"
"He takes an ill mode of recommending himself," said Morton, suppressing
his feelings, "to the family at Tillietudlem, by corresponding with our
unhappy party."
"O, this precious Basil will turn cat in pan with any man!" replied
Claverhouse. "He was displeased with the government, because they would
not overturn in his favour a settlement of the late Earl of Torwood, by
which his lordship gave his own estate to his own daughter; he was
displeased with Lady Margaret, because she avowed no desire for his
alliance, and with the pretty Edith, because she did not like his tall
ungainly person. So he held a close correspondence with Burley, and
raised his followers with the purpose of helping him, providing always he
needed no help, that is, if you had beat us yesterday. And now the rascal
pretends he was all the while proposing the King's service, and, for
aught I know, the council will receive his pretext for current coin, for
he knows how to make friends among them--and a dozen scores of poor
vagabond fanatics will be shot, or hanged, while this cunning scoundrel
lies hid under the double cloak of loyalty, well-lined with the fox-fur
of hypocrisy."
With conversation on this and other matters they beguiled the way,
Claverhouse all the while speaking with great frankness to Morton, and
treating him rather as a friend and companion than as a prisoner; so
that, however uncertain of his fate, the hours he passed in the company
of this remarkable man were so much lightened by the varied play of his
imagination, and the depth of his knowledge of human nature, that since
the period of his becoming a prisoner of war, which relieved him at once
from the cares of his doubtful and dangerous station among the
insurgents, and from the consequences of their suspicious resentment, his
hours flowed on less anxiously than at any time since his having
commenced actor in public life.
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