They talked with each other aside, looked at a paper or two which the clerk selected from the contents of a huge black pocket-book, and seemed, under the influence of fear and uncertainty, totally at a loss what line of conduct to adopt.
Herries made a different, and far more interesting figure.

However little Peter Peebles might resemble the angel Ithuriel, the appearance of Herries, his high and scornful demeanour, vexed at what seemed detection yet fearless of the consequences, and regarding the whispering magistrate and his clerk with looks in which contempt predominated over anger or anxiety, bore, in my opinion, no slight resemblance to the regal port And faded splendour wan with which the poet has invested the detected King of the powers of the air.
As he glanced round, with a look which he had endeavoured to compose to haughty indifference, his eye encountered mine, and, I thought, at the first glance sank beneath it.

But he instantly rallied his natural spirit, and returned me one of those extraordinary looks, by which he could contort so strangely the wrinkles on his forehead.

I started; but, angry at myself for my pusillanimity, I answered him by a look of the same kind, and catching the reflection of my countenance in a large antique mirror which stood before me, I started again at the real or imaginary resemblance which my countenance, at that moment, bore to that of Herries.

Surely my fate is somehow strangely interwoven with that of this mysterious individual.