CHAPTER X.

THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR.

To eat cran, pertick, swan, and pliver, And everie fisch that swyms in river; To drink with us the newe fresch wyne, That grew vpon the River Ryne; Fresch fragrant Clarets of France, Of Angiers, and of Orliance, With comforts of grit daintie. DUMBAR TO JAMES V.

It was now the autumn of 1688.

The evil genius of James VII., and the influence of his advisers, were fast hastening him and his House to destruction. His measures for the re-establishment of the Catholic faith, in all its pristine power and ancient grandeur, exasperated the whole nation, and the Episcopalians in the south, and the sourer Presbyterians in the north, joined in one united voice against him.

Many powerful nobles of both kingdoms were in exile. With these, and with the intermeddling Prince of Orange, a close correspondence was maintained by the friends of the intended Revolution. Even the Scottish and English forces, on whose valour and fidelity the unhappy King too much relied, were foes to his religion; and certain obnoxious measures, in his military administration, tended to alienate from his cause all but the most romantic and devoted of his subjects.

It was evident that a great crisis was at hand. The King, in the month of September, sent an express to the Privy Council, requiring them to place the country on the war establishment. The standing army was increased, the militia embodied, the garrisons put in a state of defence, the Highland clans, ever loyal and ever true, were ordered to assemble in arms, and beacons were erected on Arthur's Seat and other mountains, to alarm the country. Similar preparations to repel William of Orange were made by the English government, whose forces, thirty thousand strong, under the Earl of Feversham, were concentrated about London. But James's measures in the south ruined his influence everywhere, and the cheers of the English troops, on the acquittal of the Bishops being known in the camp at Hounslow, proved that he had lost their sympathy for ever, and could rely on their support no more.

The regular forces of Scotland were cantoned in and around the capital, ready at an hour's notice to march for England, a measure which was vigorously and wisely opposed in council by Colin, Earl of Balcarris, the Lord High Treasurer. Malcontents were secretly flocking to Edinburgh from all quarters; and Master Magnus Prince, the sycophantic Provost, with his bench of baillies, sent a dutiful letter to James VII., assuring him "of their most hearty devotion to his service, and being ready with their lives and fortunes to stand by his sacred person upon all occasions, and praying for the continuation of his princely goodness and love towards his ancient city."

The presbyterians conducted themselves with more than their ordinary boldness, and in the streets openly chanted Psalms and _Lillibulero bullen a la_; the Government and its friends were full of anxiety, and remained on the alert. The whigs spoke boldly, and the cavaliers with somewhat less confidence, of the great preparations of the Dutch for the invasion of Great Britain--of the frigates, fireships, transports, horse, foot, and artillery assembled at Nimguen, and of the Scottish and English noblesse who in exile crowded beneath the unfurled banner of the Stadtholder. Thus,

"While great events were on the gale, And each hour brought a varying tale;"

none were more loyal in drinking His Majesty's health in Hugh Blair's best Burgundy, and the Hocheim of the White Horse, than Walter Fenton and his cavalier comrades of the Scots' Musqueteers; none squeezed the orange more emphatically, and none handled so roughly those luckless wights whom they found chaunting _Lillibulero_, and none drained their vast bumpers more earnestly to the undamning and double damning of the pumpkin-headed and twenty-breeched Dutch.

It was the afternoon of a September day; the last detachment of Dunbarton's Foot had marched into Edinburgh, from the famous expedition against the Macdonalds of Keppoch, in attacking whom they had been co-operating with a battalion of the Guards, and the horsemen of the celebrated Captain Crichton, whose memoirs were edited by Dean Swift; and now to enjoy a complete military re-union, all the cavalier officers of the ancient corps sat down to a banquet in the great dining hall of the White Horse Cellar.

The long apartment was lighted by several windows that faced the Calton hill, which towered away to the north and westward, covered with whin and broom, where the fox, the hare, and the weazel yet made their lairs unheeded and unhunted. The hall was spacious, elegant, and hung with arras, and a great painting by Jameson, our Scottish Vandyke, the pupil of Rubens, hung over the yawning fire-place. It was a fanciful representation of the fair Mary, on that favourite white palfrey, which a hundred and fifty years before had given a name to the hostel, when the range of stabling below it had been occupied as a mews of the Scottish kings. Beneath this, hung the battered headpiece and Jedwood axe which Gibbie Runlet had wielded--and wielded well as the king's rebels knew to their cost--in the wars of the glorious Montrose.

