The words of the doctor gave a sort of license to bold Jonathan Barlowman, and his moaning and his groaning, his writhing and complaining, increased. He began to fall behind, and now stood fumbling with his pinching shoes, or bent himself double with his hands across his breast, sighing piteously, and shedding tears in abundance. At length we lost sight and hearing of him, and we imagined that he had turned back, or peradventure, lain down by the way; but there was no time for us to return to seek him, nor yet to look after one man, when, belike a hundred thousand French had landed. Well, it was about an hour after the final disappearance of Jonathan, that a stranger joined our ranks in his stead. He took his place close by my side. He carried a firelock over his shoulder, and was dressed in a greatcoat; but so far as I could judge from his appearance in the dark, I suspected him to be a very young man. I could not get a word out of him, save that in answer to a question--"Are ye Mr Barlowman's substitute?" And he answered--"Yes." Beyond that one word, I could not get him to open his mouth. However, I afterwards ascertained that the youth overtook Jonathan, while he was writhing in agony upon the road, and declaring aloud that he would give any money, from ten to a hundred guineas, for a substitute, besides his arms and accoutrements. The young man leaped at the proposal, or rather at a part of it, for he said he would take no money, but that the other should give him his arms, ammunition, and such like, and he would be his substitute. Jonathan joyfully accepted the conditions; but whether or not his pains and groanings left him, when relieved from the weight of his knapsack, I cannot tell. Our corps voted him to be no man who could find time to be ill, even in earnest, during an invasion. My attention, however, was now wholly taken up with the stranger, who, it appeared, had been dropped, as if from the clouds, in the very middle of a waste, howling wilderness, to volunteer to serve in the place of my craven comrade, Jonathan Barlowman. The youth excited my curiosity the more, because, as I have already informed ye, he was as silent as a milestone, and not half so satisfactory; for beyond the little word "Yes," which I once got out of him, not another syllable would he breathe--but he kept his head half turned away from me. I felt the consciousness and the assurance growing in me more and more that he was a French spy; therefore I kept my musket so that I could level it at him, and discharge it at half a moment's warning; and I was rejoicing to think that it would be a glorious thing if I got an opportunity of signalizing myself on the very first day of the invasion. I really began to dream of titles and rewards, the thanks of parliament, and the command of a regiment. It is a miracle that, in the delirium of my waking dream, I did not place the muzzle of my musket to my strange comrade's head.