And there was
Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled
locks streaming down over his laced buff-coat, and with his left hand
always on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound that the silver
bullet had made. He sat apart from them all, and looked at them with a
melancholy, haughty countenance; while the rest hallooed and sang and
laughed, that the room rang. But their smiles were fearfully contorted
from time to time; and their laughter passed into such wild sounds as
made my gudesire's very nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow in his
banes.
They that waited at the table were just the wicked serving-men and
troopers that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. There
was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that helped to take Argyle; and the
bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's Rattlebag; and the wicked
guardsmen in their laced coats; and the savage Highland Amorites, that
shed blood like water; and mony a proud serving-man, haughty of heart
and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making them wickeder than
they would be; grinding the poor to powder when the rich had broken them
to fragments.
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