CHAPTER III.

A BALL IN THE OLDEN TIME.

Shades of my fathers, in your pasteboard skirts, Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts, Your formal bag-wigs--wide extended cuffs, Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs; I see you move the solemn minuet o'er, The modest foot scarce rising from the floor. SALMAGUNDI.

On the south side of the city where the old Liberton road branching off enters it by two diverging routes, one by the narrow and ancient Potter Row, and the other by the street of the Bristo Port, a formidable gate in the re-entering angle of the city-wall, which bristled with cannon and overlooked the way that descended to the Grass-market, there stood in 1688 (and yet stands) an antique mansion of very picturesque aspect. It is furnished with numerous outshots and projections, broad, dark, and bulky stacks of chimnies reared up in unusual places, and having over the upper windows circular pediments enriched with initials and devices, but now blackened by age and encrusted with the smoky vapour of centuries.

It is still known as the "General's House," from its having been anciently the residence appropriated to the Commander-in-chief of the Scottish forces. A narrow passage leads to it from that ancient suburban Burgh of Barony, the Potter's Row, where doubtless many a psalm-singing puritan of Monk's Regiment, many a scarred trooper of Leven's Iron Brigade, and many a stern veteran of the Covenant have kept watch and ward, in the pathway which is still, as of old, styled, _par excellence_, THE General's Entry.

Its garden has now become a lumber-yard, and is otherwise encroached upon; its stables have long since vanished, and mean dwellings surround and overtop it; the windows are stuffed with old hats and bundles of straw or rags; brown paper flaps dismally in the broken glasses, and its once gay chambers, where the "cunning George Monk," the grave and stern Leven, Dalyel of the iron-heart, and the gallant Dunbarton feasted royally, and held wassail with their comrades, have, like all the surrounding mansions of the great and noble of the other days, been long since abandoned to citizens of the poorest and humblest class.

In 1688 its aspect was very different.

Standing then on the very verge of the city, it was deemed in the country, though now the gas lamps extend two miles beyond it, and dense and populous streets occupy the sites of two straggling and unpretending suburbs of thatched cottages and "sclaited lands." To the southward of the road, a narrow rugged horseway, passed through fields and thickets towards the great Loch of the Burgh, and ascending its opposite bank, passed the straggling suburb named the Causeway-side, where there were many noble old villas, the residences of Sir Patrick Johnstone, of the Laird of Westerhall, and others, and sweeping past the ruined convent of St. Catherine of Sienna, wound over the hill (near a gibbet that was seldom unoccupied by sweltering corpses and screaming ravens), towards the Barony of Liberton, a lonely hamlet with a little stone spire, and the tall square tower of the Winrams, in older days the patrimony of a lesser Baron named Macbeth.

To the westward of the General's House were fertile fields that extended close up to the defences of the city, then a long line of lofty and embattled walls built of reddish-coloured sandstone, strengthened at intervals by towers alternately of a round or square form, which defended its various ports or barrier-gates. Within this stony zone rose the dark and massive city, which for ages had been increasing in denseness; for, in consequence of the nature of the times, and the dubious relations of the country with its southern neighbour, the citizens seldom dared to build beyond the narrow compass of the walls.

From these causes, and in imitation of those bad allies the French, Edinburgh, like ancient Paris, became deeper and closer, taller and yet more tall; house arose upon house, street was piled upon street, bartizan, gable, and tower shot up to an amazing height, and were wedged within the walls, till the thoroughfares like those of Venice were only three feet broad, and in some places exhibited fourteen tiers of windows.

An Act of the Scottish Legislature was found absolutely necessary to curb the rage for stupendous houses, and in 1698 it was enacted, that none should be erected within the liberties of the city exceeding five stories in height. Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century Edinburgh could not boast of one court or square save that of White Horse Hostel, if indeed it could be termed either.

