As I told him my story I had feared that when he heard it he would have nothing more to do with me: but I had misjudged his charity. Suddenly he held his hand out to me, saying: "Providence has cast us together, mayhap that your soul may be saved, and mine kept from withering. I am ready to be your friend if you will be mine." I took his outstretched hand. I had longed for his friendship for my own selfish ends, and he, who had nothing to gain from my friendship, offered me his freely. The night had worn thin as we talked, and now in the growing light I could see my companion more clearly. He seemed a man well past middle life; before long I was to learn that he was more than three score years and ten, but neither at this moment nor later should I have imagined it. He was straight as a ramrod, spare of body and pallid of face, save where on his high cheek-bones the moorland wind and the rays of the summer sun had burned him brown. The hair of his head was black, streaked here and there by a few scanty threads of silver. His forehead was broad and high, his nose was well-formed and somewhat aquiline, and his brown eyes were full of light. It was to his eyes and to his mouth, around which there seemed to lurk some wistful playfulness, that his face owed its attraction. He was without doubt a handsome man--I have rarely seen a handsomer. As I peered into his face and looked him up and down, somewhat rudely I fear, he was studying me with care. My woebegone appearance seemed to amuse him, for when his scrutiny was over he said: "Ye’re no’ ill-faured: but I’m thinking Lag would be ill-pleased if he saw one of his dragoons in sic a mess." "I trust he won’t," I said with fervour, and my companion laughed heartily. He laid a hand upon my arm, and with a twinkle in his eye said: "The old Book says: ’If thine enemy hunger, feed him.’ Have you anything to eat?" I showed him what I had and invited him to help himself, as I picked up my tunic and slipped it on. "No, no," he replied, "I am better provided than you. The Lord that sent the ravens to Elijah has spread for me a table in the wilderness and my cup runneth over. Come with me and let us break our fast together. They do say that to eat a man’s salt thirls another to him as a friend. I have no salt to offer you, but"--and he smiled--"I have plenty of mutton ham, and I am thinking you will find that salt enough." The light was rapidly flooding the hill-side as we took our way round to his side of the loch. "Bide here a minute," he said, as he left me beside a granite boulder.