or's mind was wandering over the plains of
Waterloo to guess by the vacancy of his gaze; on his left Bob MacGibbon
smoked a black segar, the others talked of townsmen still in the army
and of others buried under the walls of Badajos. They all turned when
the Sergeant More spoke, and they saw him push before him into the room
the little boy of Ladyfield with his bonnet in his hand and his eyes
restless and timid like pigeons at a strange gate fluttering.

"Ho! Gilian, it is you?" said the Paymaster, with a very hearty voice;
then he seemed to guess the nature of the message, for his voice
softened from the loud and bumptious tone it had for ordinary. "How is
it in Lecknamban?" he asked in the Gaelic, and Gilian told him, minding
duly his "sir" and his "Captain" and his salute.

"Dead!" said the Paymaster, "Blessings with her!" Then he turned to his
companions and in English--"The best woman in the three parishes and the
cleverest. She could put her hand to anything and now she's no more. I
think that's the last of Ladyfield for me. I liked to go up now and then
and go about the hill and do a little bargaining at a wool market, or
haggle over a pound with a drover at the fair, but the farm did little
more than pay me and I had almost given it up when her husband died."

He looked flushed and uncomfortable. His stock seemed to fit him more
tightly than before and his wig sat more askew than ever upon his
bald head. For a little he seemed to forget the young messenger still
standing in the room, no higher than the table whereon the glasses
ranged. Gilian turned his bonnet about in his hand and twisted the
ribbons till they tore, then he thought with a shock of the scolding he
would get for spoiling his Sunday bonnet, but the thought was quickly
followed by the recollection that she who would have scolded him would
chide no more.

The pensioners shared their attention between the Paymaster and the boy.
While the Paymaster gave them the state of his gentleman farming (about
which the town was always curious), they looked at him and wondered at
a man who had seen the world and had L4 a week of a pension wasting life
with a paltry three-hundred sheep farm instead of spending his money
royally with a bang. When his confidence seemed likely to carry their
knowledge of his affairs no further than the town's gossip had already
brought it, they lost their interest in his reflections and had time to
feel sorry for the boy. None of