The access to these vast and imperishable piles was by turnpike stairs, steep, narrow, dark, and mysterious. The population of the city was then about 50,000; but as it increased, so did the denseness of the houses; even the buttresses of the great cathedral were all occupied by little dwellings, till the venerable church resembled a hen with a brood under her wings. Year by year for seven centuries the alleys had become higher and narrower, till Edinburgh looked like a vast city crowded in close column on the steep faces of a hill, until the building of a bridge to the north, when it burst from the embattled girdle that for ages had pent it up, and more like another Babylon than a "modern Athens" spread picturesquely over every steep rock and deep defile in its vicinity. But to return:

On a dusky evening Walter Fenton and Douglas of Finland, muffled in their ample scarlet rocquelaures, which completely hid their rich dresses, came stumbling along the dark and narrow Potter's Row, towards the gate of the General's House, where a mounted guard of the Grey Dragoons sat motionless as twenty statues, the conical fur cap of each trooper forming the apex of a pyramid, which his wide cloak made, when spread over the crupper of his horse. Still and firm as if cast in bronze, were every horse and man. Each trooper rested his short musquetoon on his thigh, with the long dagger screwed on its muzzle. This guard of honour was under arms to receive the General's military guests, and the fanfare of the trumpets and a ruffle on the kettle-drum announced that Sir Thomas Dalyel of Binns had just arrived.

In the entry stood a foot soldier muffled in his sentinel's coat.

"One of ours, I think," said Douglas; "Art one of the old Die-hards, good fellow?"

"Hab Elshender, at your service, Laird."

"Hah! hath the Lady Bruntisfield arrived?" asked Walter.

"Ay, Sir," replied Hab, with a knowing Scots' grin; for he understood the drift of the question: "Ay, Sir--and Madam Lilian too--looking for a' the world like the queen of the fairies."

Within the gate the court was filled with light and bustle. Carriages of ancient fashion and clumsy construction profusely decorated with painting and gilding, with coats armorial on the polished pannels and waving hammer-cloths, rolled up successively to the doorway; sedans gaudy with brass nails, red silk blinds, and scarlet poles, military chargers, and servants on foot and horseback in gorgeous liveries, all glittering in the light of the flaring links which usually preceded every person of note when threading the gloomy and narrow thoroughfares of Edinburgh after nightfall.

Impatient at every moment which detained him from the side of Lilian, now, when he could appear before her to the utmost advantage, Walter, heedless of preceding his friend, sprang up the handsome staircase of carved oak, the walls of which were covered with painted panels and trophies of arms, conspicuous among which was the standard of the unfortunate Argyle taken in the conflict of Muirdykes three years before. Here they threw their broad hats and red mantles to the servants, and were immediately ushered into a long suite of apartments, which were redolent of perfume and brilliant with light and gaiety.

Douglas, whose extremely handsome features were of a dark and olive hue, like all those of his surname generally, wore the heavy cavalier wig falling over his collar of point d'Espagne and gold-studded breastplate. Walter had his own natural hair hanging in dark curls on a cuirass of silver, polished so bright that the fair dancers who flitted past every moment saw their flushed faces reflected in its glassy surface.

Their coats and breeches were of scarlet, pinked with blue silk and laced with gold; their sashes were of yellow silk, but had massive tassels of gold; and their formidable bowl-hilted rapiers were slung in shoulder-belts of velvet embroidered with silver. Their long military gloves almost met the cuffs of their coats, which were looped up to display the shirt-sleeves--a new fashion of James VII.; and everything about them was perfumed to excess. Such was the attire of the military of that day, as regulated by the "Royal Orders" of the King.

Threading their way through a crowd of dancers, whose magnificent dresses of bright-hued satins and velvets laced with silver or gold, and blazing with jewels, sparkled and shone as they glided from hand to hand to the music of an orchestra perched in a recessed gallery of echoing oak, they passed into an inner apartment to pay their devoirs to the Countess, who for a time had relinquished the dance to overlook the tea-board--a solemn, arduous, and highly-important duty, which was executed by her lady-in-waiting, a starched demoiselle of very doubtful age.

Though rather diminutive in person, the Countess of Dunbarton was a very beautiful woman, and possessed all that dazzling fairness of complexion which is so characteristic of her country-women. She was English, and a sister of the then Duchess of Northumberland. Her eyes were of a bright and merry blue; her hair of the richest auburn; her small face was quite enchanting in expression, and very piquant in its beauty; while her fine figure was decidedly inclined to _embonpoint_.

