I have marked you a good deal during the last two years, and you have borne yourself well; and as a Scotchman I am proud of you.

You have the knack of your kinsman Keith of entering into the king's humours; of being a bright companion when he is in a good temper, and of holding your tongue when he is put out; of expressing your opinion frankly, and yet never familiarly; and your freshness and hopefulness often, I see, cheer the king, whose Prussians cannot, for their lives, help being stiff and formal, or get to talk with him as if he were a human being like themselves.
"Next to Keith and myself, I think that there is no one with whom the king can distract his mind so completely as with you.

To him it is like getting a whiff of the fresh air from our Scottish hills.
He told the surgeon to see that you were sent down with the first batch of wounded officers." The next day, accordingly, while the two armies were watching each other and the cannon were growling, Fergus was taken down to Frankfort.
Zorndorf was fought on the 25th of August; and on the 2nd of September Frederick started with the army for Saxony, where Prince Maurice had been sorely pressed by Daun and the newly-raised army of the Confederates, and had had to take post on some heights a short distance from Dresden.
"A bad job, major," Karl grumbled as he brought the news to Fergus, who was quartered in a private house.

"The king has gone to have a slap at Daun; and here are we, left behind.

If he would have waited another fortnight, we might have been with him." "Perhaps we shall get there in time yet, Karl.