"Here's to ye, my bonny lady, and to you Cummer Elsie, and never may ye be tarbarrelled for a' you're sae runkled and auld; hech, how!" and, drinking the ale to the last drop, this rough and uncourteous old fellow tossed the bicker to Elsie and limped away with great agility. "Ha, ha!" he laughed, when the barbican gate was angrily banged behind him; "how the gay goshawk pounced at the lure; wha would hae thought I would ever hae hobbit and nobbit wi' Lucky Elshender after puir Meg's mischanter among her kale? This carolus comes in gude time, for my pouch is gey empty now. Deil tak' the patches and scratches, the rags and bags," he continued tearing off his disguise; "again I am Juden Stenton, "And wha daur meddle wi' me? Wha daur meddle wi' me? My name it's Juden Stenton, And wha daur meddle wi' me?" And, light hearted by the success of his Lord's scheme, he sang and laughed as he trudged back to the city. On rejoining Lilian, Annie was in a flutter of extreme agitation; and, after great reluctance, in which shame and curiosity struggled with some remnant of her former love, and after bursting into tears and then laughing hysterically, she broke the seal and read in a quavering voice as follows:-- "Trenches before Mons, penult June, 1692. "Mine own sweet Annie, "God knoweth whether the words I am now inditing will ever be seen by your own dear blue eyes. Nevertheless I write (on a drumhead for a desk), and in great haste, for the bearer of this starts for Versailles in an hour. A trench where the dead and dying lie among the blood-stained earth, piled, yea, chin-deep, and where the cannon-balls are rebounding every instant from the ramparts of Mons, is a very unpleasant place to compose love-speeches; but, believe me, that the heart of poor Dick Douglas in suffering and danger, poverty and exile, is still unchanged, my beloved Annie, and as much thine as ever. Here are we, a company of gallant Scottish gentlemen, in such a plight as you never could conceive; and the very appearance of our ragged attire, our emaciated forms and our exceeding misery, would melt your gentle heart with the softest compassion. My ancient signet ring, the last relic of the house of Finland, I bartered yesterday for a loaf of bread, and now I have nothing left save the lock of thy hair, which shall go with me to the grave. But more glorious by far are our Jacobite rags than the gay bravery we might have worn under that accursed usurper against whom we have sworn to fight to the last gasp.