The sturdy legs of the old oak beauffet appeared to bend under the load of glittering crystal, shining plate, and various good things piled upon its shelves, while underneath in columns dark and close, were ranged in deep array the flasks of good old wine, from the cool vaults of the White Horse cellar, and covered with the undisturbed dust and cobwebs of years of long repose.

Clad in their rich military dresses, bright steel, and spotless scarlet, glittering with jewels and gold lace, the row of cavalier guests on each side of that long and festive board, presented a very gay and striking appearance, as the setting sun shone full upon them, and caused the whole vista of the dinner table to glitter with sparkling objects, and the curling steam of the smoking banquet.

In a great chair, with high back and stuffed arms, rough with carving and rich with nails and scarlet leather sat the portly master, Gilbert Runlet (that host of immortal memory), with a vast red face, that seemed like the harvest-moon rising at one end of the table; while the great rotund form spreading out below it, a yard in diameter, loomed like a mountain, closing the long perspective of the board.

Gibbie had been for twenty years the most substantial burgess of the Canongate; and as a stanch and irascible Royalist, had long "ruled the roast" at the council board of that ancient burgh. The beau ideal of a jovial host, he laughed and talked, and helped on all sides incessantly, yet never appeared to be behind any one in emptying his own plate or tankard, which were replenished and emptied with wonderful celerity.

But the dinner! A flourish of trumpets announced it; and well it deserved the compliment of such a preliminary. A huge sirloin, which balanced a baron of beef, was undergoing a rapid process of diminution under Gibbie's long carving whinger; six collared pigs, bristling with cloves, and having flowers stuck in their nostrils, stood erect on great platters. Around them were hares, turkies, geese, ducks, and chickens, roasted, stewed, fricasseed, and boiled. There was a vast silver salt-foot at each end, two grand epergnes of flowers and peacocks' feathers, two great salads, two hundred little manchets, venison, hams, salmon, flounders, crabs, and Crail capons,--all placed pell-mell without order of courses, among tarts, trifles, confections, pyramids of jelly and plumbdames, puddings and fruit of every description, disposed in ornamental figures of trees, birds, &c.

But, far above all this wilderness of viands towered a great edifice, representing a fortress; the towers were of pie-crust, with ramparts of wax; the cannon and sentinels were sugar-paste; the bullets were little bon-bons; the moat was filled with wine, and from the keep hung a flag with St. Andrew's silver saltire. This erection elicited great admiration from the guests, by whom it was unanimously named the Castle of Tangier, beneath the towers of which so many of their brave comrades had found a soldier's grave.

The feast proceeded in gallant style, amid unrestrained hilarity and bursts of military merriment. All did justice to the good things before them; while the servants, or ecuyers trenchant, were kept on the alert pouring forth Rhenish, Gascony, Muscadel, port and sherry, and the rich and luscious wine of Frontiniac, as if there had been a conflagration in the stomach of every guest.

On the right of the host sat the regimental minister, the Reverend Doctor Jonadab Joram (who by the courtesy of the Scottish service had the rank of Major), a bluff and jovial personage, whose merry eyes twinkled on each side of a bottle-nose, and who could stride and swagger, drink and play with any man--one who winked knowingly at landladies, kissed their daughters, and, if he chose, could have out-bullied a Mohock. He was brimful of jocularity, which had cost him a duel or two in Flanders, and was known to be "up to" a great many things not very consonant to the dignity of his cloth.

