With Frederick the Great | Page 9

have all sorts of questions to ask you. But that is always the way with
me. I am like a bottle of champagne, corked down while I am in the
palace, and directly I get away the cork flies out by itself, and for a
minute or two it is all froth and emptiness.
"Now, when did you arrive, how did you arrive, what is the last news
from Scotland, which of the branches of the Drummonds do you belong
to, and how near of kin are you to the marshal? Oh, by the way, I ought
to know the last without asking; as you are a Drummond, and a relation

of Keith, you can be no other than the son of the Drummond of Tarbet,
who married Margaret Ogilvie, who was a first cousin of Keith's."
"That is right," Fergus said. "My father fell at Culloden, you know. As
to all your other questions, they are answered easily enough. I know
very little of the news in Scotland, for my mother lived a very secluded
life at Kilgowrie, and little news came to us from without. I came from
Leith to Stettin, and there I bought a horse and rode on here."
His companion laughed.
"And how about yourself? I suppose you know nothing of this beastly
language?"
"Yes; I can speak it pretty fluently, and of course know French."
"I congratulate you, though how you learnt it, up in the hills, I know
not. I did not know a word of it, when I came out two years ago; and it
is always on my mind, for of course I have a master who, when I am
not otherwise engaged, comes to me for an hour a day, and well nigh
maddens me with his crack-jaw words; but I don't seem to make much
progress. If I am sent with an order, and the officer to whom I take it
does not understand French, I am floored. Of course I hand the order, if
it is a written one, to him. If it is not, but just some verbal message,
asking him to call on the marshal at such and such a time, I generally
make a horrible mess of it. He gets in a rage with me, because he
cannot understand me. I get in a rage with him, for his dulness; and
were it not that he generally manages to find some other officer, who
does understand French, the chances are very strongly against Keith's
message being attended to.
"First of all, I will take you to our quarters. That is the house."
"Why, I thought you lodged in the palace?"
"Heaven forbid! Macgregor has a room in the chief's suite of
apartments. He is senior aide-de-camp, and if there is any message to
be sent late, he takes it; but that is not often the case. Gordon lodges

here with me. The house is a sort of branch establishment to the palace.
Malcolm Menzies and Horace Farquhar, two junior aides of the king,
are in the same corridor with us. Of course we make up a party by
ourselves. Then there are ten or twelve German officers--some of them
aides-de-camp of the Princes Maurice and Henry, the Prince of Bevern
and General Schwerin--besides a score or so of palace officials.
"Fortunately the Scotch corridor, as we call it, has a separate entrance,
so we can go in or out without disturbing anyone. It is a good thing, for
in fact we and the Prussians do not get on very well together. They
have a sort of jealousy of us; which is, I suppose, natural enough.
Foreigners are never favourites, and George's Hanoverian officers are
not greatly loved in London. I expect a campaign will do good, that
way. They will see, at any rate, that we don't take our pay for nothing,
and are ready to do a full share and more of fighting; while we shall
find that these stiff pipe-clayed figures are brave fellows, and good
comrades, when they get a little of the starch washed out of them.
"Now, this is my room, and I see my man has got dinner ready."
Chapter 2
: Joining.
In answer to the shout of "Donald," a tall man in the pantaloons of a
Prussian regiment, but with his tunic laid aside, came out from a small
room that served as a kitchen, and dormitory, for himself.
"I am just ready, sir," he said. "Hearing you talking as you came along,
and not knowing who you might have with you, I just ran in to put on
my coat; but as you passed, and I heard it was Scottish you were
speaking, I knew that it didna matter."
"Put another plate and goblet on the table, Donald.