The moon was up, and it rolled through a clear and starry sky. A few light and fleecy clouds that slept afar off in the bright radiance, seemed to float above the grim dark summits of the city, whose clusters of close-piled mansions, turreted, gableted and crow-stepped, tall and fantastic, stark and strong, started up ghost-like out of the depths of street and wynd, and stood in bold outline against the clear cold blue of the midnight sky.
As Roland left the archway, three dark figures, which he had not observed, shrunk close together; and when he issued forth, followed him with stealthy steps. They wore short black mantles, and had their bonnets pulled well over their faces; but though they lurked on the shadowy side of the street (which the bright light above rendered yet darker), the haft of a poniard, or knife, glittered at times under their upper garments, as they followed the master of the ordnance cautiously and softly, like cats about to spring on a mouse, and as noiselessly, for they were shod with felt, or some such material, that muffled their footsteps.
Vipont was about to descend towards the palace, near which he lived, in St. Anne's-yard, when a column of light in the west made him pause, and turn towards the centre of the town. A ball of fire was burning on the summit of St. Giles's steeple, and having heard that it was to be illuminated in honour of the queen's arrival and king's return, he resolved to see this unusual display; and riding up the Canongate to the strong barrier which separated the greater from the lesser burgh, he gave his horse to the care of the under-warder of the porte, and from thence walked up the High-street with his long rapier under his arm.
The hour was late, but many persons were abroad, and the windows were so full of faces, all gazing at the great tower of St. Giles's, that even had Vipont known that three assassins were on his track and only seeking an opportunity to plunge their poniards in his heart, he would not have felt much alarm.
The airy lantern of this magnificent church is formed by eight ribs of stone that spring from beautiful corbels, and meeting far above the bartizan of the great rood-spire, support a spacious gallery and lofty pinnacle, forming altogether an architectural feature of remarkable beauty, and which (save the church of St. Nicholas at Newcastle) is entirely peculiar to Scotland. It is a complete Gothic diadem of stone. The rich crockets on the arches rise tier above tier, and represent the pearls; the parapets from which they spring, with their row of quatrefoils, being in place of the circlet. The whole of this structure had been covered with variegated lamps, which had been brought from Italy, and were hung by the taste and skill of Father St. Bernard, one of the prebendaries, to the wonder and astonishment of the simple-minded citizens. As yet they were unlit, but a single light, we have said, was burning on the upper pinnacle, like a large red star, and to this every face was turned.
The stone crown of the cathedral was all in dark outline; a faint light shone through the large stained window at the east end, and the tapers flickered at the shrine of Our Lady that stood close by. Save these, all the vast church, with its rows of massive buttresses and pointed windows, was immersed in gloom, though the moonlight silvered the edges of the crocketed pinnacles. Suddenly a volume of light burst over the whole; the ball of fire which had been burning steadily, threw out a million of sparkles which fell like a haze of brilliance over the arches of the spire, lighting up the diminutive lamps in rapid succession, until the whole structure seemed bathed in one broad sheet of coloured flame. The groined arches, the carved pinnacles, and all the airy tracery of the spire, were as plainly visible in their beautiful and grotesque detail as if the beholders had been close to them, instead of being a hundred and sixty feet below; while the lamps of variegated glass produced the most extraordinary variety of light and shadow.
The devils, dragons, and other stone chimeras that projected from the battlements of the clerestory were all tipped with fiery red or ghastly blue light, and seemed to be vomiting flames; every pinnacle and tower of the cathedral stood forth in strong outline, one half being bathed in brilliant light, and the other sunk in black shadow, while a myriad prismatic hues were thrown upon the upturned and countless faces of the gaping crowds who occupied the streets below and the windows around. Into the far depths of many a close and wynd, on the square tower of St. Mary-in-the-Field, on the clustered Bastelhouses of the castle, on the spire of the Netherbow, and square belfreys of the Holy Cross, on all the countless roofs and chimneys of the town, the light fell full and redly, scaring even the coot and the swan among the sedges of the Burghloch, and the eagle and the osprey on the lofty craigs of Salisbury.
Cries of astonishment and delight were heard from time to time, mingled with the murmurs of the wondering and the fearful, who, in accordance with the taste and superstition of the age, were, as usual, inclined to attribute the taste and skill which dictated this illumination to sorcery, simply because it was beyond their comprehension.
"Ye say true, my lord abbot," said a voice near Roland; "I have had mine own suspicions anent the fact."
"I have always secretly suspected this Father St. Bernard was a sorcerer; he studied at Padua and Salamanca, where there is more kenned of develrie than theologie."