The foreigner, who was supping on a Crail-capon (in other words a broiled haddock) and stoup of Bourdeaux wine, arose at their entrance, and bowed with, an air that was undisguisedly continental. He was a man above six feet, with a long straight nose, over which his dark eyebrows met and formed one unbroken line. He wore a suit of green Genoese velvet, so richly laced that little of the cloth was visible; a full-bottomed wig, and a small corslet of the brightest steel (over which hung the ends of his cravat), as well as a pair of silver-mounted cavalry pistols that lay on the table, together with his unmistakable bearing, decided the Major of Orkney's that the stranger was a brother of the sword. "Fair sir, little introduction is necessary between us, as, I believe, we have both followed the drum in our time," said the Major, shaking the curls of his Ramillie wig with the air of a man who has decided on what he says. "I _have_ served, Monsieur," replied the foreigner, "under Marlborough and Eugene." "Ah! in French Flanders? Landlord--gudeman, harkee; a double stoup of this wine; I have found a comrade to-night--be quick and put my horse to stall, I will not ride hence for an hour or so. What regiment, sir?" "I was first under Grouvestien in the Horse of Driesberg." "Then you were on the left of the second column at Ramillies--on that glorious 12th of May," said the Major, drawing the high-backed chair which the host handed him, and spreading out his legs before the fire, which burned merrily in the basket-grate on the hearth, "and latterly--" "Under Wandenberg." "Ah! an old tyrannical dog." A dark cloud gathered on the stranger's lofty brow. "I belonged to the Earl of Orkney's Grey Dragoons," said the Major; "and remember old Wandenberg making a bold charge in that brilliant onfall when we passed the lines of Monsieur le Mareschal Villars at Pont-a-Vendin, and pushed on to the plains of Lens." "That was before we invested Doway and Fort-Escharpe, where old Albergotti so ably commanded ten thousand well-beaten soldiers." "And then Villars drew off from his position at sunset and encamped on the plain before Arras." "Thou forgettest, comrade, that previously he took up a position in rear of Escharpe." "True; but now I am right into the very melee of those old affairs, and the mind carries one on like a rocket. Your health, sir--by the way, I am still ignorant of your name." "I have such very particular reasons for concealing it in this neighborhood, that--" "Do not think me inquisitive; in these times men should not pry too closely." "Monsieur will pardon me I hope." "No apology is necessary, save from myself, for now my curiosity is thoroughly and most impertinently whetted, to find a Frenchman in this part of the world, here in this out-o'-the-way place, where no one comes to, and no one goes from, on a bleak promontory of the German Sea, the East Neuk of Fife."