"There was many a blank and pale face in Scotland," says Walker, the famous Presbyterian pedlar, "and as the famine waxed sore, wives thought not of their husbands, nor husbands of their wives," and the gloomy superstition and fanatical intolerance of the time added fresh horrors to this ghastly scourge. The famine was not yet at its height; but there was a desolation in the aspect of the land that deeply impressed the mind of the returned exile, and he sighed in unison with the dreary wind as it swept over the blasted muir, shaking down the crisped leaves and acorns of stately old oaks of Drumsheugh. Save the solitary heron, wading as of old in the lake, not a bird was to be seen, not an insect buzzing about the leafless hedges. The air was dense and cold, and all was very still. The country seemed to be wasting like a beautiful woman decaying in consumption. Walter felt that the manners of the people were changed; intense gravity and moroseness, real or affected, were visible in every face, while sad coloured garments, Geneva cloaks, and Dutch fashions were all the rage. Every trace of the smart mustache had disappeared, and with it the slashed doublets, the waving feathers and dashing airs of the gallant cavaliers. Even the sentinels at the palace gates and the portes of the city, might have passed for those before the Town House or _Rasp Haus_ at Amsterdam. The smart steel cap of the old Scottish infantry had now given place to a vast overshadowing beaver looped up on three sides, and the scarlet doublet slashed with blue, and the jacket of spotless buff, to square tailed and voluminous coats of brick-red, with yellow breeches and belts worn saltier-wise. Bitterly the reflection came home to the heart of the poor Cavalier, that "The times were changed, old manners gone, And a _stranger_ filled the Stuarts' throne!" Though confident of succeeding in his diplomacy with the loyal lords and chieftains of the Jacobite faction, he was well aware how arduous and difficult was the task to overthrow two Governments so well arranged, ably constituted and supported, as those of England and Scotland. It had long been the policy of William III. to conciliate domestic enemies, and, in pursuance of it, he had bestowed several lucrative offices on the leaders of the discontented and kirk-party. The Scottish Parliament, which had recently met, received from him an able and cunning letter, replete with flattering and cajoling expressions, which put all the Presbyterian Lords in such excellent humour, that they returned a most dutiful and affectionate address--granted him a supply of six new battalions of infantry, a body of seamen, and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to enable him to carry on his useless wars with new vigour; but though the Parliament was thus obsequious, the people were far from being pleased; and the Jacobites, numerous, enthusiastic, and determined, every where fanned the flames of discord and dissension.