With a heart brimming with exultation, and glowing with anticipations of happiness, which for the time made the revolving world in all its features shine like a beautiful kaleidoscope, Walter pirouétted and danced down the Lawnmarket and through the narrow Craimes. Was it possible that but an hour ago he was so very wretched and degraded? Was it not all a dream, this new joy, a dream from which he feared to awake? Ah, thought he, one requires to have tasted the bitterness of captivity, to know the value and the glory of freedom.
Again he wore a sword, and the consciousness of bearing arms and having the spirit to use them, imparted to the cavaliers of other times a bearing, to which the gentlemen of the present age are strangers.
As the clanking wicket of the Netherbow closed behind him, the flap of a night-bird's wing caused an involuntary thrill of disgust; he looked up to the central tower of the Porte, and, faugh! a huge gled was winging away heavily from the iron spike whereon a hideous head scowled at the passers, and by the tangled locks that waved on the midnight wind around its sweltering features, Walter thought he recognised the face of the preacher, Ichabod Bummel, of whose fate he was still in ignorance. With pity and disgust he hurried on, and, without molestation or adventure, reached his quarters in the White Horse Cellar—the place where this eventful narrative commenced a few weeks before—a spacious and ancient but long-forgotten inn, situated at the bottom of a small court opening from the Canongate. Rising from a great arcade, which formed of old the Royal Mews, this edifice is now remarkable only for its antiquity and picturesque aspect, its gables of carved wood, perforated with pigeon-holes, its enormous stacks of chimneys, and curious windows on the roof. At the time of our tale, there was always a body of troops billetted there, greatly to the annoyance of Master Gibbie Runlet, the host thereof, who found them neither the most peaceful nor profitable occupants of his premises.
CHAPTER XIV.
WALTER AND LILIAN.
She's here! yet O! my tongue is at a loss;
Teach me, some power, that happy art of speech,
To dress my purpose up in gracious words,
Such as may softly steal upon her soul.
The whole of the next day passed ere Walter Fenton found time to visit the fugitives; he was anxious to be the first bearer of the good tidings confided to him by the Earl, and luckily intelligence did not travel very fast in those days. In Edinburgh there was but one occasional broadsheet or newspaper, "The Kingdoms Intelligencer," and a house situated a mile or two from the city wall, was deemed a day's journey, distant among wood, rocks, and water. Thus the rural residences of the Napiers, Lord Clermistonlee, Sir John Toweris of Inverleith, Sir Patrick Walker, of Coates, and others, were situated in places over which the busy streets and crowded squares of the extended city have spread like the work of magic.
Walter had some difficulty in discovering the exact locality of Elsie's cottage, which was situated among a labyrinth of haw and privet hedges, and consequently the evening was far advanced before he presented himself at her humble abode, and caused the consternation described in a preceding chapter.
"I must speak instantly with those who are concealed here," said he; "I am a friend of the Lady Bruntisfield—the bearer of most happy tidings."
"I think I should know your voice," said Hab, still deliberating, and puffing at his match.