e were a refugee political offender,
a courier, or a spy, they wound up by a wager that he was at least forty
years of age; one of the party dissenting on the ground that, although
he looked it, it was rather from something on the fellow's mind than
years.

"How shall we find out?" cried the proposer of the bet. "I, for one,
should n't like to ask him his age."

"If I knew Spanish enough, I'd do it at once," said another.

"It might cost you dearly, Harry, for all that; he looks marvellously
like a fellow that wouldn't brook trifling."

"He would n't call it trifling to lose me ten 'carlines,' and I 'm sure
I should win my wager; so here goes at him in French." Rising at the
same moment, the young man crossed the room and stood before the table
where Cashel sat, with folded arms and bent-down head, listening in
utter indifference to all that passed. "Monsieur," said the youth,
bowing.

Cashel looked up, and his dark, heavily browed eyes seemed to abash the
other, who stood, blushing, and uncertain what to do.

With faltering accents and downcast look he began to mutter excuses for
his intrusion; when Cashel, in a mild and gentle voice, interrupted him,
saying in English, "I am your countryman, young gentleman, and my age
not six-and-twenty."

The quiet courtesy of his manner as he spoke, as well as the surprise of
his being English, seemed to increase the youth's shame for the liberty
he had taken, and he was profuse in his apologies; but Cashel soon
allayed this anxiety by adroitly turning to another part of the subject,
and saying, "If I look much older than I am, it is that I have travelled
and lived a good deal in southern climates, not to speak of other
causes, which give premature age."

A slight, a very slight touch of melancholy in the latter words gave
them a deep interest to the youth, who, with a boyish frankness, far
more fascinating than more finished courtesy, asked Roland if he would
join their party. Had such a request been made half an hour before,
or had it come in more formal fashion, Cashel would inevitably have
declined it; but what between the generous candor of the youth's
address, and a desire to show that he did not resent his intrusion,
Cashel acceded good-naturedly, and took his seat amongst them.

As Roland listened to the joyous freshness of their boyish talk,--the
high-hearted hope, the sanguine trustfulness with which they regarded
life,--he remembered what but a few years back