him into the round-house, and I set eyes on him for
the first time, he looked as cool as I did.

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble as a goat; his
face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily
freckled and pitted with the small-pox; his eyes were unusually light
and had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was both engaging and
alarming; and when he took off his great-coat, he laid a pair of fine
silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with
a great sword. His manners, besides, were elegant, and he pledged the
captain handsomely. Altogether I thought of him, at the first sight,
that here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy.

The captain, too, was taking his observations, but rather of the man's
clothes than his person. And to be sure, as soon as he had taken off
the great-coat, he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of a
merchant brig: having a hat with feathers, a red waistcoat, breeches
of black plush, and a blue coat with silver buttons and handsome silver
lace; costly clothes, though somewhat spoiled with the fog and being
slept in.

"I'm vexed, sir, about the boat," says the captain.

"There are some pretty men gone to the bottom," said the stranger, "that
I would rather see on the dry land again than half a score of boats."

"Friends of yours?" said Hoseason.

"You have none such friends in your country," was the reply. "They would
have died for me like dogs."

"Well, sir," said the captain, still watching him, "there are more men
in the world than boats to put them in."

"And that's true, too," cried the other, "and ye seem to be a gentleman
of great penetration."

"I have been in France, sir," says the captain, so that it was plain he
meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them.

"Well, sir," says the other, "and so has many a pretty man, for the
matter of that."

"No doubt, sir" says the captain, "and fine coats."

"Oho!" says the stranger, "is that how the wind sets?" And he laid his
hand quickly on his pistols.

"Don't be hasty," said the captain. "Don't do a mischief before ye
see the need of it. Ye've a French soldier's coat upon your back and a
Scotch tongue in your head, to be sure; but so has many an honest fellow
in these days, and I dare say none the worse of it."

"So?" said the gentleman in the fine coat: "are ye of the honest party?"
(meaning, Was he a Jacobite? for eac