On the left of the host sat the Chevalier Laird of Drumquhasel, a tall, stark, and sunburned soldier, on whose breast sparkled several French orders; and near him was the chirurgeon, who was the very counterpart of the divine, a laughing, bullet-headed, merry-faced little man, about sixty years of age. Like his clerical brother, he was in the habit of averring that he had been broiled at Tangier, half-drowned at Bergen-op-zoom, and wholly frozen in the Zuider Zee; blown up in Flanders, and trod down in Alsace, for he always charged in the line-of-battle, and consequently neglected his professional duties; or, like many sons of the healing god, was wont to introduce its topics at unseasonable times; and he was then, in the style of a lecturer of the old College of Physic at the Cowgate Port, employed in tracing the spinal marrow of a hare, for his own amusement and the edification of Jerry Smith, a gay fellow, with a curly perriwig and thick mustache, the same who afterwards entered the English service and became so famous for his gallantries at Halifax in Yorkshire.

There were present many handsome young sparks, whose first fields had been Sedgemoor in the south, or Muirdykes in the north; and their smooth chins and fair faces contrasted well with those war-worn cavaliers, whose service included the Scottish battles of Dunbar and Inverkeithing, the sack of Dundee, and the fight at Kerbister, and whose sparkling stars and crosses attested the good deeds they had performed under Henri d'Avergne, le Mareschal Turenne, and the great Condé of glorious memory, especially old Drumquhasel.

When the Duc d'Enghien charged the Mareschal de l'Hôpital so successfully that the Spanish infantry, till then deemed the finest in the world, were swept before the victorious French, there was not a chevalier of St. Louis who distinguished himself more than old John of Drumquhasel, who with his own hand cut down the famous Count de Fuentes, for which he was thanked by Monsieur of France at Versailles, and had a chaplet placed upon his head by Mademoiselle la Fleur, the reigning favourite of the time.

Douglas was joyous and gay; but Walter was somewhat reserved and abstracted; he foresaw that this great military reunion would interfere with his evening visit to the Napiers, and he was bored by the gaiety of the young, as much as by the prosing of the older soldiers around him.

"Hector Gavin, harkee," said the divine to a tall officer whose looped doublet and black corslet announced him Lieutenant of the Grenadiers, a species of force introduced about ten years before,--"Master Gibbie, our right honourable host informs me that there are some excellent pigeons in the casemates of that same castle of Tangier before you; and if you will so far favour me----"

"With pleasure, Joram. By my faith, I should know something of the mode of attacking the place! It wants the lower cavalier, with its thirty brass culverins, that swept the gorge of that avant-fosse. Ha! I have breached the upper parapet," said Gavin laughing, as he cut down the pastry.

"Ay, Hector, odsbodikins!" replied the divine. "I saw thee push on at the head of our pikemen, like a true Scottish cavalier, when the old Tangier regiment of England were thrown into confusion by the shower of petards. Demme! Hector, the recollection of that hot work makes me thirsty as dry sand."

"Is the sack tankard empty, Doctor?" asked Douglas.

"Drained to the lowest peg, laird."

"Tush, Joram; mayest thou be turned into a gaping oyster, as the play-book saith, and drink nothing but salt water all the days of thy life! You were talking of a shower of petards, Doctor: I remember when we marched with Condé into Tranche Compte with displayed banners, we beleaguered the castle of a certain seigneur, which resembled one of our Scottish peel-houses; and therein a brave cavalier of Spain commanded a corps of tall Irish pikemen. For three days they abode the salvoes of the demi-cannon, which battered their outer ravelins, and breached the great barbican. I led a hundred of our Scottish lads and sixteen German reformadoes to the assault, with pike and pistol bent. By my faith, Doctor, the loons fought like so many peers of Charlemagne. Each man flung a petard as we advanced. Crush me! a shower of petards. Pho! my fellows were blown to ribbons--their very entrails were twisted round the trees and ramparts; but Condé took the place at push of pike--put all the Irishry to the sword, and placed in the châtelet a garrison of the Compté de Bulliones Scottish pikemen, and the good old Regiment de Picardie."

"Doctor Joram," said Walter, "I have heard much of your famous duel with a chevalier of that regiment, but never the particulars. About some fair damoiselle was it not?"

