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 honor'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 gullyhole 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 honor kens the country hereawa then," said Spiggot with surprise.

"Of old, perhaps, I knew it as well as thee."

The gudeman of the _Thane_ scrutinized the traveller's face keenly, but
failed to recognize 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 plaguy pitfall, I warrant."

"Assuredly, your honor, 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.

"Nay, I have a better travelling name than that; but say to this
gentleman that the Major of Marshal Orkney's D