DAVID GRIERSON,
IN FAVOUR OF
RACHEL GRIERSON,
1776
LADY RAE.
During the time that Oliver Cromwell was in Edinburgh, a lady called one day at his lodgings and solicited an interview. She was closely wrapped up in a large and loose mantle, and deeply veiled. The former, however, did not conceal a shape of singular elegance, nor mar the light and graceful carriage of the wearer. Both were exceedingly striking; and if the veil performed its duty more effectually than the mantle, by completely hiding the countenance of the future Protector's fair visitor, it was only to incite the imagination to invest that countenance with the utmost beauty of which the "human face divine" is susceptible. Nor would such creation of the fancy have surpassed the truth, for the veiled one was indeed "fair to look upon."
On its being announced to Cromwell that a lady desired an interview with him, he, in some surprise, demanded who and what she was. The servant could not tell. She had declined to give her name, or to say what was the purpose of her visit.
The Protector thought for a moment, and as he did so, kept gazing, with a look of abstraction, in the face of his valet. At length—
"Admit her, Porson, admit her," he said. "The Lord sends his own messengers in his own way; and if we deny them, He will deny us."