CHAPTER XIII.
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years.
BYRON.
We must now leave the lower parties in our historical drama, to attend to the incidents which took place among those of a higher rank and greater importance.
We pass from the hut of an armourer to the council room of a monarch, and resume our story just when, the tumult beneath being settled, the angry chieftains were summoned to the royal presence.

They entered, displeased with and lowering upon each other, each so exclusively filled with his own fancied injuries as to be equally unwilling and unable to attend to reason or argument.

Albany alone, calm and crafty, seemed prepared to use their dissatisfaction for his own purposes, and turn each incident as it should occur to the furtherance of his own indirect ends.
The King's irresolution, although it amounted even to timidity, did not prevent his assuming the exterior bearing becoming his situation.

It was only when hard pressed, as in the preceding scene, that he lost his apparent composure.

In general, he might be driven from his purpose, but seldom from his dignity of manner.