"You were never more mistaken in your life, Master Fenton. We measured swords in the purest spirit of _esprit du corps_. I will tell you how it was. We were with the army that invested Doesburg, where the famous Adjutant Martinet was killed by a cannon-ball within a pike's length of me. We had long been at feud with that Regiment de Picardie, anent certain points of precedence and posts of honour, which was a state of matters not to be borne by us, who represent les Gardes-Ecossais of the sainted Louis, while the Battalion de Picardie was but one of the mere _vieux corps_ of Charles the Ninth's time. The Sieur de Guichet, their captain-lieutenant, and I came to high words about it, in a certain house ---- of ---- of ----."

"Ay, ay, Doctor, we all know the place," said two or three cavaliers, amid loud laughter. "Madame Papillotes' little château on the banks of the Issel: she always accompanied the army. A nice billet for your reverence truly."

"De Guichet quarrelled with me about precedence and right of _entrée_, though, as Chaplain of the Scots Royals, in the line of battle I rode next to Dunbarton himself. 'Tush, monsieur,' said I, laying hand on my sword, 'remember I am a Scottish cavalier, and Chaplain to the Guards of Pontius Pilate.' '_Nombril de Beelzebub!_' said the irreverend rascal, 'I believe you rightly name yourselves the Guards of Monseigneur Pilate, for had the old _routiers_ of the Regiment de Picardie kept guard on the Holy Sepulchre, they would not have slept on their posts as the Scots Musqueteers must have done.' 'This to a clergyman?' I exclaimed. 'Have at thee, d----d runnion!' and attacking him, sword in hand, I disarmed him at the third pass; and ever afterwards Messieurs the Regiment de Picardie cocked their beavers the other way when passing us in the breach or on the Boulevards."

"'Tis a brave old band," said Gavin of that ilk. "I saw them on the plains of Nordlingien. You remember how gallantly they repulsed a charge of the Count de Merci's steel-clad Lancers. We had just formed square, with Sweyns' feathers in front, to repel their onfall, when Monsieur de Martinet (whom all the world knows of), Adjutant of the Regiment du Roi, galloped up, rapier in hand, with an order from Monseigneur le Duc d'Enghien to form line in battalion with the horse and dragoons on the wings; but my Lord of Dunbarton was too old a soldier to hear him amid the roar of such a battle; and luckily a cannon-ball took Martinet's charger in the crupper, on which he scrambled away. But only conceive, sirs, to form line in face of a horse brigade! By my sooth, wild Hielandmen would have known better, and I marvel that Monseigneur d'Enghien and Monsieur de Martinet so greatly forgot their boasted _tactiques de guerre_; but, as I said to my Lord Dunbarton," _et cetera_, and so forth.

Such was the tiresome small talk with which those "hunger and cold beaten soldiers" (to use a camp phrase of the day) maintained a cross-fire at table, and it differed very little from what one may hear in a similarly constituted party of the present day. The younger members of the company, whose whole experience of war had been confined to repelling a foray on the Highland frontier, a brawl in a whig district, or a review on the links of Leith before Sir Thomas Dalyel, his grace the Lord High Commissioner, and the ladies of his mimic court, were somewhat more peaceable in the tenor of their conversation, which went not beyond a duel at St. Anne's Yard or in Hugh Blairs, the Leith races (where yesterday the long pending match between Jack Holster's horse and Clermistonlee's mare had ended in the defeat of the latter), of Reid the mountebank, and the feats of his famous "tumbling lassie" at the Tennis Court Theatre, where they had all been the preceding night to behold "The Soldier's Fortune" by the celebrated Otway, for whom they had a fellow-feeling, as he had lately been a cornet of dragoons in Flanders. The merits of the new-fashioned iron hat-piece covered with velvet, which the English were now substituting for the old helmet, were warmly discussed. Mistress Annie Laurie, Jean Gordon, Lady Dunbarton, and other fair belles, new tawny beavers, silver-hilted swords, horses and wines, and various frivolities were all descanted upon, while the bright wine flowed and the laughter increased apace.

