CHAPTER VII.
THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.
Ye holy martyrs, who with wond'rous faith,
And constancy unshaken have sustained
The rage of cruel men and fiery persecutions;
Come to my aid and teach me to defy
The malice of this fiend!
TAMERLANE.
The moon had passed westward; the close was gloomy as a chasm; and Walter's prison became dark as a cave in the bowels of a mountain. The clank of chains and bars as the door was opened roused the prisoner from his waking dreams; a yellow light flashed along the heavily jointed stone walls, and the harsh unpleasant voice of Macer Maclutchy cried authoritatively—
"Maister Walter Fenton!—now, then, come forth instanter. Ye are required by the Lords of the Privy Council."
A thrill shot through Walter's heart: he endeavoured in vain to suppress it, and, taking up his plain beaver hat, which was looped with a ribbon and cockade à la Monmouth in the military fashion, he descended the narrow spiral stair, preceded by the macer carrying his symbol of office on his right shoulder, and attired in a long flowing black gown. Two of the Town-guard, with their pole-axes, and Dunbraiken their captain,—a portly citizen, whose vast paunch, cased in corslet and backpiece, made him resemble a mighty tortoise erect,—kept close behind; and thus escorted, Walter set out from his prison, to appear before a select committee of the dreaded Privy Council of Scotland.
Encumbered by his long official garb, Macer Maclutchy's step was none of the most steady. He was evidently after his evening potations at Lucky Dreeps; he wore his bonnet cocked well forward; and such a provoking smirk of vulgar importance pervaded his features when, from time to time, he surveyed his prisoner, that the latter was only restrained by the axes behind from knocking him down.
In those days the hour of dinner was about one or two o'clock; but as the Earl of Perth, the Lords Clermistonlee, Mersington, and others loved their wine too well to leave it soon for dry matters of state, and the thumbscrewing of witches and non-conformists, the evening was far advanced before Walter Fenton was summoned for examination in the Laigh Chamber, where the Council held their meetings under the Parliament Hall, in a dark and gloomy region, where lights are always burned even yet during the longest days of summer.
Passing a narrow pend or archway (where, in the following year, the Lord President Lockhart was shot by Chiesly of Dairy), Walter and his conductors issued into the dark and deserted Lawnmarket, passed the Heart of Midlothian, from the western platform of which, the black beam of the gibbet stretched its ghastly arm in the moonlight,—and reached the antique Parliament Square, a quadrangle of quaint architecture, which had recently been graced by a beautiful statue of Charles II. On one side rose the square tower and gigantic façade of St. Giles, with its traceried windows, its rich battlements and carved pinnacles all glittering in the moonlight, which poured aslant over several immense piles of building raised on Venetian arcades, and made all the windows of the Goldsmiths' Hall glitter with the same pale lustre that tipped the round towers of the Tolbooth, the square turrets and circular spire of the Parliament House, the whole front of which was involved in opaque and gloomy shadow, from which the grand equestrian statue of King Charles, edged by the glorious moonlight, stood vividly forth like a gigantic horseman of polished silver.
The square was silent and still, as it was black and gloomy. A faint chorus stole on the passing wind, and then died away. It came from the hostel, or coffee-house, of Hugh Blair, a famous vintner, whose premises were under the low-browed and massive piazza before mentioned. The deep ding-dong of the cathedral bell, vibrating sonorously from the great stone chambers of the tower, made Walter start. It struck the hour of nine, and, save its echoes dying away in the hollow aisles and deep vaults of the ancient church, no other sound broke the silence of the place; and Walter felt a palpable chill sinking heavily on his spirit, when, guided by the macer, they penetrated the cold shade of the quadrangle, and by a richly carved doorway were admitted into the lobby of the house, which was spacious and lofty enough to be the hall of a lordly castle. From thence another door gave admittance into that magnificent place of assembly where once the estates of Scotland met—
"Ere her faithless sons betrayed her."