He believed it, and still he was less cheerful than I looked for. “Indeed, 'tis like enough,” he sighed. “I have put my fat on a trap for a fortnight back to catch my captors and never a rat of them will come near me, but pass with sniffing noses. And yet on my word I have little to rejoice for. My friends have changed coats with my enemies because they swear I betrayed poor Fleuriau. I'd sooner die on the rack----” “Oh, Father Hamilton!” I could not help crying, with remorse upon my countenance. He must have read the story in a single glance at me, for he stammered and took my hand. “What! there too, Scotland!” he said. “I forswear the company of innocence after this. No matter, 'tis never again old Dixmunde parish for poor Father Hamilton that loved his flock well enough and believed the best of everybody and hated the confessional because it made the world so wicked. My honey-bees will hum next summer among another's flowers, and my darling blackbirds will be all starving in this pestilent winter weather. Paul, Paul, hear an old man's wisdom--be frugal in food, and raiment, and pleasure, and let thy ambitions flutter, but never fly too high to come down at a whistle. But here am I, old Pater Dull, prating on foolish little affairs, and thou and our honest friend here new back from the sounding of the guns. Art a brave fighter, lad? I heard of thee in the grenadier company of d'Auvergne.” “We did the best part of our fighting with our shanks, as the other man said,” cried Kilbride. “But Mr. Greig came by a clout that affected his mind and made him clean forget the number of his regiment, and that is what for the lowlands of Holland is a very pleasant country just now.” “Wounded!” cried the priest, disturbed at this intelligence. “Had I known on't I should have prayed for thy deliverance.” “I have little doubt he did that for himself,” said Kilbride. “When I came on him after Rosbach he was behind a dyke, that is not a bad alternative for prayer when the lead is in the air.” We made up our minds to remain for a while at Helvoet, but we had not determined what our next step should be, when in came the priest one day with his face like clay and his limbs trembling. “Ah, Paul!” he cried, and fell into a chair; “here's Nemesis, daughter of Nox, a scurvy Italian, and wears a monkish cowl. I fancied it were too good to be true that I should be free from further trials.” “Surely Buhot has not taken it into his head to move again,” I cried. “That would be very hirpling justice after so long an interval. And in any case they could scarcely hale you out of the Netherlands.”