Stanley, with all the attentions which an invalid may require.'

In the morning the Colonel visited his guest. 'Now,' said he, 'I have
some good news for you. Your reputation as a gentleman and officer is
effectually cleared of neglect of duty and accession to the mutiny in
Gardiner's regiment. I have had a correspondence on this subject with a
very zealous friend of yours, your Scottish parson, Morton; his first
letter was addressed to Sir Everard; but I relieved the good Baronet of
the trouble of answering it. You must know, that your free-booting
acquaintance, Donald of the Cave, has at length fallen into the hands of
the Philistines. He was driving off the cattle of a certain proprietor,
called Killan--something or other--'

'Killancureit?'

'The same. Now the gentleman being, it seems, a great farmer, and having
a special value for his breed of cattle, being, moreover, rather of a
timid disposition, had got a party of soldiers to protect his property.
So Donald ran his head unawares into the lion's mouth, and was defeated
and made prisoner. Being ordered for execution, his conscience was
assailed on the one hand by a Catholic priest, on the other by your
friend Morton. He repulsed the Catholic chiefly on account of the
doctrine of extreme unction, which this economical gentleman considered
as an excessive waste of oil. So his conversion from a state of
impenitence fell to Mr. Morton's share, who, I daresay, acquitted himself
excellently, though I suppose Donald made but a queer kind of Christian
after all. He confessed, however, before a magistrate, one Major
Melville, who seems to have been a correct, friendly sort of person, his
full intrigue with Houghton, explaining particularly how it was carried
on, and fully acquitting you of the least accession to it. He also
mentioned his rescuing you from the hands of the volunteer officer, and
sending you, by orders of the Pret--Chevalier, I mean--as a prisoner to
Doune, from whence he understood you were carried prisoner to Edinburgh.
These are particulars which cannot but tell in your favour. He hinted
that he had been employed to deliver and protect you, and rewarded for
doing so; but he would not confess by whom, alleging that, though he
would not have minded breaking any ordinary oath to satisfy the curiosity
of Mr. Morton, to whose pious admonitions he owed so much, yet, in the
present case he had been sworn to silence upon the edge of his dirk,
[Footnote: See No