her,
and marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore
ample proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan entered, conducting his
lady, a tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning. They
were followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and
wearing a black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that
it could scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an
undue predominance in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion was
universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads,
prick-eared curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers
liberally bestowed on their political enemies.

Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his
technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it
could scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater
share. The churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a
glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.

The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous persons,
cared very little either for those of the lady or of the divine, but
bent his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of beef, which smoked
at the nether end of the table. But the onslaught, as he would have
termed it, was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace,
betwixt every section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as
he might have done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as
often resigned them unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced
another clause of his benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency,
though he was supposed rather to have joined the Covenanters out of
devotion to his chief, than real respect for the cause either of liberty
or of Presbytery. His lady alone attended to the blessing, with symptoms
of deep acquiescence.

The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was none of
Captain Dalgetty's habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could
be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the
lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low,
and indistinctly.

But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by liquors
of various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had, himself, the same
weighty reasons for silence, and began to tire of that of the rest
of the company. He commenced a new attack upon his landlord, upon the
former ground.