“Neither prince nor king of mine, Miss Walkinshaw,” I cried, and turned to go. “No, if a hundred thousand swords were at his back. I had once a notion of a prince that rode along the Gallowgate, but I was then a boy, and now I am a man--which you yourself have made me.” With that I bowed low and left them. They neither of them said a word. It was the last I was to see of Clementina Walkinshaw and the last of Charles Edward. CHAPTER XXXIV OF MY WINTER CAMPAIGN IN PRUSSIA, AND ANOTHER MEETING WITH MACKELLAR OF KILBRIDE I have no intention here of narrating at large what happened in my short career as a soldier of the French Army, curious though some of the things that befell me chanced to be. They may stand for another occasion, while I hurriedly and briefly chronicle what led to my second meeting with MacKellar of Kilbride, and through that same to the restoration of the company of Father Hamilton, the sometime priest of Dixmunde. The Regiment d'Auvergne was far from its native hills when first I joined it, being indeed on the frontier of Austria. 'Twas a corps not long embodied, composed of a preposterous number of mere lads as soft as kail, yet driven to miracles of exertion by drafted veteran officers of other regiments who stiffened their command with the flat of the sword. As for my lieutenancy it was nothing to be proud of in such a battalion, for I herded in a mess of foul-mouthed scoundrels and learned little of the trade of soldiering that I was supposed to be taught in the interval between our departure from the frontier and our engagement on the field as allies with the Austrians. Of the Scots that had been in the regiment at one time there was only one left--a major named MacKay, that came somewhere out of the Reay country in the shire of Sutherland, and was reputed the drunkenest officer among the allies, yet comported himself, on the strength of his Hielan' extraction, towards myself, his Lowland countryman, with such a ludicrous haughtiness I could not bear the man--no, not from the first moment I set eyes on him! He was a pompous little person with legs bowed through years of riding horse, and naturally he was the first of my new comrades I introduced myself to when I joined the colours. I mind he sat upon a keg of bullets, looking like a vision of Bacchus, somewhat soiled and pimply, when I entered to him and addressed him, with a certain gladness, in our tongue. “Humph!” was what he said. “Another of his Royal Highness's Sassenach friends! Here's a wheen of the lousiest French privates ever shook in their breeks in front of a cannon, wanting smeddum and courage drummed into them with a scabbard, and they send me Sassenachs to do the business with when the whole hearty North of Scotland is crawling with the stuff I want particularly.” “Anyway, here I am, major,” said I, slightly taken aback at this, “and you'll have to make the best of me.”