in my own conceit. Till this hour I had been, as it were, the hinge on
which my share of the world turned, and now I was no more than a wheel in
the carriage of a couleuvrine, an unconsidered cog in the machine of war.
I was to be lost in a multitude, every one as good as myself, or better;
and when I had thought of taking service, I had not foreseen the manner
of it and the nature of the soldier's trade. My head, that I had carried
high, somewhat drooped, as I saluted, imitating my companions, and we
wheeled forth of the room.

"Hugh has taken the pride out of you, lad, or my name is not Randal
Rutherford," said the Border man who had guided me. "Faith, he has a
keen tongue and a short way with him, but there are worse commanders. And
now you must to your quarters, for the hour is late and the guard-room
shut."

He led me to our common sleeping-place, where, among many snoring men-at-
arms in a great bare hall, a pallet was laid for me, and my flesh crept
as I remembered how this was the couch of him whom I had slain. Howbeit,
being well weary, despite the strangeness of the place, after brief
orisons I slept sound till a trumpet called us in the morning.

Concerning the strangeness of this waking, to me who had been gently
nurtured, and the rough life, and profane words which I must hear (not,
indeed, that they had been wholly banished from our wild days at St.
Andrews), it is needless that I should tell. Seeing that I was come
among rude neighbours, I even made shift to fall back, in semblance, on
such manners as I had used among the students before I left Scotland,
though many perils, and the fear wherein I stood of Brother Thomas, and
the company of the maid Elliot, had caused me half to forget my
swaggering ways. So, may God forgive me! I swore roundly; I made as if I