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.
The terror which the presence of this nobleman impressed on the
Queen's mind, arose f
