzago de Conquesta; and vow, if he makes not a good husband, affectionate father, and displays not all the good qualities you will find graven on every great man’s tomb-stone, I will crop his ears,—I will, by the name of the bomb! Ho, ho! now when I remember it, what a long roll-call Monsieur le Curé made of my early scrapes, last night. I listened to him through a chink in the partition. _Tête-dieu!_ how impertinent the old dog was. I own to you I was on the point of cutting short his exceedingly rude harangue a dozen times." De Mesmai kept talking thus for an hour at a time, without heeding the interruptions of Ronald, who did not hesitate to acquaint him freely with the opinion he entertained of his feelings and sentiments, at which the other only laughed in his usual loud and boisterous manner.