From red to white, and from white back again to a kind of greenish
paleness, went and came the hues of the young man's complexion. The son
of the house of Blair of Blair was manifestly unhappy. He put his hand
in one pocket. He clapped another. His purse was not in either.

"Perchance 'tis in your honour's equipage," suggested the landlord
wickedly; "shall I call your body-servant to bring it?"

It was a face of bitter chagrin that Rollo Blair of Blair lifted to the
Englishman who had meantime never ceased from his study of a fly upon
the wall. He beckoned him a little apart with a look of inimitable
chagrin.

"Sir," he said, "will you buy from me a silver-hilted sword. It was my
grandfather's, and he fought well with it at Killiecrankie. It is the
sole article of value I possess----"

Here a kind of a sob came into his voice. "God knows, I would rather
sell my right hand!" he said brusquely.

"How came you to run up such a bill, having no effects?" said the
Englishman, looking at him coolly, and taking no notice of the young
man's offer of his weapon, which he continued to hold by the scabbard.

"I can hardly tell," said the Scot, hanging his head, "but only two
nights ago there was a young French lord here who out-faced me first at
the cards and then at the drinking of wine. So I was compelled to order
in more and better to be upsides with him!"

"There is no meaner ambition, especially on an empty purse," said the
Englishman, not moving from the angle of wall upon which he leaned.

"Curse me that ever I troubled myself to appeal to a cold-livered
Englishman!" cried the young man, "I will go to the Castilian over
yonder. He looks as if he might have the bowels of a man. At least he
will not palm off a gentleman in distress with moral precepts culled
from last week's sermon!"

The Englishman leaped forward and clapped the hot-headed Scot on the
shoulder. With the other hand he drew a well-filled wallet, with a
mercantile calendar slipped into the band, from his pocket.

"There," he said, heartily, "let me be your banker. 'Tis worth a score
of reckonings to hear a Scotsman speak disrespectfully of sermons. My
name is John Mortimer----"

"Of the Mortimers of Plas Gwynedd in Caernarvonshire? Why, my
grandmother was of that----" Rollo Blair was beginning a genealogical
disquisition with great eagerness when the Englishman stopped him.

"No," he said, "at least not that I know of. My father made mouse-traps