I would have set off immediately for London, and from thence down to Chatham, to inquire for him there; but the wind was favourable when the vessel sailed, and it was therefore certain, that, by the time I got back to Dunse, she was at the place of her destination; and moreover, I had no certainty or assurance that he was on board. Therefore, we spent another day in fruitless lamentations and tears, and in vain inquiries around our own neighbourhood, and amongst his acquaintances. But my own heart yearned continually, and his mother's moaning was unceasing in my ear, as the ticking of a spider, or the beating of a stop-watch to a person that is doomed to die. I could find no rest. I blamed myself for not proceeding direct from Edinburgh to Chatham; and, next day, I went down to Berwick, to take my place in the mail to London. By the way I met several of the yeomanry, who were only returning from Dunbar, where they had been summoned by the alarm; and I found that Berwick also had been in arms. But taking my place on the mail, I proceeded, without sleep or rest, to London, and from thence hastened to Chatham. There again I found that the regiment which I sought was already half way down the Channel; but I ascertained also that my poor thoughtless boy was one of the recruits, and even that was some consolation, although but a poor one. Again I returned to his mother, and told her of the tidings. They brought her no comfort, and, night and day, she brooded on the thought of her fair son lying dead and mangled on the field of slaughter, or of his returning helpless and wounded to his native land. And often it was wormwood to my spirit, and an augmentation of my own sorrows, to find that, in secret, she murmured against me as the author of her bereavement, and as having instilled into my son a liking for a soldier's life. She said it was all owing to my getting him, from the time that he was able to read, to take the newspaper in his hand and read it aloud to my cronies, and in which there were accounts of nothing but wars and battles, of generals and captains, and Bonaparte, of whom enough was foretold and enough could be read in the Revelations. These murmurings grieved me the more, inasmuch as my mind was in no way satisfied that they were without foundation. No man knew better than I did, how easily the twig is bent; a passing breeze, the lighting of a bird upon it, may do it; and as it is bent, so the branch or the tree will be inclined. I, therefore, almost resolved not to permit another newspaper to be brought within my door. But, somehow or other, it became more necessary than ever. Every time it came it was like a letter from Robie; and we read it from beginning to end, expecting always to hear something of him or of his regiment. Even Agnes grew fond of it, and was uneasy on the Saturdays if the postman was half-an-hour behind the time in bringing it.