第48章 A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.(41)

To make this communication the more intelligible,the doughty Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir Duncan Campbell's packet,desiring,as well as he could,by signs,that it should be delivered into the Marquis's own hand.His guide nodded,and withdrew.

The Captain was left about half an hour in this place,to endure with indifference,or return with scorn,the inquisitive,and,at the same time,the inimical glances of the armed Gael,to whom his exterior and equipage were as much subject of curiosity,as his person and country seemed matter of dislike.All this he bore with military nonchalance,until,at the expiration of the above period,a person dressed in black velvet,and wearing a gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh,but who was,in fact,steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle,entered the apartment,and invited,with solemn gravity,the Captain to follow him to his master's presence.

The suite of apartments through which he passed,were filled with attendants or visitors of various descriptions,disposed,perhaps,with some ostentation,in order to impress the envoy of Montrose with an idea of the superior power and magnificence belonging to the rival house of Argyle.One ante-room was filled with lacqueys,arrayed in brown and yellow,the colours of the family,who,ranged in double file,gazed in silence upon Captain Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks.Another was occupied by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches,who were amusing themselves with chess,backgammon,and other games,which they scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger.

A third was filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers,who seemed also in attendance;and,lastly,the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself showed him attended by a levee which marked his high importance.

This apartment,the folding doors of which were opened for the reception of Captain Dalgetty,was a long gallery,decorated with tapestry and family portraits,and having a vaulted ceiling of open wood-work,the extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded.The gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements,divided by heavy shafts,and filled with painted glass,where the sunbeams glimmered dimly through boars'-heads,and galleys,and batons,and swords,armorial bearings of the powerful house of Argyle,and emblems of the high hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland,and Master of the Royal Household,which they long enjoyed.At the upper end of this magnificent gallery stood the Marquis himself,the centre of a splendid circle of Highland and Lowland gentlemen,all richly dressed,among whom were two or three of the clergy,called in,perhaps,to be witnesses of his lordship's zeal for the Covenant.

The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period,which Vandyke has so often painted,but his habit was sober and uniform in colour,and rather rich than gay.His dark complexion,furrowed forehead,and downcast look,gave him the appearance of one frequently engaged in the consideration of important affairs,and who has acquired,by long habit,an air of gravity and mystery,which he cannot shake off even where there is nothing to be concealed.The cast with his eyes,which had procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie Grumach (or the grim),was less perceptible when he looked downward,which perhaps was one cause of his having adopted that habit.

In person,he was tall and thin,but not without that dignity of deportment and manners,which became his high rank.Something there was cold in his address,and sinister in his look,although he spoke and behaved with the usual grace of a man of such quality.He was adored by his own clan,whose advancement he had greatly studied,although he was in proportion disliked by the Highlanders of other septs,some of whom he had already stripped of their possessions,while others conceived themselves in danger from his future schemes,and all dreaded the height to which he was elevated.

We have already noticed,that in displaying himself amidst his councillors,his officers of the household,and his train of vassals,allies,and dependents,the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make an impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty.But that doughty person had fought his way,in one department or another,through the greater part of the Thirty Years'War in Germany,a period when a brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes.The King of Sweden,and,after his example,even the haughty Princes of the Empire,had found themselves fain,frequently to compound with their dignity,and silence,when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of their soldiers,by admitting them to unusual privileges and familiarity.Captain Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast,that he had sate with princes at feasts made for monarchs,and therefore was not a person to be brow-beat even by the dignity which surrounded M'Callum More.Indeed,he was naturally by no means the most modest man in the world,but,on the contrary,had so good an opinion of himself,that into whatever company he chanced to be thrown,he was always proportionally elevated in his own conceit;so that he felt as much at ease in the most exalted society as among his own ordinary companions.In this high opinion of his own rank,he was greatly fortified by his ideas of the military profession,which,in his phrase,made a valiant cavalier a camarade to an emperor.