"Our number was the 26th—the old Cameronian Regiment—so we were near each other, you see, comrade."
"Nearer than you would quite like, mayhap," said Wooden-leg, with another grin and a dreadful oath.
"And you have served in Germany?" asked Ewen.
"Germany—aye, and marched over every foot of it, from Hanover to Hell, and back again. I have fought in Flanders, too."
"I wish you had come a wee while sooner," said Ewen gravely, for this discourse startled his sense of propriety.
"Sooner," snarled this shocking old fellow, who must have belonged to that army, "which swore so terribly in Flanders," as good Uncle Toby says; "sooner—for what?"
"To have heard me read a chapter, and to have joined us in prayer."
"Prayers be d—ned!" cried the other, with a shout of laughter, and a face expressive of fiendish mockery, as he gave his wooden leg a thundering blow on the floor; "fire and smoke—another glass of grog—and then we'll settle about my billet upstairs."
While getting another dram, which hospitality prevented him from refusing, Ewen scrutinised this strange visitor, whose aspect and attire were very remarkable; but wholly careless of what any one thought, he sat by the hearth, wringing his wet wig, and drying it at the fire.
He was a little man, of a spare, but strong and active figure, which indicated great age; his face resembled that of a rat; behind it hung a long queue that waved about like a pendulum when he moved his head, which was quite bald, and smooth as a cricket-ball, save where a long and livid scar—evidently a sword cut—traversed it. This was visible while he sat drying his wig; but as that process was somewhat protracted, he uttered an oath, and thrust his cocked hat on one side of his head, and very much over his left eye, which was covered by a patch. This head-dress was the old military triple-cocked hat, bound with yellow braid, and having on one side the hideous black leather cockade of the House of Hanover, now happily disused in the British army, and retained as a badge of service by liverymen alone. His attire was an old threadbare red coat, faced with yellow, having square tails and deep cuffs, with braided holes; he wore knee-breeches on his spindle shanks, one of which terminated, as I have said, in a wooden pin; he carried a large knotted stick; and, in outline and aspect, very much resembled, as Ewen thought, Frederick the Great of Prussia, or an old Chelsea pensioner, or the soldiers he had seen delineated in antique prints of the Flemish wars. His solitary orb possessed a most diabolical leer, and, whichever way you turned, it seemed to regard you with the fixed glare of a basilisk.