She was one of the fashionable mirrors of the day, and the standard by whom the stately belles of Craig's Close and the Blackfriars Wynd regulated the depth of their stomachers and the length of their trains--the star of Mary d'Este's balls at Holyrood, where, in the splendour of her jewels, she had nearly rivalled the famous Duchess of Lauderdale; and though an Englishwoman, notwithstanding the jealousy and dislike which from time immemorial had existed between the two kingdoms, she was, from the suavity of her manner, the brilliancy of her wit, and the amiability of her disposition, both admired and beloved in Edinburgh.

With a pretty and affected air, she held her silver pouncet-box in an ungloved and beautifully-formed hand, which was whiter than the bracelet of pearls that encircled it. Close by, upon a satin cushion, reposed a pursy, pug-nosed, and silky little lap-dog, of his late Majesty's favourite and long-eared breed. It had been a present from himself, and bore the royal cypher on its silver collar. Near her on a little tripod table of ebony stood the tea-board, with its rich equipage and a multitude of little china cups glittering with blue and gold.

The tea, dark, fragrant, and priceless beyond any now in use, was served by the prim gentlewoman before mentioned (the daughter of some decayed family), who acted as her useful friend and companion; and slowly it was poured out like physic from a little silver pot of curious workmanship, a gift from Mary Stuart (then Princess of Orange), and the same from which she was wont to regale the ladies of Holyrood.

Tea was unknown in London at the time of the Restoration; and when introduced a few years afterwards by the Lords Arlington and Ossory, was valued at sixty shillings the pound; but the beautiful Mary d'Este of Modena was the first who made it known in the Scottish capital in 1681. This new and costly beverage was still one of the wonders and innovations of the age, and was only within the reach of the great and wealthy until about 1750; but the royal tea-parties, masks and entertainments of the Duchess Mary and her affable daughters, were long the theme of many a tall great-grandmother, and remembered with veneration and regret among other vanished glories, when, by the cold blight that fell upon her, poor Scotland felt too surely that "a stranger" filled the throne of the Stuarts.

Lady Grisel of Bruntisfield, and other venerable dowagers and ancient maiden gentlewomen (a species in which some old Scottish families are still very prolific), all as stiff as pride, brocade, starch, and buckram could make them, were sitting very primly and uprightly in their high-backed chairs, clustered round the Countess's little tripod table, like pearls about a diamond, when the cavaliers advanced to pay their respects.

"Welcome! Finland," said the Countess, addressing Douglas according to the etiquette of the country. "My old friend Walter, your most obedient servant. How fortunate!--we have just been disputing about romances, and drawing comparisons between that lumbering folio _The Banished Virgin_ and the _Cassandra_. You will act our umpire. My dear boy, let me look at you; how well you look, and so handsome, in all this bravery; doth he not, Mistress Lilian?"

Lilian, who, in all the splendour of diamonds and full dress, was leaning on Aunt Grisel's chair, blushed too perceptibly at this very pointed question, but was spared attempting a reply, for the gay Countess continued:

"Remember, Walter, that the great Middleton, who became an earl, and lieutenant-general of the Scots' Horse, began his career like yourself, by trailing a partisan in the old Royals--then Hepburn's pikemen in the French service; and who knoweth, my dear child, where yours may end? Heigho! These perilous times are the making and unmaking of many a brave man. So, Mr. Douglas, we were disputing about----(Madam Ruth, assist the gentlemen to dishes of tea)----about--what was it?--O, a passage in the _Cassandra_."

"I shall be happy to be of any service to your Ladyship," began Finland, with his blandest smile, while raising to his well-moustachioed lip a little thimbleful of the new-fashioned beverage, which he cordially detested, but took for form's sake.

"We are in great doubts whether Lysimachus was justified in running his falchion through poor Oleander, for merely desiring the charioteer of the beautiful princesses to drive faster. You will remember the passage. We all think it very cruel, and that no lover is entitled to be so outrageous."

Douglas knew the pages of his muster-roll better than those of the romance in question, but he answered promptly:

"I think Master Oleander was an impudent rascal, and well deserving a few inches of cold iron, or a sound truncheoning at the hands of the provost-marshal. I remember doing something of that kind myself about the time that old Mareschal de Crecqui was blocked up and taken in Treves."

