remember, when I came over to try and find out if aught had been heard of
the colonel."

"Ay, ay," Sandy said, grasping Malcolm's outstretched hand warmly. "It
all comes back to me now. Right glad am I to see you. And who is the lad
ye have brought with you? A Scot by his face and bearing, I will be
bound, but young yet for the service if that be what he is thinking of."

"He is the colonel's son, Sandy. You will remember I told you I had
carried him back to Scotland with me; but I need not tell ye that this is
betwixt ourselves, for those who have so badly treated his father might
well have a grudge against the son, and all the more that he is the
rightful heir to many a broad acre here in France."

"I give you a hearty welcome, young sir," Sandy said. "Many a time I have
seen your brave father riding at the head of his regiment, and have
spoken to him too, for he and his officers would drop in here and crack a
cup together in a room I keep upstairs for the quality. Well, well, and
to think that you are his son! But what Malcolm said is true, and it were
best that none knew who ye are, for they have an unco quick way here of
putting inconvenient people out of the way."

"Have you ever heard aught of my father since?" Ronald asked eagerly.

"Not a word," Sandy replied. "I have heard it talked over scores of times
by men who were in the regiment that was once his, and none doubted that
if he were still alive he was lying in the Bastille, or Vincennes, or one
of the other cages where they keep those whose presence the king or his
favourites find inconvenient. It's just a stroke of the pen, without
question or trial, and they are gone, and even their best friends darena