The first rider was indeed the Master of Rohallion, who had arrived with a punctuality that was more military than personal, as the Honourable Cosmo Crawford was somewhat erratic, and, as the Guards Club said significantly, "nocturnal," in his habits; and here it may be well to inform the English reader, that his haughty title of MASTER he obtained in right of his father being a Scottish baron, the custom being older than the reign of James IV. In ancient times, the heirs apparent of Scottish nobles were not discriminated according to their father's rank by the titles of marquis, viscount, earl, or lord, but were simply styled as the Masters of Marischal, Glencairn, Glammis, Lindesay, Rohallion, and so forth, a custom existing in Scotland to the present day, in most houses, under ducal rank. Cosmo Crawford was tall and strongly built, but handsome and graceful, with a cold and stately manner, that sometimes degenerated into banter, but seldom perfect suavity, and he had a somewhat cruel and sinister grey eye. The pupils of the latter feature had a peculiarity worth noticing. They possessed the power of shrinking and dilating like those of a cat. His hair was curly and worn in the Prince Regent's profusion, but without powder, that being already considered almost Gothic, or decidedly behind the age, the curls on one side being so arranged as to conceal a very palpable sword-cut. Like that of his valet, to whom he flung his riding-whip, hat, and coat, his garments were all of the latest Bond Street cut, and he lounged towards the yellow-damask drawing-room as coolly and leisurely as if he had only left it two hours instead of two years ago, according but a cold stare to the warm smile and respectful salute of poor old Jack Andrews, who, throwing open the door, announced, "The Master, my Lord!" "Welcome home, boy--God bless you!" shouted the hearty old lord, springing towards him; but Lady Rohallion anticipated him, and received Cosmo in her arms first. "Dear mother, glad to see you," said he, kissing her forehead; "father, how well, how jolly and hale you look!" "Hale," repeated the white-haired peer; "don't like to be called hale, it smacks, Cosmo, of breaking up; looking well, only for one's years, and so forth." "And my Lady Rohallion," said Cosmo, kissing his mother's hand, "what shall I say of you? "'With curious arts dim charms revive, And triumph in the bloom of fifty-five.'" "Arts, you rogue," said his father; "it's no art, but the pure breeze from our Carrick hills and from the Firth of Clyde, with perhaps earlier hours at night and in the morning than you keep in London."