The Marquis, besides his dishevelment, was looking very lean and pale. I am wrong if I had not before me a man who had not slept a sound night’s sleep in his naked bed since the point of war beat under his castle window. “Your arm, my lord “--I said in a pause of his conversation with Mlver, “is it a fashious injury? You look off your ordinary.” “I do,” he said. “I daresay I do, and I wish to God it was only this raxed arm that was the worst of my ailment.” His face burned up red in the candle-light, his nostrils swelled, and he rose in his chair. A small table was between us. He put his uninjured hand on it to steady himself, and leaned over to me to make his words more weighty for my ear. “Do you know,” he added, “I’m Archibald, Marquis of Argile, and under the cope and canopy of heaven this January night there’s not a creature of God’s making more down in the heart and degraded than I? If the humblest servant in my house pointed a scornful finger at me and cried ‘Coward,’ I would bow my head. Ay, ay! it’s good of you, sir, to shake a dissenting head; but I’m a chief discredited. I know it, man. I see it in the faces about me. I saw it at Rosneath, when my very gardener fumbled, and refused to touch his bonnet when I left. I saw it to-night at my own table, when the company talked of what they should do, and what my men should do, and said never a word of what was to be expected of MacCailein Mor.” “I think, my lord,” I cried “that you’re exaggerating a very small affair.” “Small affair!” he said (and he wetted his lips with his tongue before the words came). “Small affair! Hell’s flame! is there anything smaller than the self-esteem of a man who by some infernal quirk of his nature turns his back on his most manifest duty--leaves the blood of his blood and the skin of his skin to perish for want of his guidance and encouragement, and wakens at morning to find it no black nightmare but the horrible fact? Answer me that, Elrigmore!” “Tut, tut,” said M’Iver, pouring his cousin a glass; “you’re in the vapours, and need a good night’s sleep. There’s no one in Argile dare question your spirit, whatever they may think of your policy.” Argile relapsed into his chair, and looked with a pitiful eye at his kinsman. “My good Iain,” he said, “do you ken the old Lochow wife’s story of the two daws? ‘Thou didst well,’ said the one, ‘though thy wings _are_ cut; thou didst well to do as I told thee.’ I’m not blaming you; you are a brave man of your own hands, and a middling honest man too, as honesty goes among mercenaries; but your tongue’s plausible, plausible, and you are the devil’s counsellor to any other man who slackens his will by so much as a finger-length.” M’Iver took on a set stern jaw, and looked his chief very dourly in the face.