"What mean you, gentlemen?" said Macdonald, angrily; "do you take us for fools? I believe we have seen the enemy often enough to know them." "Halt, Macdonald; you take our jests far too seriously," said Stuart. "If you saw the French, where are they now?" "In front!" was the tart reply. "They have been so, down in Gascony, for this month past." "By all eternity! ’tis something new for me to have assertions doubted thus," replied Macdonald, considerably ruffled, yet loath to have high words with his old friend; and adding, "I will make no further explanations," he turned and left them, following Armstrong, who was reconnoitring intently through a telescope. While Stuart’s cheek grew red with anger at the contemptuous manner in which Macdonald took leave of him, his sleeve was plucked by old Dugald Cameron. "Dinna speak to him juist the noo," whispered that aged retainer solemnly; "his birse is up, and it is an ill thing to warsle wi’ a Macdonald at sic a time. Dinna gloom wi’ het faces at ane anither, for I tell you one will no behauld the ither lang, sae turn not the back o’ your hand upon him; he may be mixed wi’ the mools ere the hills grow dark wi’ the gloaming, or redden again in the morning sun." "What do you mean, Dugald?" asked Stuart, surprised at the Highlander’s manner. "Sir, I am farer seen than maist folk, and so was my faither before me. Baith loud and lang did you and Macdonald laugh ower your wine in the cornel’s tent last nicht, and every laugh o the puir lad gaed to my heart. I kent by its hollow ringing he was _fey_." "Fey?" replied the other, respect for Dugald’s white haffets, alone restraining a violent inclination to laugh; "fey, Dugald? How?" "Loud laughter, I mean laughter such as his, aye portends sudden death. Ony cailloch that ever wore a mutch, or ony giglet o’ a lassie that ever wore a snood, will tell ye the same thing, sir. Sae dinna girn at or be thrawn gebbit wi’ young Inchkenneth, for he’ll no be lang amang us. Mony heads will there be on the heather ere the sun gaes doon." Dugald moved off, leaving Stuart considerably surprised at his superstition. At that moment Alister rushed towards them, with his bonnet in his hand. "Look ye now, gentlemen," he exclaimed, tossing his long feathers in the direction of the winding way which led to France, "what call you these?" Even while he spoke a dense column of French infantry appeared in the defile between the mountains, and a cloud of others, battalion after battalion, with their tri-colours fluttering in the breeze, advanced in succession, until thirteen thousand bayonets were gleaming in the light of the noonday sun. It was the whole of General Drouet’s division.