RIZZIO.
Bru. Do you know them?
Luc. No, sir; their hats are plucked about their brows,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any marks of favor.—Julius Cæsar.
The shadows of an early evening, in the ungenial month of March, were already gathering among the narrow streets and wynds of the Scottish metropolis. There was a melancholy air of solitude about the grim and dusky edifices, which towered to the height of twelve or thirteen stories against the gray horizon. No lights streamed from the casements, no voices sounded in loud revelry or chastened merriment from the dwellings of the gloomy quarter in which the scene of our narrative is laid. The cheerless aspect of the night, together with the drizzling rain, which fell in silent copiousness, had banished every human being from the streets; and, except the smoke which eddied from the dilapidated chimneys, and was instantly beat down to earth by the violence of the shower, there was no sign of any other inhabitants, than the famished dogs which were snarling over the relics of some thrice-picked bone. Suddenly the sharp clatter of hoofs, in rapid motion over the broken pavement, rose above the splashing of the flooded gutters, betokening the approach of men; and ere a minute had elapsed two horsemen, gallantly mounted, rode hotly up the street. The foremost bestriding, with the careless ease of an accomplished rider, a jennet, whose thin jaws, expanded nostril, and flashing eye, no less than the deerlike springiness of its gait, and its unrivalled symmetry, proclaimed it sprung from the best blood of the desert, was of a figure that could not be looked upon, however slightly, without awakening a sense of interest, perhaps of admiration, in all beholders.
His countenance, of an oval form, and of a darker hue than the blue-eyed sons of northern latitudes are wont to exhibit—the full and somewhat wild expression of his dark eye, the melancholy smile which played upon his curling lip, pencilled mustache, and the peaked beard—contributing to form a face that Antonio Vandyke would have loved to paint, and after ages to admire, when invested with the life of his rich coloring. His dress of russet velvet slashed with satin, his feathered cap, with its gay fanfarona[E] and enamelled medal, his jeweled rapier, and the bright spurs in his falling buskins, were well adapted to the agile limbs and slender, though symmetrical proportions of the horseman.
[E] The Fanfarona was a richly-fashioned chain of goldsmith’s work, not worn about the neck, but twisted in two or more circuits around the rim of the cap, or bonnet, and terminating in a heavy medal. It was probably of Spanish origin, but was much in vogue in the courts of Mary and Elizabeth.
The second rider was a boy, whose black and scarlet liveries—the well-known colors of all servitors of the Scottish crown—were but imperfectly hidden by the frieze cloak which had been cast over them, evidently for the purposes of concealment, rather than of comfort; yet he, too, like the gallant whom he followed—if any faith was to be placed in the evidence of raven hair and olive complexion—owed his birth to some more southern clime.
After winding rapidly through several dim and unfrequented lanes, the leading horseman, checking his speed, gazed around him with a doubtful and bewildered eye.
“Madre di Dio,” he exclaimed at length, “what a night is here; a thousand curses on this learned fool, that he must dwell in such a den of thieves as this; or rather a thousand curses on the blind and heretical Scots, that drive a man of wisdom, beyond their shallow comprehension, to bed with the very outcasts of society. Pietro, what ho!” and he raised his voice above the key in which he had pitched his soliloquy, “knowest thou the dwelling of this sage—this Johan Damietta? methought that I had noted the spot, yet have these sordid lanes banished the recollection. Presto, time fails already.”
Without uttering a syllable in reply, the page sprung from his horse, and pointed to the doorway of a mansion, dilapidated even more than those in its vicinity, yet bearing in its site the marks of having been constructed in former days for the residence of some proud baron. Nor even now—although all the appliances of comfort were utterly neglected, although the casements were void of glass, and the chimneys sent up no volumes from a cheerful hearth—were the external defences of the pile forgotten; heavy bars of iron crossed and recrossed the deep-set embrasure which once had held the windows, and the oaken gate was clenched with many a massive nail and plate of rusted iron. The cavalier alighted, cast the rein to his servitor, and with the single word “Prudence,” ascended the stone steps, and struck thrice at measured intervals upon the wicket with his rapier’s hilt. The door flew open, but without the agency, as it appeared, of any living being, and, as the visiter entered, was closed again behind him with a heavy crash.