Yet he was the same gracious and engaging figure, carrying on his face the changeless bloom of youth, though now thirty-six years of age. He was in the handsome uniform of his regiment, completed by a polished and gleaming breastplate over which his neckerchief of white lace streamed, while his face looked out from the wealth of brown hair which fell over his shoulders. His left hand rested on his sword, and Jean marked the refinement and delicacy of his right hand, which was ungloved, as if for salutation. The day had been cloudy, and the hall, with its stone floor, high roof, oaken furniture, and walls covered by dark tapestry, was full of gloom, only partially relieved by the firelight from the wide, open hearth. While Claverhouse was coming up the stairs to the sound of his spurs and the striking of his sword against the wall, the sun came out from behind a cloud, and a ray of light streaming from an opposite window fell upon the doorway as he entered. It lingered but for a moment, and after touching his picturesque figure as with a caress, disappeared, and the eyes of John Graham and Jean Cochrane met.
They were the opposite of each other: he slight and graceful, she tall and strong; he dark and rich of complexion, with hazel eye, she fair and golden, with eyes of gray-blue; he a born and convinced Cavalier, and she a born and professed Covenanter; he a kinsman of the great marquis whom the Covenanters beheaded, and she on her mother's side the daughter of a house which hated Montrose and all his works. There was nothing common between them; they stood distant as the east from the west, and yet in that instant their hearts were drawn together. They might never confess their love--there would be a thousand hindrances to give it effect--it was in the last degree unlikely that they could ever marry, but it had come to pass with them as with innumerable lovers, that love was born in an instant.
"I thank you, my lord," said Claverhouse, bowing low to the earl, "for this friendly greeting, and for the invitation you now give to be your guest during my short stay in the district. It is strange that through some ordering of circumstances, to me very disappointing, I have never had the honor of offering to you an assurance of my respect as a good subject of the king, and one whom the king has greatly honored. As you know, my lord, I come and go hastily on the king's business. I only wish, and I judge his Majesty would join in the wish, that my visits to those parts were fewer. One is tempted, preachers tell us, to think well of himself, overmuch indeed, maybe, but I have been wonderfully delivered from the snare of imagining that I am a beloved person in the west of Scotland." As he spoke, a sudden and almost roguish look of humor sprang from his eyes and played across his face. And he smiled pleasantly to Lady Jean, to whom he was now introduced, and whose hand he kissed.