“It is quite clear, from the fact of his having been remanded to his cell, the execution of the poor fellow will be deferred at least,” observed one of Captain Erskine’s subalterns.”  If the governor had intended he should suffer immediately, he would have had him shot the moment after his sentence was read.  But what is the meaning and object of this new sortie? and whither are we now going?  Do you know, Captain Erskine, our company is again ordered for this duty?”

“Know it, Leslie! of course I do; and for that reason am I paying my court to the more substantial part of the breakfast.  Come, Blessington, my dear fellow, you have quite lost your appetite, and we may have sharp work before we get back.  Follow my example:  throw that nasty blood-thickening sassafras away, and lay a foundation from this venison.  None sweeter is to be found in the forests of America.  A few slices of that, and then a glass each of my best Jamaica, and we shall have strength to go through the expedition, if its object be the capture of the bold Ponteac himself.”

“I presume the object is rather to seek for Captain de Haldimar,” said Lieutenant Boyce, the officer of grenadiers; “but in that case why not send out his own company?”

“Because the Colonel prefers trusting to cooler heads and more experienced arms,” good-humouredly observed Captain Erskine.  “Blessington is our senior, and his men are all old stagers.  My lads, too, have had their mettle up already this morning, and there is nothing like that to prepare men for a dash of enterprise.  It is with them as with blood horses, the more you put them on their speed the less anxious are they to quit the course.  Well, Johnstone, my brave Scot, ready for another skirmish?” he asked, as that officer now entered to satisfy the cravings of an appetite little inferior to that of his captain.

“With ‘Nunquam non paratus’ for my motto,” gaily returned the young man, “it were odd, indeed, if a mere scratch like this should prevent me from establishing my claim to it by following wherever my gallant captain leads.”

“Most courteously spoken, and little in the spirit of a man yet smarting under the infliction of a rifle wound, it must be confessed,” remarked Lieutenant Leslie.  “But, Johnstone, you should bear in mind a too close adherence to that motto has been, in some degree, fatal to your family.”

“No reflections, Leslie, if you please,” returned his brother subaltern, slightly reddening.  “If the head of our family was unfortunate enough to be considered a traitor to England, he was not so, at least, to Scotland; and Scotland was the land of his birth.  But let his political errors be forgotten.  Though the winged spur no longer adorn the booted heel of an Earl of Annandale, the time may not be far distant when some liberal and popular monarch of England shall restore a title forfeited neither through cowardice nor dishonour, but from an erroneous sense of duty.”