Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series - 1819.djvu/303

Rh to know by whom they are to be explained to us?'" [sic]

M'Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great modesty, and, at the same time, with spirit, that young lord said, "he wished what he was about to propose had come from some person of better known, and more established character. Since, however, it lay with him to be spokesman, he had to state to the chiefs assembled, that those who wished to throw off the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to wreath round their necks, had not a moment to lose. The Covenanters," he said, "after having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having extorted from him every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which they thought proper to exact—after their chiefs had been loaded with dignities and favours—after having publicly declared, when his Majesty, after a gracious visit to the land of his nativity, was upon his return to England, that he returned a con-