"Ay, Douglas, that was when we were with the column of the Moselle," said the Earl, who now approached and leaned on the back of the Countess's chair. "It was shortly after the brave Turenne had been killed by that unlucky cannonball that deprived France of her best chevalier. We were in full retreat across the river. Some ladies of the army were with us in a handsome calêche, as gay a one as ever rolled along the Parisian Boulevards. There was a devil of a press at the barrier gate of Montroyale, and an officer of the Regiment de Picardie was urging the horses of the vehicle to full speed by goading them with his half-pike, regardless of the cries of the ladies, when Finland, by one blow of his baton, unhorsed him, and some say he never marched more."

"O! Mr. Douglas!" said the Countess, holding up her hands.

"There was an old feud between us and the chevaliers de Picardie," continued the Earl; "but the worst of this malheur was, that the poor officer was the husband of one of the demoiselles in question; and as she was extremely handsome, and Finland, by becoming her very devoted serviteur, endeavoured, during the remainder of the campaign, to make every amends for the loss he had occasioned her; the gallants of the army said----"

"Marry, come up! My Lord, dost take my boudoir for a tavern or a sutler's tent? Fie! Laird of Finland, you are worse than the Lysimachus of the romance. But what think you, Walter, of that hero becoming enamoured of the fair prisoner committed to his care, the Princess Parisatis? It would seem that in ancient times, as well as modern, that beauty must be a dangerous trust for a young soldier."

The Earl laughed till he shook the perfume from his wig; Walter smiled, and stole one glance at Lilian. She, too, was smiling, and playing with her fan; but her long lashes were cast down, and her cheek was burning with blushes.

"So dangerous, indeed, is beauty," said the Earl, "that had I any fair prisoners, I would entrust them only to old fellows with leather visages and tough hearts, ancient routiers, like Will Wemyss, or, if they were remarkably handsome, why, I might keep them in my own immediate charge."

"Indeed, my Lord--quotha?" said the Countess, pouting.

"Believe me, dear Lætitia," said the handsome noble, patting her white shoulder, "they could not be in safer keeping than the wardship of your husband. He can never see beauty in others."

She smiled at the Earl's compliment, and turning to the blushing Lilian, said:

"In sooth, madam, Walter Fenton was always somewhat addicted to gallantry, though Mistress Ruth and he were ever at drawn daggers while he was about me. While a boy, he was quite a little cavaliero; and when obeying my orders, always preferred a kiss to any other reward. But by my honour, little Walter was so pretty a boy, that I gave him enough to have made my Lord the Earl quite jealous. Even Anne of Monmouth and Buccleugh, never had a page so handsome and so gay; and I doubt not, boy, thou prove a true Scottish cavalier in those sad wars which all men say are fast approaching."

Walter's only reply was pressing to his lips the white hand of the beautiful English woman; for his heart was too full to speak.

"And now, Walter," she continued, "as a mark of my favour you shall dance with me, while Lord Dunbarton leads out the young lady of Bruntisfield. I have not been on the floor since the first cotillon with Claverhouse. Madam Ruth, you will please preside at the tea-board. Mr. Douglas--Finland, as you Scots name him, where is he?"

"Gone to look for the Lily of Maxwelton, I warrant," said the Earl.

"Then he may even spare himself the trouble, poor man! she has been coquetting for this hour past with the Laird of Craigdarroch, a gentleman of the Life Guards. On, on, or we shall be late for the cotillon. Ah, Walter, you are still looking after that fair girl Napier. She is very pretty; but are you really in love with her? You blush! Bless you, my poor boy, she is immensely rich they say--and--but you shall dance with her next."

As they advanced among the dancers, a tall lady in scarlet brocade, with a stomacher blazing with diamonds, swept past. She was led by a gentleman gorgeously attired in a coat of pink velvet, lined and slashed with yellow satin, and looped and buttoned with gold. Like all the rest, his voluminous wig was of the most glossy black. His dark stern eyes glared for a moment upon Walter, as he bowed profoundly to the Countess and passed on.

"'Tis Mary of Charteris, and that fearful man Lord Clermistonlee," said she. "We cannot omit him here though we detest him. How handsome, how noble he looks; and yet, how repulsive!"

