The stranger searched us with those great black eagle-eyes, but shook his head at Alec Gordon's Gaelic, and muttered something that fetched a joyful cry from Ruth, for it was in the French tongue.
"You are a Frenchman?" she inquired quickly, pushing to my side. The stranger glanced at us, then his great figure quivered as a tree shakes beneath the ax. I could have sworn that a tinge of red leaped into his pale cheeks and that he was gazing at the golden brooch which once more held Ruth's cloak, but he replied slowly and calmly in a musical voice:
"I speak French, mademoiselle, though I may not claim to belong to that nation."
"Who are you?" asked Ruth, "and what are you doing in that little boat?"
"As to my name, that matters not," he replied with a bow that could only have been learned in courts. "I was sailing to the west, and if I might thank your company for saving me from a leaky and all but disabled craft, I would fain do so through you."
Ruth put his words into our own tongue, somewhat disconcerted at his courteous aloofness, whereat Alec Gordon rubbed his chin, and bade us salute him courteously.
"Tell the man that he must e'en go to the colonies with us," he said, knitting his gray eyebrows. "If he will not tell his name, we care little. Ask him of his religion."
And so Ruth did. But at the question the old man straightened up and a flash of fire leaped into his wondrous eyes.
"Who are you that dare to question me?" he replied sternly and proudly. "As to my religion, that is my own affair. May I ask your name, mistress?"
"We are of Scotland, of the Covenant," she returned simply, giving her name. He frowned as if in perplexity. "Fear not," smiled the little maid, mistaking his attitude. "You are with friends, old man, and if you be not a Papist your religion matters not."