As the Queen returned his
salutation she became deadly pale, but instantly recovered herself by
dint of strong and sudden resolution, just as the noble, whose
appearance seemed to excite such emotions in her bosom, entered the
apartment in company with George Douglas, the youngest son of the
Knight of Lochleven, who, during the absence of his father and
brethren, acted as Seneschal of the Castle, under the direction of the
elder Lady Lochleven, his father's mother.
Chapter the Twenty-Second.
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hand I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
RICHARD II.
Lord Ruthven had the look and bearing which became a soldier and a
statesman, and the martial cast of his form and features procured him
the popular epithet of Greysteil, by which he was distinguished by his
intimates, after the hero of a metrical romance then generally known.
His dress, which was a buff-coat embroidered, had a half-military
character, but exhibited nothing of the sordid negligence which
distinguished that of Lindesay. But the son of an ill-fated sire, and
the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his look that
cast of inauspicious melancholy, by which the physiognomists of that
time pretended to distinguish those who were predestined to a violent
and unhappy death.
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