Dinner was over, and the vast wilderness of viands had undergone a great and melancholy change; the collared pigs were minus heads and legs; the great platters of turkeys, geese, and ducks, stewed hares and fricasseed rabbits, the lordly baron and the knightly sirloin, and everything else were in the same plight; while the noble Castle of Tangier had been completely sacked, demolished, and its garrison of baked and spiced cardinals, capuchins, and fan tails given up to the conquerors. The servants cleared the polished tables, and one placed before Gibbie, the host, a great chased silver tankard, the pride of his heart, for it was the production of George Heriot. It was mantling with purple port, and Gibbie (whose orb-like visage, by eating and drinking, was flushed like the setting October sun), laid his hand upon the cup, and looked round the board with his great saucer eyes to see that every guest's horn was filled; for the toast he was about to propose was,

"The health of His Sacred Majesty James VII., with peace at home, and war and confusion to his enemies abroad."

Gibbie, we say, with a rubicund visage beaming with loyalty and hospitality, had just upheaved his ponderous bulk for this purpose, when the rapid and ominous clatter of hoofs in the inn-yard attracted the attention of all; and the reverend Doctor Joram exclaimed,

"Egad, here comes my Lord Dunbarton and the young Laird of Holsterlee! Gentlemen, the old game must be afoot--but what can be in the wind now?"

"A rising among those crop-eared curs in the west, I warrant," replied the Laird of Drumquhasel. "Men say that false villain Clelland, the covenanting colonel, and Dyckvelt the Hollander, have been in the land of the whigamores, blowing the trumpet of sedition, and preparing the way for southern invasion and northern rebellion."

The earl hurriedly dismounted, and abstractedly threw the reins of his horse to Holsterlee his gentleman-in-waiting, who exclaimed,

"'Sdeath, Dunbarton, you forget that a cavalier of the Guard is not like one of Douglas' Red Troopers or Dunmore's Grey Dragoons."

The earl asked pardon, and laughed as he ascended the flight of steps that led to the inn-door; while Jack vociferously summoned the _peddies_ or horse-boys, and tossing to them the reins of the chargers, jerked his long bilbo under his arm, and sprung up the steps, three at a time, after the general.

"Place for the most noble lord the Earl of Dunbarton--place for the general commanding!" exclaimed a servant ushering in the noble visitor, and all present arose at his entrance. His dark and handsome features were slightly flushed, and not without a marked expression of anxiety, while the saucy face of Jack Holster was extremely animated, and he displayed rather more than usual of his jovial and reckless swagger.

"Gentlemen," said the earl; "the old banner that waved so often and ever victoriously in the vanguard of Condé and Turenne is again to be unfurled before a foe."

"South or west?" asked a dozen of eager voices.

"In the land of our ancient enemies."

"By my soul I rejoice at that," said Douglas. "I have no fancy for bending our fire on ranks that speak our mother tongue, and wear the broad blue bonnet."

"Well said, my true Douglas!" exclaimed Drumquhasel. "I knew this muster of force aimed at the recapture of Berwick. Dags and pistols there is the hand (and he struck it clenched on the table), that will pull their d----d red cross from the ramparts when the time comes."

"Ye mistake, gentlemen, and you in particular Chevalier Major; but know that the time hath come which shall prove who among us are true cavaliers, and who false-hearted whigs. Wilt credit me, that the insolent Dutch prince William of Orange has at last put his great armament in motion, and that a hundred sail of the line, frigates, fireships, and four hundred transports have unrolled their canvass to the wind? Herbert leads the van, Evertzen the rear, and William the centre. He has with him fifteen thousand good soldiers," continued the earl, consulting a royal dispatch from Whitehall: "some of these are the hireling dogs of the Scottish Brigade, who are led by Hugh Mackay, laird of Scoury, and carry a red banner."

"Scoury?" exclaimed Douglas; "how--the old rascal who deserted from us in Holland."

"The same. Why, my dear fellow, this man is a mere Swiss, and prick his ears whenever drums beat without caring a rush which side wins if the rix-dollars are sure. The Prince's Guards and Brandenburgers under Count Solmes, Knight of the Teutonic Order, and Grand Commander of the Bailiewick of Utrecht, march with a white standard."

"Bravo! we will know all the rogues by head-mark."

