Mabel was almost in despair; but the quiet warning of June was still too vividly impressed on her mind to allow her to yield the matter.  She changed her mode of operating, therefore, still clinging to the hope of getting the whole party within the blockhouse, without being compelled to betray the source whence she obtained her notices of the necessity of vigilance.

“I daresay you are right, Corporal M’Nab,” she observed; “for I’ve often heard of the heroes of your country, who have been among the first of the civilized world, if what they tell me of them is true.”

“Have you read the history of Scotland, Mistress Dunham?” demanded the Corporal, looking up at his pretty companion, for the first time with something like a smile on his hard, repulsive countenance.

“I have read a little of it, Corporal, but I’ve heard much more.  The lady who brought me up had Scottish blood in her veins, and was fond of the subject.”

“I’ll warrant ye, the Sergeant no’ troubled himself to expatiate on the renown of the country where his regiment was raised?”

“My father has other things to think of, and the little I know was got from the lady I have mentioned.”

“She’ll no’ be forgetting to tall ye o’ Wallace?”

“Of him I’ve even read a good deal.”

“And o’ Bruce, and the affair of Bannockburn?”

“Of that too, as well as of Culloden Muir.”

The last of these battles was then a recent event, it having actually been fought within the recollection of our heroine, whose notions of it, however, were so confused that she scarcely appreciated the effect her allusion might produce on her companion.  She knew it had been a victory, and had often heard the guests of her patroness mention it with triumph; and she fancied their feelings would find a sympathetic chord in those of every British soldier.  Unfortunately, M’Nab had fought throughout that luckless day on the side of the Pretender; and a deep scar that garnished his face had been left there by the sabre of a German soldier in the service of the House of Hanover.  He fancied that his wound bled afresh at Mabel’s allusion; and it is certain that the blood rushed to his face in a torrent, as if it would pour out of his skin at the cicatrix.

“Hoot! hoot awa’!” he fairly shouted, “with your Culloden and Sherriff muirs, young woman; ye’ll no’ be understanding the subject at all, and will manifest not only wisdom but modesty in speaking o’ your ain country and its many failings.  King George has some loyal subjects in the colonies, na doubt, but ’twill be a lang time before he sees or hears any guid of them.”

Mabel was surprised at the Corporal’s heat, for she had not the smallest idea where the shoe pinched; but she was determined not to give up the point.

“I’ve always heard that the Scotch had two of the good qualities of soldiers,” she said, “courage and circumspection; and I feel persuaded that Corporal M’Nab will sustain the national renown.”