as aware of the tall figure of James More in a corner. He seemed a
prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his feet and hands, and his
eyes speeding here and there without rest about the walls of the small
chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of pity the man's wretched
situation. I suppose it was partly this, and partly my strong continuing
interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost him.

"Give you a good-morning, sir," said I.

"And a good-morning to you, sir," said he.

"You bide tryst with Prestongrange?" I asked.

"I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
agreeable than mine," was his reply.

"I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass before
me," said I.

"All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of the
open hands. "It was not always so, sir, but times change. It was not so
when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the
soldier might sustain themselves."

There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my
dander strangely.

"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a
soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to
complain."

"You have my name, I perceive"--he bowed to me with his arms
crossed--"though it's one I must not use myself. Well, there is a
publicity--I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards
of my enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I
know not."

"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody else;
but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."

"It is a good name," he replied civilly; "there are many decent folk
that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman,
your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year 'Forty-five with my
battalion."

"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I, for I
was ready for the surgeon now.

"The same, sir," said James More. "And since I have been fellow-soldier
with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."

He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as
though he had found a brother.

"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I heard the
balls whistle in our lugs."

"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I drily, "and I ought to
tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."

"Well, well," said he, "it m