d after committing a capital crime. It is
evident that you cannot be trusted in your own district. Your sympathies
are not with law and order. Oh, I know something about the peculiar
difficulties of officials in Galloway. There are certain acts--such as
resistance to his Majesty's press, prison-breaking, and the whole
business of smuggling which are here favoured by all, from the Lord
Lieutenant to the herd on the hills. I cannot get a magistrate to issue
a warrant without referring the matter to the Secretary of State. I
cannot execute it without a battalion of regulars. As an instance in
point you were in command of a company of dragoons. You saw this thing
done. You knew those who did it, yet you did not lift a finger to stop
them."

"We had only just arrived as they were riding off," said Louis. "I had
no evidence that any offence against justice had been committed. I saw
the prison on fire afterwards and I helped to put out that. Without my
troopers it would have been wholly destroyed."

"No matter," said the irate Colonel, "we cannot have any such officer in
the district--certainly not under my command. I mean that my orders
shall be carried through at whatever risk. Now, I put it to you plainly,
do you prefer to send in your papers or be publicly broken?"

"I shall not send in my papers," said Louis de Raincy, warmly, "and you
cannot break me, publicly or otherwise!"

"And pray why not?"

Louis lifted his hand in the direction of Castle Raincy, an imposing
pile of towers showing up dark on a hill to the west.

"That's why," he said, curtly. "I am the heir to a peerage, and my
grandfather--well, I need not speak of him. Besides, I know the Duke of
York, who is still commander-in-chief."

Laurence's temper got the better of him.

"It is you and the like of you who defy regulations and are the shame of
the British army."

"Not so," said Louis, in a very level tone, "say rather officers who
scramble for every safe money-making little post-recruit--raising,
keg-hunting, 'stay-in-a-comfortable-corner' men, and keep as far away
from the real fighting as possible. If the cap fits, why, put it on! And
as soon as the war is over, if you still require any satisfaction, I am
your man. In the meantime, Colonel Laurence, you will no longer be
troubled with me. I have got my transfer to the Duke's army at
Hernandez, and I am ordered to join my new regiment by the first ship to
leave Liverpool with cavalry details. We