Beware, my boy! they are far the most dangerous, innocent though
they may look."
A laugh ran round the circle.
"Forewarned forearmed, colonel," Malcolm said sturdily, "I will be
on my guard against every female creature, young or old, in future.
But I don't think that in this affair the woman has had much to
boast about -- she and her friends had best have left me alone."
"That is so, Malcolm," the colonel said warmly. "You have borne
yourself well and bravely, and you have got an old head on those
young shoulders of yours. You are as full of plans and stratagems
as if you had been a campaigner for the last half century; and no
man, even in the Green Brigade, no, not Hepburn himself, could have
held that church tower more ably than you did. It will be a good
tale to tell the king as we ride on the march tomorrow, for he
loves a gallant deed, and the more so when there is prudence and
good strategy as well as bravery. He has more than once asked if
you have been getting into any new adventures, and seemed almost
surprised when I told him that you were doing your duty with your
company. He evidently regards it as your special mission to get
into harebrained scrapes. He regards you, in fact, as a pedagogue
might view the pickle of the school."
There was a general laugh at Malcolm's expense.
"I don't know how it is I am always getting into scrapes," the lad
said half ruefully when the laugh subsided.
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