cteristic
composure, "your own precious life, which you desire to keep in
safeguard." Then, turning with a graceful gesture to some officers who
had been passing and been arrested by the altercation, Claverhouse
said with an air of careless languor: "May I have the strange
privilege never given me before, and perhaps never to be mine
again, of introducing you, by his leave or without it, to a Scot
whom no one can deny is by birth a gentleman, and whom no one can
deny now is also a coward--Lieutenant-Colonel MacKay, of the Prince's
Scots Brigade."

CHAPTER IV

A CHANGE OF MASTERS

When his first fierce heat cooled, and Claverhouse had time for
reflection, he was by no means so well satisfied with himself as he
had imagined he would be in the foresight of such a scene. For one
thing he had shown the soreness of his heart in not getting promotion,
and had betrayed a watchful suspiciousness, which was hardly included
in a chivalrous character. He had gone out of his way to insult a
fellow-Scot, and a fellow-officer who had never pretended to be his
friend, and who was in no way bound to advance his interest, because,
to put it the worst, MacKay had secured his own promotion and not that
of Claverhouse. As regards MacKay's courage, it had been proved on
many occasions, and to call him a coward was only a childish offence,
as if one flung mud upon a passer-by. When Claverhouse reviewed his
conduct, and no man was more candid in self-judgment, he confessed to
himself that he had played an undignified part, and was bitterly
chagrined. The encounter, of course, buzzed through the camp, and
every man gave his judgment, many justifying Captain Graham, and
declaring that he had shown himself a man of mettle--they were the
younger and cruder minds--many censuring him for his insolent ambition
and speaking of him as a brawling bravo--they were some of the staid
and stronger minds. His friends, he noticed, avoided the subject and
left him to open it if he pleased, but he gathered beforehand that he
would not receive much sympathy from that figure of common-sense
Carlton, nor that matter-of-fact soldier Rooke, and that the
ex-Puritan Venner would only make the incident a subject of satirical
moralizing. With another disposition than that which Providence had
been pleased to give John Graham, the condemnation of his better
judgment, confirmed by the judgment of sound men, would have led him
to the manly step of an apology w