corps_. Well, I like it. But I've news for you, Jack.
Why, your old father, you young dog you, is going to take command again.
Ha, ha! sword arm all right, and head-piece in glorious form."

"O father, I'm so delighted!"

"Yes, boy, and there is one thing I look forward to--ay, and pray
for--and that is for you and me, Jack, to be in the same field of
battle, and drubbing the French as only British sailors and soldiers
can."

"Father, you've made me happy.--Why, Tom, this all but reconciles me to
the loss of the love--"

Jack stopped, looking a little confused.

"Love--love? Why, Jack, my lad, what is this? Love of whom, boy?"

"Oh, only a pet spaniel, father. No, not dead. Lost though; enticed
away--with a bone, I suppose."

"Just the way with spaniels, Jack. Glad it's no worse. But 'pon honour,
Jack, though you're not old enough to know it, womankind are precious
little better. I _know_ 'em well, Jack; I know 'em. A bone will entice
them too, particularly a bone with a bit of meat on it."

* * * * *

Jack Mackenzie was not a young man who cared for much nursing. Had Gerty
been his nurse it would doubtless have been all so different. However,
it was very pleasant for Jack to while away the next month or two down
at Grantley Hall, and to be treated like an interesting invalid and made
a hero of by old maids and young ones too. The curate of the parish had
not a chance now.

Then the country was so lovely all around the Hall. Though lacking the
grandeur and romance of our Scottish Highlands, the land of the broads,
with its wealth of wild flowers, its dreamy, quiet lakes, its waving
reeds, its moors, and its birds, throws a glamour over one in
spring-time that no true lover of nature can resist.

Jack's arm was well in a month, and he was waiting for service. He did
not mind waiting even a little longer, and most assuredly Tom Fairlie
did not, nor M'Hearty either, who was also a guest at the Hall. Richards
also had come down to spend a week or two. He and M'Hearty became
inseparables.

A great old tub of a boat belonged to Mackenzie, and this lay on an
adjoining broad or lake. Tom and Jack fitted it out as a kind of
gondola, and many a pleasant hour did the young folks spend together on
the water, sometimes not returning till stars were reflected from the
dark bosom of the lake or the moonbeams seemed to change it into molten
gold.

A pleasant time indeed--a time that flew