A crash of music burst from the arched gallery, and after a few preliminary flourishes, a cotillon commenced. This graceful dance was then the universal favourite, but has long been superseded or merged in the modern quadrille, where some of its figures are still retained. Though stately in measure and elaborate in step, the cotillon had none of that grave solemnity which characterises the latter. When our forefathers danced, they did so in good earnest, and the whole ballroom became instinct with life, action, and agile grace, as the dancers swept to the right and to the left, the tall ladies with their high plumage floating, trains sweeping, and red-heeled slippers pattering, while their pendants and lappets, flounces and frills, and pompoons and puffs were flashing, glinting, and waving among the curled wigs and laced coats, diamond hilted swords and brocade-vests of the gentlemen. In what might (now) be deemed odd contrast with the richness of their attire, and the starched dignity of their demeanour, familiar and homely expressions were heard from time to time, such as,--

"My Leddy Becky, your hand--Drumdryan, you're a' gaun agee, man!--Pardon, my Lord Spynie, your rapier's tirled wi' mine--Haud ye a', my Leddy Pituchar has drappit her pouncet-box!--Hoots, Laird Holster, are you daft?--Pilrig, set to her Leddyship," and so forth.

Meanwhile Douglas wandered through the glittering throng in quest of his beautiful Anne, nodding briefly on all hands; for Dick, the Laird of Finland, was one of those gay fellows whom every body knew; but his fair one was nowhere visible. He began to wax fearfully wroth, and resolving to dance with no one else, continued his search until he found himself at the end of the suite of apartments, in a handsome little room wainscotted with gilt panels, and having a large sun gilded over the mantel-piece, from the centre of which, as from a reflector, a blaze of yellow light was thrown by an alabaster lamp.

Lord Mersington, accurately attired in black velvet, plainly laced with silver, Dalyel, with his long white beard and mail-rusted buff coat, looking as ferocious as ever, with his enormous toledo, and Swedish jingle-spurs, which in lieu of rowels had each four metal balls in a bell, and consequently made a great noise when he walked; the unfortunate President Lockhart, the "bluidy Advocate," Mackenzie, the two ancient maiden dames of Pheesgil, Lady Grisel Napier, and Madam Drumsturdy, a tall and raw-boned dowager in black taffeta with pearls, plumes and heartbreakers (or false ringlets) were all intently playing at the old-fashioned game of Primero.

"Hee, hee, my Lady Drumsturdy," said Mersington, simpering like an ape at his partner in his attempts to be pleasing, "the general is a kittle opponent. A spade led."

"Your Lordship will not turn my flank gif I can help it--'tis a knave;" replied the old cavalier, sorting his suite. "I ken Primero weel. Mony a time and oft, d--n me! I have played a round game at it, and Ombre, Knave-out-o'-doors, Post-and-pair on the head o' a kettle-drum, and mony a score o' roubles I have swept off the same gude table: but troth, Mersington, ye are waur to warsle wi' then a Don Cossack--(play, Sir George)--o' whom God wot, I have had some experience in my time."

"Ay, ay--hee, hee--a diamond was played," said Mersington, as the card party exchanged glances of impatience, confidently foreseeing the infliction of some of Sir Thomas's Russian reminiscences.

"Speaking o' Don Cossacks," said he, starting off without further preamble, and clanking his enormous spurs; "it was just this time thirty years ago that we sacked Smolensko and Kiow, after storming them from the Polanders. Dags and pistols! but my squadron of Cossacks shewed themselves born deevils that day. Sabre and spear was the cry. Some braw pickings we got, your ladyships, in that same province of Lithuania, which to an industrious cavalier, who knoweth the fashion of war, is as fine a place for free inquartering as the Garden of Eden would have been, d--n me!"

"Oh! Sir Thomas," said Lady Grisel deprecatingly. "But is it true that in Muscovy no man will either beck, bow, or veil bonnet to a woman in the streets?"

"I hope no true-born Russ would undervalue himsel' so far," replied Sir Thomas, stroking his silver beard. "He would as soon put his head in the fire as bend it to any woman, his ain mother even; and as for adoring beauty--udsdaggers! a Muscovite would sooner think of adoring his horse's tail. I assure you, ladies, that the great Duke of Muscovy himsel' would not permit his mother, wife, or daughter to eat at the same buird wi' him, even if it were to save their lives. 'Tis the law o' the land, and a very gude ane too."

Here the old ladies held up their hands and eyes, but the General continued.

