our eyes grow heavy as soon as possible, that you may be put
upon the sick list; and, Emily, do you order an apartment for Frank
Stanley, with all the attention 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 freebooting
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 dare say, 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