irritability and annoyance of their present situation. Fife had
stretched himself on two chairs, and leaning his elbows on the broad
shelf formed by the small casement, cast many wistful glances on the
street below, through which richly-attired gallants, both on foot and
horseback, were continually passing. He was one of those frivolous
little minds with whom the present is all in all, caring little for the
past, and still less for the future. It was no marvel, therefore, that
he preferred the utter abandonment of his distracted country for the
luxury and ease attending the court and camp of Edward, to the great
dangers and little recompense attending the toils and struggles of a
patriot. The only emotion of any weight with him was the remembrance of
and desire of avenging petty injuries, fancying and aggravating them
when, in fact, none was intended.

Very different was the character of the Earl of Buchan; morose, fierce,
his natural hardness of disposition unsoftened by one whisper of
chivalry, although educated in the best school of knighthood, and
continually the follower of King Edward, he adhered to him first, simply
because his estates in England were far more to his taste than those in
Scotland, towards which he felt no filial tie; and soon after his
marriage, repugnance to his high-minded and richly-gifted countess,
which ever seemed a reproach and slur upon himself, kept him still more
aloof, satisfied that the close retirement in which she lived, the
desert and rugged situation of his castle, would effectually debar her
from using that influence he knew she possessed, and keep her wholly and
solely his own; a strange kind of feeling, when, in reality, the wide
contrast between them made her an object of dislike, only to be
accounted for by the fact that a dark, suspicious, jealous temper was
ever at work within him.