According to the fashion of Queen Anne's courtiers, it was without a collar, to display the long white cravat of point d'Espagne, without cuffs, and edged from top to bottom with broad bars of lace, clasps and buttons of silver the whole length; being compressed at the waist by a very ornamental belt, fastened by a large gold buckle. "Your honour canna think of riding on to-night," urged Boniface; "and if a Crail-capon done just to perfection, and a stoup of the best wine, at least, siccan wine as we get by the east seas, since that vile incorporating Union----" "Vile and damnable! say I," interrupted the stranger. "True for ye, sir," said Spiggot, with a kindling eye; "but if these puir viands can induce ye to partake of the hospitality of my puir hostel, that like our gude burrowtoun is no just what it has been----" "Gudeman, 'tis impossible, for I must ride so soon as I have imbibed thy posset." "As ye please, sir--your honour's will be done. Our guests are now, even as the visits of angels, unco few and far between; and thus, when one comes, we are loath to part with him. There is a deep pitfall, and an ugly gulleyhole where the burn crosses the road at the town-head, and if ye miss the path, the rocks by the beach are steep, and in a night like this----" "Host of mine," laughed the traveller, "I know right well every rood of the way, and by keeping to the left near the Auldlees may avoid both the blackpit and the sea-beach." "Your honour kens the country hereawa, then?" said Spiggot with surprise. "Of old, perhaps, I knew it as well as thee." The gudeman of the Thane scrutinised the traveller's face keenly, but failed to recognise him, and until this moment, he thought that no man in the East Neuk was unknown to him; but here his inspection was at fault. "And hast thou no visitors with thee now, friend host?" he asked of Spiggot. "One only, gude sir, who came here on a brown horse about nightfall. He is an unco' foreign-looking man, but has been asking the way to the castle o' Balcomie." "Ha! and thou didst tell of this plaguey pitfall, I warrant." "Assuredly, your honour, in kindness I did but hint of it." "And thereupon he stayed. Balcomie--indeed! and what manner of man is he?" "By the corslet which he wears under his coat, and the jaunty cock of his beaver, I would say he had been a soldier." "Good again--give him my most humble commendations, and ask him to share thy boasted posset of wine with me." "What name did you say, sir?" "Thou inquisitive varlet, I said no name," replied the gentleman, with a smile. "In these times men do not lightly give their names to each other, when the land is swarming with Jacobite plotters and government spies, disguised Jesuits, and Presbyterian tyrants. I may be the Devil or the Pope, for all thou knowest." "Might ye no be the Pretender?" said Spiggot, with a sour smile.