“My billet was at the back of the town, on the verge of a wood, with the window of my room opening on a sort of hunting-path that went winding through the heart of what I have called a wood, but was in actual fact a forest of considerable dimensions. I went out by the window that evening with my drum, and walked, as had been arranged, about a mile among the trees till I came to a narrow glen that cleft the hills, a burn of shallow water from the peaty uplands bickering at the bottom of it. A half moon swung like a halbert over the heights that were edged by enormous fir-trees, and the wood was melancholy with the continuous call of owls. They were soon silenced, for I began to play the silver drum.
“I began with the reveille, though it was a properer hour for the tattoo, playing it lightly, so that while it silenced the hooting owls it did not affright the whole forest. She came through the trees timidly, clothed, as I remember, in a gown of green. She might have been the spirit of the pine-plantings; she might have been a dryad charmed from the swinging boughs. ‘Margory! Margory!’ I cried, my heart more noisy than my drum had been, and clasped her to my arms. ‘Here’s a poor drummer, my dear,’ I said, ‘and you a queen. If you do not love me you were less cruel to take this dirk and stab me to the heart than act the heartless coquette.’
“She faintly struggled. He hair fell loose in a lock or two from under her hat, surged on her shoulder, and billowed about my lips. Her cheek was warm; her eyes threw back the challenge of the silver moon over the tops of pine.
“‘For a young gentleman from a kirk manse, Master Drummer, you have considerable impertinence,’ said she, panting in my arms.
“‘My name, dear Margory, is George, as I have told you,’ I whispered, and I kissed her.
“‘George, dear George,’ said she, ‘have done with folly! Let me hear the drumming and go home.’
“I swung her father’s drum again before me and gave, in cataracts of sound, or murmuring cascades, the sentiments of my heart.
“‘Wonderful! Oh, wonderful!’ she cried, entranced; so I played on.
“The moon went into a cloud; the glade of a sudden darkened; I ceased my playing, swung the drum again behind, and turned for Margory.