"The Dutch and French Protestant refugees, under Velt Mareschal Frederick Duc de Schomberg, carry a little blue banner," continued the Earl, still consulting his dispatch. "Mynheer Goderdt van Baron de Ginckel, on whom the would-be usurper hath bestowed the Earldom of Athlone, commands the cavalry; Mynheer Bein Tenk, who expects the Dukedom of Portland; and Arnold Joost van Keppel, the Earldom of Albemarle; Massue de Rouvigny, who is to be Earl of Galway; General le Baron de Sainte Hippolite; d'Auverquerque, Zuylestein, and Caillemote, with all our banished Lords, Argyle, Shrewsbury, Macclesfield, Dunblane, and the devil knows how many more runaways and wild soldiers of fortune, the riddlings of rapine and scum of European wars, all crowd beneath his banner as to a bridal!"

"They are welcome!" exclaimed Finland, with enthusiasm. "Up, gallants, all for God and King James!" and drawing his sword he flourished it aloft, and drained his wine-horn to the bottom. Every man followed his example, save Gibbie Runlet, who, having no rapier to draw, contented himself by draining his wine tankard, which he did without once removing his large saucer eyes from the face of the Earl, to whose muster-roll of hard-named invaders he listened with the aspect of one astounded.

"Our dogs of citizens have already caught the rumour, that their Dutch Saviour is coming with his fireships and Swart Ruyters," said Holsterlee; "and in anticipation of their great political millennium are chanting the _Lillibulero_ with might and main; yea, under our very beards, as we rode down the Canongate. By the horns of Mahoud! we have tough work before us gentlemen. Fifteen thousand Hollanders under baton, said you, my lord?"

"Pooh!" said Doctor Joram; "King James's English troops alone are enough to eat them up."

"Will they be inclined to do so, reverend sir?" replied the earl. "I fear me greatly."

"Then God help Church and King!" ejaculated the minister, gulping down a sigh and his sack together.

"Gentlemen," said Dunbarton, looking around him with sparkling eyes, "the great, the terrible crisis to which our leaders and our statesmen have so long looked forward, has come at last; and to the hearts and swords of his faithful soldiers, King James can alone trust the fortunes of his House. I have received most urgent dispatches, written by himself, from Whitehall, and all our available force must, to-morrow, march for England; Hounslow is the rendezvous; Church and King our _cri de guerre_! The Privy Council meets secretly in the gallery at Holyrood; they will sit in ten minutes. Farewell, my good friends and gallant comrades," continued the Earl, bowing with a heaviness of heart that was apparent to all; "I will see you at daybreak, when the _générale_ beats. For the palace, ho! come Hosterlee."

"Away, gallants, to your fair ladies and gay lemans," exclaimed the latter, with a tragi-comic air; "away, to dance a merry couranto, and have one last daffin with the belles of the Cap-and-Feather close; a last horn at Hugh Blair's; a last dish of oysters and a game at shovelboard in Bess Wynd; a last camisadoe with the students and city watch, for we march to-morrow, and when the Guards and the Royals go, well may our ladies rend their silken tresses, and exclaim 'Ichabod, Ichabod, Auld Reekie, for thy glory hath departed!'"

In a few minutes the jovial party was completely broken up; many of them had taken leave, hurriedly, on those very missions Mr. Holster had enumerated; some to bid farewell to mothers, wives, and sweethearts; some to have a last horn of wine with old familiar friends; others to prepare for their sudden departure; while those happy spirits, who had neither preparations to make, nor friends to leave behind them, clustered round the appalled landlord, and pushed the wine-cup more briskly than ever.

But Gibbie's spirit and vivacity had evaporated; he looked forward to blood and blows, trooping and free-billeting, with no small horror, and on the departure of his military patrons, beheld a gloomy perspective of fines, persecutions, and annoyance from the whig enemies of the Government, who would undoubtedly usurp place and power in absence of that armed force, on the presence of which the authority of James VII., in Scotland, alone depended.

The moment the earl retired, Walter had thrown himself on horseback, and galloped away by the base of Saint John's Hill, and skirting the village of the Pleasance, dashed along the banks of the Burghloch, a place "then shaded by many venerable oaks," and reached the house of Bruntisfield just as the sun began to dip behind the wooded summit of Corstorphine.