Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume I)

On a certain sunny afternoon in May, when all the world and his wife were walking or driving in Piccadilly, two figures appeared there who clearly did not belong to the fashionable crowd. Indeed, so unusual was their aspect that many a swift glance, shot from carefully impassive faces, made furtive scrutiny of them as they passed. One of the strangers was an old man who might have been a venerable Scandinavian scald come to life again-a man thick-set and broad-shouldered, with features at once aquiline and massive, and with flowing hair and beard almost silver-white.