So spake the old laird of Smitwood, smiling. He was a man of full eighty years of age, but still erect with a kind of soldierly bearing. He was thin and tall, and primly dressed in the fashion of an elder day. The frosty winter of age had come upon him, but in his ruddy cheek and clean-cut face one could see the signs of a hale and vigorous decline. He had greeted us most hospitably, and seemed hugely glad to see Marjory again, whom he had not set eyes on for many a day. We had fallen to supper with keen appetite, for the air of the moors stirs up the sharpest hunger; and now that we had finished we sat around the hall-fire enjoying our few remaining hours of company together. For myself I relished the good fare and the warmth, for Heaven knew when either would be mine again. The high oak-roofed chamber, hung with portraits of Veitches many, was ruddy with fire-light. Especially the picture in front of the chimney by Vandyke, of that Michael Veitch who died at Philiphaugh, was extraordinarily clear and lifelike. Master Veitch looked often toward it; then he took snuff with a great air of deliberation, and spoke in his high, kindly old voice. "My brother seems well to-night, Marjory. I have not seen him look so cheerful for years." (He had acquired during his solitary life the habit of talking to the picture as if it were some living thing.) "I can never forgive the Fleming for making Michael hold his blade in so awkward a fashion. Faith, he would have been little the swordsman he was, if he had ever handled sword like that. I can well remember when I was with him at Etzburg, how he engaged in a corner two Hollanders and a Swiss guard, and beat them back till I came up with him and took one off his hands." "I have heard of that exploit," said I. "You must know that I have just come from the Low Countries, where the names of both of you are still often on men’s lips." The old man seemed well pleased. "Ah," he said, "so you have come from abroad. In what place did you bide, may I enquire?" "In the town of Leyden," said I, "for my aim was no more than to acquire learning at the college there. But I foregathered with many excellent Scots gentlemen from whom I heard the talk of the camp and the state." "Say you so? Then what do you here? Did you return on the single errand of protecting my fair niece? But stay! I am an old man who cares not much for the chatter of the country, but I have heard—or am I wrong?—that you were not of the true party, but leaned to the Whigs?"