red up and looked askance, like the awkward country lad
that I was.

"You know me, Major," said de Lapp, "and I am sure that you will tell
him that this could not be."

"No, no, Jack! Certainly not! certainly not!" cried the Major.

"Thank you," said de Lapp. "You know me, and you do me justice. And
yourself, I hope that your knee is better, and that you will soon have
your regiment given you."

"I am well enough," answered the Major; "but they will never give me a
place unless there is war, and there will be no more war in my time."

"Oh, you think that!" said de Lapp with a smile. "Well, _nous
verrons!_ We shall see, my friend!"

He whisked off his hat, and turning briskly he walked off in the
direction of West Inch. The Major stood looking after him with
thoughtful eyes, and then asked me what it was that had made me think
that he was a spy. When I told him he said nothing, but he shook his
head, and looked like a man who was ill at ease in his mind.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COMING OF THE CUTTER.

I never felt quite the same to our lodger after that little business at
the Peel Castle. It was always in my mind that he was holding a secret
from me--indeed, that he was all a secret together, seeing that he
always hung a veil over his past. And when by chance that veil was for
an instant whisked away, we always caught just a glimpse of something
bloody and violent and dreadful upon the other side. The very look of
his body was terrible. I bathed with him once in the summer, and I saw
then that he was haggled with wounds all over. Besides seven or eight
scars and slashes, his ribs on one side were all twisted out of shape,
and a part of one of his calves had been torn away. He laughed in his
merry way when he saw my face of wonder.

"Cossacks! Cossacks!" said he, running his hand over his scars.
"And the ribs were broke by an artillery tumbril. It is very bad to
have the guns pass over one. Now with cavalry it is nothing. A horse
will pick its steps however fast it may go. I have been ridden over by
fifteen hundred cuirassiers A and by the Russian hussars of Grodno, and
I had no harm from that. But guns are very bad."

"And the calf?" I asked.

"_Pouf!_ It is only a wolf bite," said he. "You would not think how I
came by it! You will understand that my horse and I had been struck,
the horse killed, and I with my ribs broken by the tumbril. Well, it
was cold--oh, bitter, bitter!--the gr