"
"Macbeth!" I repeated--"Macbeth!"
"Ay," he said, "it was his seat while yet a simple soldier--flocks and
flocks of them, wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, crying
and calling."
I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And Duncan," I said....
He eyed me with immense pleasure, and nodded with brilliant eyes on
mine.
"What looking man was he?" I said at last as carelessly as I dared.
"... The King, you mean,--of Scotland."
He magnanimously ignored my confusion, and paused to build his
sentence.
"'Duncan'?" he said. "The question calls him straight to mind. A
lean-locked, womanish countenance; sickly, yet never sick; timid, yet
most obdurate; more sly than politic. An _ignis fatuus_, sir, in a
world of soldiers." His eye wandered.... "'Twas a marvellous sanative
air, crisp and pure; but for him, one draught and outer darkness. I
myself viewed his royal entry from the gallery--pacing urbane to
slaughter; and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, sir, do you sigh to
see the king?' cried one softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord,' I
answered to the instant, 'at sight of a monarch even Duncan's match!'"
He looked his wildest astonishment at me.
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