Once at least in life, every man's fortune will be at the flood, and if he misses the tide his bark is stranded on the shore for ever. But thee, poor lad! how shall I get thee food?--we are all as poor as kirk rats here. There are not less than two hundred officers of Dundee's army, and other loyal gentlemen of the Life Guards and Scottish Brigade, subsisting here on the small bounty of our gracious king, (whom Heaven in its mercy bless!) until some turn of fortune again draws forth their swords. We have each but fourpence a day, and are in great misery from lack of the most common necessaries of life. Yet we never forget that we are Scottish gentlemen, and daily attend the king's levée, with as gallant an air as if we trod the long gallery of Holyrood in our feathers and lace as of old. His grace of Gordon, my Lords of Maitland, Dunbarton, Abercorn, and others dine daily at a poor Restaurateur's, on plain stew and cabbage broth, while I have to content myself with bread and onions, and a keen appetite for sauce; while it affords me no consolation to reflect that my old ancestral tower of Finland--the gift of the Black Douglas to his favourite son--and all the fertile lands that spread around it, are now possessed by some vile, canting, crop-ear. The Earl of Dunbarton----" "Whilom our gallant colonel--how I long for an interview!" "He is gone to Versailles to visit le Mareschal Noailles, anent the unfortunate gentlemen who are starving here around us. He will be back tomorrow. Oh, Walter, when I see how might can triumph over right, and wickedness over more than Spartan virtue, I am almost tempted to believe there is no governing power in this wretched world; that all is the effect of chance or fate." "Chance and fate are the reverse of each other, and this sentiment agrees not with your previous idea of 'the tide in the affairs of men.'" "Tush! I am in a dozen minds in an hour. Let us leave these topics to such men as Mr. Ichabod Bummel. You remember that apostle of the covenant? ha, ha! A word in your ear. You saw our fair ones ere you left Scotland, I doubt not?" "Alas, no." "The deuce! how came that to pass? But you must dine, and where? for I have not a brass bodle, as we say at home in poor old Scotland, (God bless her, with all her errors!) I have it! the officer of the guard will lend me--or give--'tis all one; they are fine fellows, these French, and share their poor pay with us, in a spirit of charity that the apostles could not have surpassed. The gentleman and the soldier seldom seek a boon from each other in vain." Finland calculated rightly; the French chevalier commanding the guard, on learning the cause of his present necessity, at once divided the contents of his purse, and enabled the happy borrower to lead his wearied friend to a tavern, where dinner was ordered and discussed with wonderful celerity.