Claverhouse was splendidly attired; his coat was of white velvet, pinked with scarlet silk and laced with gold; over his breast spread a cravat of the richest lace, and on that fell the heavy dark ringlets of his military wig. Near him sat Sir Thomas Dalyel, colonel of the Scots grey dragoons. This fierce soldier was in the eightieth year of his age; he was perfectly bald, and a lofty forehead towered above his keen grey eyes, that shone brighter than his polished gorget in the light of the candelabrum. To his stern features a noble and dignified aspect was imparted by a long white beard, that flowed over his plain buff coat, reaching to the buckle of his sword-belt. There was a very striking and antique expression in the fine face of the aged and detested 'persecutor,' that never failed to impress beholders with respect and awe.
There are but two others to describe, and these are of some importance to our history.
Swinton, of Mersington, a law lord, who was never known to have been perfectly sober since the Restoration, and whose meagre body, nutcracker jaws, bleared eyes, and fantastic visage, contrasted so strongly with the upright and square form of the venerable cavalier on his right, and the dignified Randal, Lord Clermistonlee, who sat on his left.
A renegade Covenanter, a profligate, and debauched roué, steeped to the lips in cruelty, tyranny, and vice, the latter, after having squandered away a noble patrimony and the dowry of his unfortunate wife, still maintained his career of excess by gifts from the fines, extortions, and confiscations, made by the Council on every pretence, or without pretence at all. He was forty years of age, possessing a noble form, and a face still eminently handsome, though marked by dissipation; it was slightly disfigured by a sword cut, and, notwithstanding its beauty of contour, when clouded by chagrin and ferocity, and flushed by wine, it seemed that of a very ruffian, and now was no way improved by his ample wig and cravat being quite awry. His dark vindictive eyes were sternly fixed on Walter, who, from that moment, knew him to be his enemy. Clermistonlee, who was not a man to have his purposes crossed by any mortal consideration, had long marked out fair Lilian Napier as a new victim to be run-down and captured. Her beauty had inflamed his senses, her ample possessions his cupidity--it was enough; his wrath, and perhaps his jealousy, were kindled against the young man by whose agency she had found concealment, after he thought all was _en train_ by his accusing the Baroness of Bruntisfield to the Council, and procuring a warrant of search and arrest for inter-communed persons at her Manor of the Wrytes-house. His brows were contracted until they formed one dark arch across his forehead; one hand was clenched upon the table, and the other on the embossed hilt of his long rapier, which rested against his left shoulder, and there was no mistaking the glance of hostility and scrutiny he bent upon the prisoner. The other members of the Council were all highly excited by the revelations recently extracted from Mr. Ichabod Bummel (by dint of hammer and screw), concerning the intrigues of the whigs with the Prince of Orange. The letters of the exiled Baron of Polwarth, and of Mynheer Fagel, the Great Pensionary of Holland, were lying before the Lord Chancellor, who played thoughtfully with the tassels of his rapier, while his secretaries wrote furiously in certain closely-written folios. Several clerks, macers, and other underlings who loitered in the background, were now ordered to withdraw.