"Is living still, Master Roland; but that is all, I fear," replied the old man, with a sigh. "Come on then, Buckle, old fellow; I think the grey nag knows my voice, though I have not been on his back for four years." And spurring his horse, "Master Roland," as the grey-haired groom still called him, though he was nearer thirty than twenty years of age, and had held Her Majesty's commission for ten of them, departed at a rasping pace that soon left the stately streets, the spires and shipping of Aberdeen far behind them. The royal residence at Balmoral had barely as yet been thought of, and railways had not then penetrated into the valley of the Dee; thus, all anxious as Roland Ruthven was to learn details of the perilous illness of the fine old soldier his father--the only kinsman he had in the world--at whose summons he had crossed two thousand miles and more of sea, he could only trust now to the speed of his horse, and without further questioning old Bob Buckle the groom, rode at a hard and furious gallop along the old familiar ways that led towards his home among the mountains, behind which the bright sun of a glorious evening--one of the last in June--was sinking. Closely rode the old groom behind him, marvelling to find that the little golden-haired boy, whom he had first trained to ride a shaggy Shetlander, had now become a dark-whiskered, tall, and handsome man, well set up by infantry drill, and with all that air and bearing which our officers, beyond those of all other European armies, alone acquire, developed in chest and muscle by every manly sport; and he could recall, but with a sigh, how like "Master Roland" was now, to what the old dying Laird his father had been at the same age, when his regiment, the Royal Scots, was adding to its honours in the Peninsula--more years ago than he cared to reckon now. And vividly in fancy too, did Roland Ruthven see before him the figure and face of that handsome old man, ere the latter became lined with care and thoughts and even his voice seemed to come distinctly to his ear, as the familiar objects of the well-remembered scenery came to view in quick succession, and at last Ardgowrie, the home of his family, rose before him in the distance, its strong walls shining redly in the setting sun. Situated among luxuriant woods, in all their summer greenery, Ardgowrie presents the elements common to most of the northern mansions of the same age and kind--a multitude of crow-stepped gables encrusted with coats of arms, conical turrets, and angular dormer windows, giving a general effect extremely rich and picturesque, as their outlines cut the deep blue of the sky.