"They are fine cheilds those same Russians though, and I will at one sliver cut the throat of any loon that gainsayeth it. Had your ladyships seen Salcroff's Black Cuirassiers sweeping ten thousand wild Tartars before them, and driving them with levelled lances into the foaming waters of the Vistula, it would have been a sight to mind o'. Udsdaggers! that was different work from riding owre a band o' puir psalm-singing deevils o' Covenanters, just as ane would trot owre a corn-rig. Ay, _those_ were the days, and _that_ was the service, for a pretty man! My Lord President, play if it please you."

"You are an awfu' man, Binns," said Mersington; "a perfect auld deil's buckie, and weel kent to be a most unrelenting tulzier, that caresna whether a man crieth _quarter_ in our decent Scots' tongue, or in that o' an Englishman, Tartar, or other unco body, death being the doom o' all alike."

"And what for no, my lord?" rejoined this ferocious commander, knitting his formidable brows. "Are these times in whilk to shew mercy to low-born rapscallions? A bonny spot o' work this is in the north: these deevils the Clandonald o' Keppoch and the Fusileer Guard hae been at it ding-dong wi' pike and broadsword every day for this week past. But I have heard that Captain Crichton is off on the spur wi' some horse and dragoons, to tak' a turn against the Hielandmen; and if he sends a pockfu' o' heads now and then to the Council, he will not be riding aboon the King's commission."

"Oh, Sir Thomas!" ejaculated Lady Grisel again, "the brave are ever merciful."

"So, please your ladyship, I have often ridden by the side of a certain cavalier, Sir Archibald Napier of Bruntisfield, whom Montrose esteemed as brave a man as put foot in stirrup; and, like mysel', _he_ shewed but small favour to the canting, crop-luggit, covenanting rapscallions o' his time. Puir Paton o' Meadowhead and Wallace o' Auchans, whom thrice at Pentland I had this very blade upraised to smite, were the only honest men that followed their banner. God sain them baith! for they were pretty men, and knew the wars like mysel'.--Lady Drumsturdy, a spade if you please."

"Sir Thomas," said the soft voice of Lady Grisel, "no marvel it is that the poor nonjurors shrink before you, even as from--from----"

"Our gude friend wi' the forkit tail," added Mersington, closing the sentence, while Dalyel's bushy beard shook with his laughter as he replied--

"Ou ay; and like Claver'se, Glenæ, Lag, and a few mair o' our leal royal commanders, I am proof to lead and steel--ha! ha! Weel may these sniveling loons, who sold their King for a groat, and sacrificed their country for its d--n'd Kirk, quail before the eye of a leal man and true. I am an auld gentleman trooper, and trailed a pike under the Muscovite eagle owre lang to hae mony remains o' tenderness, whilk is a failing I believe few folk will accuse me o'. Uds-daggers, Finland, I see you listening, my braw man. Your beard may grow white like mine (though, after the fashion o' these degenerate days, your chin is as smooth as a Christmas apple), but never will ye ride owre the spur-leathers in Tartar gore as I have done. Braw gallants as ye are, in your plate corslets and pinkit doublets, laced and perfumed, tasselled and tagged, and jagged and bedeevilled like state trumpeters, ye would be but puir hands at resisting a charge o' mailed horse or heavy dragoons."

"Under favour, General Dalyel," replied the handsome lieutenant laughing, "I hope not; and Monmouth's cavaliers found lately, that a stand of Scottish pikes are still as firm as when levelled on the fields of Sark or Otterburn. By my faith, their spurred horses recoiled from our solid squares like water from a rock."

"Awa'," replied Sir Thomas sternly; "it beseemeth not a laddie like you to venture an opinion on that fray at Sedgemoor. Had ye seen the field of Smolensko on the day that great battle was fought and won, then might ye speak o' sic matters. There, mair than a hundred thousand matchlocks and petronels rung like thunder in the frosty sky; bombs were bursting, cannon-shot and barbed arrow fleein' thick as hail; while helmet and corslet rang like siller bells to the clink o' cimitar and mace. Oh! for a deep wassail bowl to drink to the brave that fought there, for my auld heart warms to their memory. Like the wind o' their snowy deserts, the squadrons of horse swept with uplifted lances to the heidlong charge. Alexis on the right--Sinboirs on the left, and myself the leal Laird o' Binns, in the centre wi' the eagle--whoop! then came a crash, and all gave way before us, like a Dutchman's dyke when the dam breaks. Loud aboon a' the din o' war thundered the great battle-drum of the Muscovite host, carried on four horses, and having aucht loons loundering on't wi' wooden mells. Sedgemoor!--It was bairns' play to such a field as Smolensko; and gif mortal man gainsayeth it, there is the hand that will right the matter! I mind the fray as if 'twere yesterday; and I assure you, Lady Grisel, that I had a braw supper that night on the field, cooked from a horse's flank by some of the Tartar women I kept about me."

