CHAPTER XII.
A PEER IN TROUBLE.
Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr.Bowie call unto himself a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either Claude or Mrs.
Mellot.
Bowie is an ex-Scots-Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a horse, has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to Scoutbush himself.

He is of a patronising habit of mind, as befits a tolerably "leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue, the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late feat of arms at Holland House.
Mr.Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a solemn and sonorous voice.
"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to see ye and Mr.Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity." "More's the pity, indeed!" "And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody sees to him; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major Cawmill mysel', to beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a pity to see his lordship cast away, for want of an understanding body to advise him." "So I am not an understanding body, Bowie ?" "Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny," says Bowie, in a tone in which admiration is not unmingled with pity.
"Young indeed! Mr.Bowie, do you know that I am almost as old as you ?" "Hoot, hut, hut--" says Bowie, looking at the wax-like complexion and bright hawk-eyes.
"Really I am.

I'm past five-and-thirty this many a day." "Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough to be wiser than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such play-acting." "Really he's not inveigled," says Sabina, laughing.

"It is all his own fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impossible it is.

She has refused even to see him; and you know yourself he has not been near our house for these three weeks." "Ah, madam, you'll excuse me: but that's the way with that sort of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor young gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a minnow, the faster you spin it." "I assure you no.