Little Walter carried the halberdier's can of egg-flip when he mounted guard, learned to make up bandoliers of powder, polish a corslet, to rattle dice on a drumhead, and to beat on the drum itself; to fight with rapier and dagger; to handle a case of falchions like any sword-player; and became an adept at every game of chance, from kingly chess, to homely touch-and-take. He learned to drink "Confusion to the Covenant," in potent usquebaugh without winking once, and swear a few cavalier-like oaths. Like all such pets, he was often boxed severely, and roundly cursed too, at the caprice of his numerous masters, until the poor boy would have been altogether lost, his ideas corrupted, and his manners tainted by the roughness of camp and garrison, had not his humble patron been ordered away on the Tangier expedition; and being unable to take his little protégé with him, bethought him of craving the bounty of his commander's wife, the Countess of Dunbarton, a beautiful young English woman, who was the belle of the capital and the idol of the Scottish cavaliers. Struck with the soldier's story, envying his generosity, pitying the little boy, and pleased with his candour and beauty, she immediately took him under protection, adopting him as her page; and never was there seen a handsomer youth than Walter Fenton, when his coarse attire (a cast doublet of the serjeant) was exchanged for a coat of white velvet slashed with red and laced with gold, breeches and stockings of silk, a sash, a velvet cloak, and silver-hilted poniard; and his dark-brown hair curled and perfumed by Master Peter Pouncet, the famous frizzeur in the Bow. He parted in a flood of tears from his old patron, who slipped into his pocket a purse the Countess had bestowed on himself, drew his leather glove across his eyes, and hurried away. At Lady Dunbarton's he had often seen Lilian Napier; she was then a little girl, and always accompanied her tall and stately relative in the vast old rumbling coach, with its two footmen behind and outriders in front, armed with sword and carbine; for the noble dame set forth in great state on all visits of ceremony. Lady Grizel's majestic aspect and frigid stateliness scared and awed the little footpage; but the prattle of the fair-haired Lilian soothed and charmed him, and he soon learned to love the little girl, to call her his sister, to be joyous when she came, and to be sad when she departed.