The upper end was covered by a cloth of damask, flowered with red silk; the lower was bare; the guests of rank were furnished with knives and spoons of silver, with glasses of Venetian crystal, delft platters, and pewter trenchers. The lower had only wooden caups and luggies—quaighs and spoons of horn—the great saltseller forming the grand point of demarcation between the two classes of society who were to partake of the same meal, at the same board, in the kindly fashion of other years. The Earl and his gentlemen sat above; their rough-visaged troopers, unhelmeted, but still wearing their corselets and gorgets, swords and gambadoes, sat below it, closely, side by side, on buffet stools and wooden benches.
They were accommodated with porridge and luggies of sour-milk; a handful of prunes thrown into each platter, with cheese and cakes of mashlum, (flower made of ground peas and barley,) and horns of ale, formed their evening fare; but the savoury baron of beef, a pasty of powts, (or muirfowl,) a pudding of plumbs and spices, with flasks of choice Canary, Rochelle, and Bordeaux, at only sixpence or ninepence Scots the pint, garnished the upper end; and to this early supper, for which our late dinners are now a substitute, this jovial company sat down, just as the four old bells of St. Giles rang the hour of nine.
"'Tis savoury meat this, Mistress Ainslie," said the Earl; "and it well deserved a better blessing."
"Whence hadst thou it, lucky?" asked the Knight of Whittinghame, a grim and bearded man; "for here is what I would call the prick of a lance."
"A true Border mark, by Mahoud!" added Hume of Spott.
"Ye say true, sirs; it may be a gore-mark," replied Dame Ainslie, curtseying; "for ken ye, the beast was the best of a drove of four hundred, lifted in Nichol forest by John of Park, whose riders sauld it to my gudeman in the fleshmercat."
"English fed, by the rood!" said the bearded knight, cutting down another slice. "Here is another goad-mark! I warrant me, John's prickers had been sorely pressed by the English captain of Bewcastle, or the lances of the Wardenrie."
"These wild powts are right tasty, host of mine," said the Earl; "whence come they?"
"From the muirlands about the toun, my lord. They are thick as locusts on the braes of the Nor' Loch and Wardie muir. One crossbow shot brings down two at once in the feeding time."
From a nook, in which she had hitherto sat unseen, Anna had surveyed, with a terror which she could scarcely repress, the number of armed men who crowded the apartment. There was a reckless, daredevil aspect about them all; their armour was rusty, and their other attire well worn; in grisly profusion, their beards and whiskers fringed their weatherbeaten faces, which were all more or less stamped with ruffianism; for Morton, notwithstanding the placid suavity of his manner, was as oily a ruffian as ever drew a dagger—and, instead of his rural vassals, he generally preferred to be attended by a band of paid "wageours," as those military desperadoes were named, who swarmed throughout Scotland after the wars between the Congregation and Mary of Lorraine had ceased.