"Will you recruit an honourable ?" asked Philip Scruton, walking up to the sergeant, from whose tall headgear the colours were flying in a streaming bunch of ribbons.

"I'd enlist the devil himself," was the

answer.

"The bailiffs can't take away one of your company?"

"What do you mean; arrest him ?" "Yes."

"Devil a bit of it."

"And I can buy myself off next week?" "That's so."

"Do you know me?"

"No."

"I am the Hon. Philip Scruton, heir to the Earldom of Ellerbie."

"You'll not be the first high-born gentleman who's taken the King's shilling and not bought himself off after, but

purchased his steps and is now in command."

"Give me the shilling," said Scruton, and the crowd stared mightily to see Lord Ellerbie's nephew don the ribbons, and join the muster of young fellows out of uniform.

"Mr. North," he said, "your hand; you've lost a pretty girl, but gained a staunch friend. We can both hate Lord

Ellerbie together now."

Oliver did not reply.

"Don't be surly; I don't care whether we are friends or enemies, for that matter," went on the new recruit, and the third whose fortunes this history will more especially follow.

Right about face; march!" commanded the sergeant, and the little company moved off, leaving the ground clear for the march past of the regiment, colours flying;

the captain on horseback, Ensign Wingfield marching on the left of the column.

"I shannat say good-bye to-night, Tom, lad," said Mary Kirk's father, when the recruits were dismissed to their quarters. "I shall be on the ground first thing in the morning. She doesna know thou'rt going yet, and I donnat think we'll tell her. Cheer up, my lad! Things is looking

about as black as they can; but it's darkest, they say, before the dawn."

Old Jim Pearson, the blacksmith, of Beetwell-street, always burnt his fire long after the neighbouring shops were shut, and on this night of the last parade he had a customer for an unusual and curious job.

Tom Bertram bared his brawny arm and handed Jim Pearson Mary Kirk's

bracelet, which Susan Hardwick had given him as a keepsake.

"I want it riveted on just there, round my wrist, so that it'll never come off, dead or alive!"

It was a picture worthy of an historical painter the young recruit standing in the light of the smithy fire, while the token of his love was literally welded with hot rivets that burnt the flesh once or twice, though Jim Pearson was as gentle at his work as if the arm had been a woman's.

224

CHAPTER II.

MR. SEPTIMUS DOBBS.

I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.

SHAKSPERE.

T had been an unusually hot autumn,

and the guests at the Angel were sitting out in the tavern yard, drinking and smoking by the light of a couple of oil lamps and the glorious autumn moon. They were a very miscellaneous assembly, and the talk was loud and noisy. chiefly related to the marching of the regiment which had been quartered so long in the neighbourhood; to the local recruits; and to the war.

It