Then it was silent and empty, for the hour was late; the countless windows of the lofty mansions which shot up to a giant height on each side, in every variety of the Scottish and Flemish tastes, with fantastic fronts, of wood or stone, turreted, corbelled and corbie-stoned, gable-ended, balconied, and bartizanned, were dark and closed, or lighted only by the silver moon which bathed one side of the street in a flood of pale white lustre, while the other was immersed in obscure and murky shadow. The long vista of the Lawnmarket was closed by the gloomy and picturesque masses of the great gothic cathedral, the façade of the Tolbooth, and the high narrow edifices of the Craimes, a street wedged curiously between St. Giles and the place now occupied by the Exchange.
A hackney-coach like a clumsy herse, one of the few introduced into Edinburgh only fifteen years before, and consequently deemed a splendid and luxurious mode of locomotion, stood at the mouth of the Pend or archway. The driver, a tall, gaunt fellow, dressed in a plain gaberdine of that coarse stuff, with which a recent Act of the Scottish Parliament compelled the humbler classes to content themselves, stood bonnet in hand by the heavy flight of steps which enabled first the Earl and then Walter to ascend into the recesses of the vehicle. The door was closed with deliberation; the driver clambered into his place on the roof, and slowly and solemnly his two horses dragged the lumbering machine up the Lawn-market, over the rough and steep causeway of which it rumbled like a vast caravan.
"We make great advances in the art of luxury, we moderns," said the Earl; "Ah! twenty years ago there was nothing of this sort! And there is that new invention, the snaphaunce-lock, which is as likely to supersede the good old match, as the screw-hilted dagger of Bayonne is to eclipse the glories of the old sweynes-feather. Were you ever in one of these Dutch conveyances before, Walter?"
"Once only, my Lord, when I accompanied Lady Dunbarton to Her Grace of Lauderdale's levee at Holyrood."
"Though our preachers inveigh bitterly against them, as dark places wherein to cloak wickedness and knavery, and in opposition uphold the good old fashions of saddles, pillions, and sedans, I think this is a pleasant and a useful contrivance withal."
"But will you be pleased to remember that my present attire is a very unfitting one for the presence of the Countess?—soiled as it is by the contaminations of that noxious vault——"
"Right, Walter—and I had forgotten that my little Lætitia is somewhat fatigued with her journey. You can pay your devoirs in the morning, and tell Finland, Gavin of that Ilk, the Chevalier Drumquhasel, and such other of my cavaliers as have arrived in the city, that we shall be glad to see them at our morning déjeûné at Bristo. I have ordered a glorious bombarde of choice canary to be set abroach; so don't forget to tell them that. But anent the Napiers," continued the earl, "they are intimate friends of yours, I presume?"
"Friends!" stammered Walter; "alas, my lord, do you think that the proud and stately old Lady of Bruntisfield, would rank a poor and obscure lad like me among her friends? Save your noble self and the Countess, I have no friends on earth—none."
"Ungrateful rogue! thou forgettest thy fifteen hundred comrades, each of whom is a friend. But by all the devils, there is a mystery in this! 'Tis quite a romance. What tempted you to run tilt against the council in this matter? No answer. It will not pass muster with me, Mr. Fenton. A pretty damoiselle is enough, I know, to tempt any young gallant to swerve from his strict line of duty. I found it so in my bachelor days. There is old Mackay of Scoury, who now commands our Scots in the service of the States'-General, openly deserted from us in Holland (when we followed the banner of Condé), and joined the enemy—for what? ha, ha! the love of a rosy little Dutch housewife, who had gained his weak side, the Lord knows how; for we Scots musqueteers considered ourselves great connoisseurs in women, wine, and horse-flesh. Apropos! of Lilian Napier—I doubt not you know where this little one is concealed."
"I do, my lord," answered Walter, with vivacity.