He was about to rush forward, when a horseman, the glittering lace on whose bright coloured suit of triple velvet, and waving ostrich feathers that fluttered in his diamond hat-band, formed a strong contrast to the sombre fashions of the time, dashed down the leaf-strewn avenue on a beautiful charger, with the perfumed ringlets of his white peruke dancing in the wind--for white perukes, from a spirit of opposition, were all the rage then, as _black_ had been under the three last princes of the old hereditary line. It was Lord Clermistonlee. "Hollo, fellow!" he cried imperiously, "keep out of my horse's way--dost want thy bones broken!" and giving a keen but casual glance at the dejected wanderer, he spurred onward to the city. Suddenly he reined up so sharply as almost to pull his pawing steed back upon its strained and bending haunches. "'Tis he!" exclaimed the proud lord, as he thought aloud. "By the great father of confusion 'tis he! How could I mistake, though truly, poor devil, these last five years have sadly changed him. But on what fool's errand comes he here? By all the furies, I knew his lachrymose visage in a moment, though the despatches of Dalrymple of Stair, to our Lords of Council, had in some sort prepared me for his return, and for what?--to organize a plot for James's restoration. Poor fool! Infatuated in love as in politics. He believes in the faith of women and the word of Kings; let us see how they will avail him tonight." He smiled scornfully, and twisted the heavy dark mustachios which he still cherished with more than Mahommedan veneration. Alternately sad and bitter thoughts swelled within him as he remembered the joyous revelry of King Charles's days, and the tyranny he could then exercise over all nonconformists, and the hunting and hosting-dragooning and drinking of the Covenanting wars; then came feelings of jealousy and revenge that, as they blazed up in his proud breast, bore all before them.