n his own ploys. We
dismounted at the inn where John Barbour, honest man, had put out the
sign of his profession. It was a low, well-thatched change-house,
sitting with its end to the road in the upper part of the village, with
good offices and accommodation for man and horse about it--the same
hostel indeed in which the matter of Rullion Green took its beginning.
Wat came down the street with his rapier swinging at his side, his
feathered Cavalier hat on his head, and he walked with a grace that
became him well. I liked the lad, and sometimes it almost seemed to me
that I might be his father, though indeed our years were pretty equal.
For being lame and not a fighter, neither craving ladies' favours, I was
the older man, for the years of them that suffer score the lines deeper
on a man's brow--and on his heart also.

When Wat Gordon mounted into the saddle with an easy spring his horse
bent back its head and curveted, biting at his foot. So that I rejoiced
to see the brave lad sitting like a dart, holding his reins as I hold my
pen, and resting his other hand easily on his thigh. John Scarlet, his
man-at-arms, mounted and rode behind him; and when I saw them up,
methought there was not a pair that could match them in Scotland. Yet I
knew that with the pistolets at paces ten or twenty, I was the master of
both. And perhaps it was this little scrap of consolation that made me
feel so entirely glad to see my cousin look so bright and bonny. Indeed
had I been his lass--or one of them, for if all tales be true he had
routh of such--I could not have loved better to see him shine in the
company of men like the young god Apollo among the immortals, as the
heathens feign.

At the far end of the village there came one out of a white house and
saluted us. I knew him well, though I had never before seen him so near.
It was Peter McCaskill, the curate of the parish. But, as we of the
strict Covenant did not hear even the Indulged ministers, it was not
likely that we would see much of the curate. Nevertheless I had heard
many tales of his sayings and his humours, for our curate was not as
most others--dull and truculent knaves many of them, according to my
thinking--the scourings of the North. Peter was, on the other hand, a
most humoursome varlet and excellent company on a wet day. Sandy and he
used often to take a bottle together when they foregathered at John's in
the Clachan; but even the Bull of Earlstoun could not keep steeks