"Grant it may be sae!" answered William; "but I see naething for as but to beg!" I must here, however, take back my reader to 1815, and from the neighbourhood of Stirling direct their attention to Brussels and Waterloo. George Washington Nicholson, after the battle of Toulouse, had been appointed to the rank of serjeant. For several months he was an inmate in the house of a thriving merchant in Brussels; he had assisted him in his business; he, in fact, acted as his chief clerk and his confidant; he became as one of the family, and nothing was done by the Belgian trader without consulting Serjeant Nicholson. But the fearful night of the 15th of June arrived, when the sounds of the pibroch rang through the streets of Brussels, startling soldier and citizen, and the raven and the owl were invited to a feast. The name of Napoleon was pronounced by tongues of every nation. "He comes!--he comes!" was the cry. George Nicholson was one of the first to array himself for battle, and rush forth to join his regiment. He bade a hurried farewell to his host; but there was one in the house whose hand trembled when he touched it, and on whose lips he passionately breathed his abrupt adieu. It was the gentle Louise, the sole daughter of his host. The three following days were dreadful days in Brussels; confusion, anxiety, dismay, prevailed in every street; they were pictured in every countenance. On one hand were crowded the wounded from the battle, on the other were citizens flying from the town to save their goods and themselves, and, in their general eagerness to escape, blocking up their flight. Shops were shut, houses deserted, and churches turned into hospitals. But, in the midst of all--every hour, and more frequently--there went a messenger from the house of the merchant with whom Serjeant Nicholson had lodged, to the _Porte de Namur_, to inquire how fared it with the Highlanders, to examine the caravans with the wounded as they arrived, and to inquire at the hospitals, if _one whom Louise named_ had been brought there.