"A million of thanks—you will choose time and place for me."
"Say, to-morrow, at sunrise; be thou at the Standing-stone of Sauchope; 'tis a tall, rough block, in the fields near the Castle of Balcomie, and doubt not but Sir William will meet you there."
"Thanks, thanks," again said the Frenchman, pressing the hand of the Major, who, apparently delighted at the prospect of witnessing such an encounter between the two most renowned swordsmen in Europe, drank off his stoup of wine, muffled himself in his rocquelaure, and with his little cocked hat stuck jauntily on one side of the Ramillie wig, left the apartment, and demanded his horse and the reckoning.
"Then your honor will be fule hardy, and tempt Providence," said the landlord.
"Nay, gudeman, but you cannot tempt me to stay just now. I ride only through the town to Balcomie, and will return anon. The Hopetoun family are there, I believe?"
"Yes; but saving my Lady at the preachings, we see little o' them; for Sir William has bidden at Edinburgh, or elsewhere, since his English gold coft the auld tower from the Balcomies of that ilk, the year before the weary union, devil mend it!"
"Amen, say I: and what callest thou English gold?"
"The doolfu' compensation, o' whilk men say he had his share."
"Man, thou liest, and they who say so lie! for to the last moment his voice was raised against that traitorous measure of Queensbury and Stair, and now every energy of his soul is bent to its undoing!" replied the Major, fiercely, as he put spurs to his horse and rode rapidly down the dark, and then grassy, street, at the end of which the clank of his horse's hoofs died away, as he diverged upon the open ground that lay northward of the town, and by which he had to approach the tower of Balcomie.
The Frenchman remained long buried in thought, and as he sipped his wine, gazed dreamily on the changing embers that glowed on the hearth, and cast a warm light on the blue delft lining of the fireplace. The reminiscences of the war in Flanders had called up many a sad and many a bitter recollection.