Tired of this conversation, Douglas left the old beaux to do the agreeable to the brocaded dowagers of the Canongate, and lounged through the glittering rooms, continuing his search for Annie Laurie. Leaning on the arm of the handsome Claverhouse, who over a coat of white velvet, richly laced and slashed, wore a sash and gorget of burnished gold, with the collar of the Thistle, the Countess of Dunbarton slowly promenaded past.

"Ah, laird of Finland," said she archly, "I know for whom you are still looking so anxiously."

"In sooth, madam, I scarcely know myself."

"All the better is such philosophy, for she has been coquetting all night with the young laird of Craigdarroch."

They parted. At that moment a flourish of music swept along the painted ceilings, and the dancers began to arrange themselves for a new cotillon. Douglas, now seriously angry, cast a rapid and impatient glance round the bright throng, and caught a glimpse of his fair one in all the glory of white satin, white lace and white pearls, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, and the braids of her auburn hair with diamonds and spangles. She was chatting gaily with Lady Mary Charteris, one of those beautiful romps who flourished in ancient Edina, notwithstanding the starched demureness of the time. Fearful of being anticipated, he advanced at once, and requested her hand for the next dance.

"And now, Finland," said she, placing her soft hand in his, "What have you to say for yourself?"

"How, fair Annie?"

"That until this moment you have never approached me; and I have been forced to endure the vanity of Craigdarroch, who, like all Claver'se gentlemen-troopers, thinks he is quite a Palladin, because he guards the High Commissioner, rides with the Parliament, and (like yourself) terrifies the old cummers of the Kailmarket, or some poor cock-lairdie, to abjure the Covenant, or hang on the next tree. Is it not so?"

Douglas laughed as his merry mistress spoke; for Craigdarroch was the only man in Edinburgh of whom he felt a little jealous, or whose influence he valued a rush. Tall and handsome, an accomplished gentleman, an expert horseman and fencer, and a brave and good-hearted fellow to boot, young Fergusson was altogether a rival quite calculated to create some uneasiness; and his whole regiment were a source of dread to the beaux and dandies of the capital.

There was a certain dashing and indescribable bearing attached to all the cavalier troopers of the Scottish Life Guard, which, with the unusual splendour of their garb and armour, their rank in society, courage in the field, and that high _esprit-du-corps_ which necessarily pervaded a band so very exclusive and prætorian, made every one a formidable rival. Thus, notwithstanding his own rank, figure, and bearing, Douglas felt considerable anxiety whenever Craigdarroch approached his mistress; nor could he at times repress a sigh of anger and regret at her gaiety and volatility, which charmed him one moment and provoked him the next.

The cotillon commenced. Happy Walter and his beautiful Lilian were their vis-à-vis. They were chatting very gaily on the trivial matters of the day--De Scuderi's last, but ponderous romance--the new comedy performed by his Majesty's servants at the little theatre in the Tennis-court--new-fashioned suits of Genoa velvet laced with Bruxelles--gloves of Blois--perfumes and balls of pomme d'ambre--a witch that was to be burned next day on the Castlehill, by the economical provost and baillies, in the same bonfire lit in honour of the victory at Bothwell, on its eighth anniversary.

The whole city was agog "anent the worrying" (as the term was) of this famous sorceress, who had been unanimously condemned by a pious and intelligent jury (principally composed of Kirk-elders) for sailing across to Fife in a sieve instead of the Kinghorn cutter; for causing a neighbour's calf to have two heads; for raising a storm to sink the good ship _Charles the Second_ of Leith, by performing certain diabolical cantrips over a kail-blade full of water; and various other enormities, which made every hair in the wigs of the fifteen Lords of Session and Justiciary stand on end with horror and amazement.