Ian had come to him like a gift from the blue.
Ian dismounted, and they watched Fatima disappear into her stall.
"Come now and see the house." The house was large and cumbered with furniture too much and too rich for the Scotch countryside.

Ian's room had a great, rich bed and a dressing-table that drew from Alexander a whistle, contemplative and scornful.

But there were other matters besides luxury of couch and toilet.

Slung against the wall appeared a fine carbine, the pistols and sword of Ian's father, and a wonderful long, twisted, and damascened knife or dirk--creese, Ian called it--that had come in some trading-ship of his uncle's.

And he had books in a small closet room, and a picture that the two stood before.
"Where did you get it ?" "There was an Italian who owed my uncle a debt.