Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
"I never counted," said John Broom; "pretty often." "How many good-conduct stripes do you ken me to have lost of your ain knowledge?" "Three, M'Alister." "Is there a finer man than me in the regiment?" asked the Highlander, drawing up his head. "That there's not," said John Broom, warmly. "Our sairgent, now," drawled the Scotchman, "wad ye say he was a better man than me?"
"I'll trouble ye to give me your attention," said the Highlander, when they came to a standstill, "and to speak the truth. Did ye ever see me the worse of liquor?" John Broom had several remembrances of the clearest kind to that effect, so he put up his arms to shield his head from the probable blow, and said, "Yes, M'Alister." "How often?" asked the Scotchman.
"Poor Pauline, how angry she would have been if she had guessed it! If I had been Rhoda, I should have told her." "We should not have known where to telegraph if it had not been for Rhoda. Her uncle Mr. M'Alister's brother, I mean has a shop next door to Mr. Price. It was he who told Mr. Harding that Rhoda was with us. I fancy he was rather distressed to find that she was not with Mrs. M'Alister.
Price came in, he was pleasantly surprised at the sensible view she took of things, and his invitation to her to spend the August holidays at Coombe was far heartier than Mrs. M'Alister had dared to hope for. "And you will be able to run down to Leyton for a Sunday every now and then," he said, regarding her approvingly out of his hard grey eyes.
Well, to cut a long story short, which is told here merely for the moral at the end of it, I should have been Fitz-Boodle M'Alister at this minute most probably, and master of four thousand a year, but for the fatal cigar-box.
I always found an opera too long by two acts, and have repeatedly fallen asleep in the presence of Mary M'Alister herself, sitting at the back of the box shaded by the huge beret of her old aunt, Lady Betty Plumduff; and many a time has Dawdley, with Miss M'Alister on his arm, wakened me up at the close of the entertainment in time to offer my hand to Lady Betty, and lead the ladies to their carriage.
Little Hugh was to stay at Leyton for the present; Rhoda was to bring him down when she came for her holiday in August. Mrs. M'Alister did not guess how hard Rhoda found it to be cheerful as she helped with the packing. A great load was lifted off her heart by the ready way in which the girl had acquiesced in the new arrangements.
He was making a round of the outposts, to see that all were on the alert, and to inquire if anything had been stirring. "All quiet, Roderick?" said Serjeant More M'Alister, on approaching the former. "All quiet, serjeant," replied M'Leod.
M'Alister told me. My sister lived in Melbourne. Then you can tell me nothing else?" Rhoda hesitated a moment. Miss Merivale's voice had been cold and constrained, but there was a beseeching eagerness in her glance. She unclasped a little locket from her watch-chain and passed it across the table. "That and my little Bible is all I have. It must have been my mother's, I think."
The familiar words struck coldly on John Broom's heart, as if they had been orders to a firing party, and the bandage was already across the Highlander's blue eyes. Would the grand rounds be challenged at the three roads to-night? He darted out into the snow. He flew, as the crow flies, across the fields, to where M'Alister was on duty.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking