He seemed to be about twenty years of age; of a rather tall and very handsome figure, which his scarlet sleeves, and corslet tapering to the waist, and tightly compressed by a broad buff belt sustaining a plainly-mounted sword and dagger, tended greatly to improve. The cheek-plates of his burgonet, or steel cap, were unclasped, and his dark-brown hair rolled over his polished gorget in the profuse fashion of the time; his pale forehead was thoughtful and intellectual in expression; but the gilt peak of his cap partly concealed it, and cast a shadow over a very prepossessing face of a dark complexion, and somewhat melancholy contour. His dark eye had a soft and pleasing expression, though at times it loured and overcast. The curve of his lips, though gentle, and haughty, and scornful, by turns, was ever indicative of firmness and decision. They were red and full as those of a girl; but short black mustaches, pointed smartly upward, imparted a military aspect to a face such as few could contemplate without interest—especially women. With the manner of one who has early learned to think, and hold communion with himself, his eye sparkled and his cheek flushed as certain ideas occurred to him: anon his animation died away, he sighed deeply, and thus immersed in his own thoughts, continued to pace to and fro, until at the half-opened door of the chamber of dais there appeared the fair face of Lilian Napier—a face so regular in its contour of eyebrow, lip, and nostril, that the brightness of her blue eyes, and the waving of her auburn ringlets, together with a decided piquancy of expression, alone prevented it from being insipid. She was looking cautiously out.
On recognizing her, Fenton bowed, and the girl blushed deeply, as she said hurriedly, and in a low voice,
"O joy! Walter Fenton, is it indeed you? how fortunate! but oh, what a night this has been for us all!"
"Mistress Lilian," said he (the prefix Miss as a title of honour did not become common until the beginning of the next century) "need I say that it has been a night of sorrow and mortification to me? Yet, God wot, what could I do but obey the orders of my superiors?"
"Hush!" she whispered; for at that moment Lady Bruntisfield came forth, pale and agitated, with eyes red from recent weeping.
Tall in form and majestic in bearing, Lady Grizel Napier, as I have said before, was one of those stately matrons who appear to have departed with their hoops and fardingales. In youth, her face had possessed more than ordinary beauty, and now, in extreme old age, it still retained its feminine softness and pleasing expression. Undecided in politics, she was intensely loyal to James; while condemning his government, she railed at the non-conformists and reprobated the severities of the council in the same breath. Like every dame of the olden time, she was a matchless mediciner, and maker of preserves, conserves, physics, and cordials, and, did a vassal's finger but ache, Lady Grizel was consulted forthwith. Like every woman of her time, she was intensely superstitious: she shook her purse when the pale crescent of the new moon rose above the Corstorphine woods; if the salt-foot was overturned, she remembered Judas, trembled, and threw a pinch over her left shoulder; she saw coffins in the fire, letters in the candles, and quaked at deidspales when they guttered in the wind. She listened in fear to the chakymill, or death-watch, which often ticked obstinately for a whole night in the massive posts of her canopied bed. Witches, of course, were a constant source of hatred and annoyance, and, notwithstanding her great faith in the Holy Kirk (and a little in Peden's Prophecies), she had such a wholesome dread of the Prince of darkness, that, according to the ancient usage, a piece of her lands adjoining the Harestane was dedicated to him, under the dubious name of the gudeman's croft, and, in defiance of all the acts against this old superstition (which still exists in remote parts of Scotland), it was allowed to remain a weedy waste, unsown and unemployed. With all this, her manners were high-bred and courtly; her information extensive; and there was in her air a certain indescribable loftiness, which then consciousness of noble birth and long descent inspired, and which failed not to enforce due respect from equals and inferiors.
On her approach, Walter Fenton bowed with an air in which politeness and commiseration were gracefully blended. Her bright-haired kinswoman leant upon her arm, and from time to time stole furtive and timid glances at the volunteer beneath her long eyelashes.
"Young man," said Lady Bruntisfield, "for a soldier, you seem good and gentle. Have you a mother" (her voice faltered) "who is dear to you—a sister whom you love?"
"Nor mother, nor sister, nor kindred have I, madam. Alas! Lady Grizel, I am alone in the world: the first, and perhaps it may be the last, of my race," he added bitterly. "But what would your ladyship with Walter Fenton?"
"Ha! are you one of the Fentons of that Ilk?"