As they advanced among the dancers, a tall lady in scarlet brocade, with a stomacher blazing with diamonds, swept past. She was led by a gentleman gorgeously attired in a coat of pink velvet, lined and slashed with yellow satin, and looped and buttoned with gold. Like all the rest, his voluminous wig was of the most glossy black. His dark stern eyes glared for a moment upon Walter, as he bowed profoundly to the Countess and passed on.
"'Tis Mary of Charteris, and that fearful man Lord Clermistonlee," said she. "We cannot omit him here though we detest him. How handsome, how noble he looks; and yet, how repulsive!"
A crash of music burst from the arched gallery, and after a few preliminary flourishes, a cotillon commenced. This graceful dance was then the universal favourite, but has long been superseded or merged in the modern quadrille, where some of its figures are still retained. Though stately in measure and elaborate in step, the cotillon had none of that grave solemnity which characterises the latter. When our forefathers danced, they did so in good earnest, and the whole ballroom became instinct with life, action, and agile grace, as the dancers swept to the right and to the left, the tall ladies with their high plumage floating, trains sweeping, and red-heeled slippers pattering, while their pendants and lappets, flounces and frills, and pompoons and puffs were flashing, glinting, and waving among the curled wigs and laced coats, diamond hilted swords and brocade-vests of the gentlemen. In what might (now) be deemed odd contrast with the richness of their attire, and the starched dignity of their demeanour, familiar and homely expressions were heard from time to time, such as,—
"My Leddy Becky, your hand—Drumdryan, you're a' gaun agee, man!—Pardon, my Lord Spynie, your rapier's tirled wi' mine—Haud ye a', my Leddy Pituchar has drappit her pouncet-box!—Hoots, Laird Holster, are you daft?—Pilrig, set to her Leddyship," and so forth.
Meanwhile Douglas wandered through the glittering throng in quest of his beautiful Anne, nodding briefly on all hands; for Dick, the Laird of Finland, was one of those gay fellows whom every body knew; but his fair one was nowhere visible. He began to wax fearfully wroth, and resolving to dance with no one else, continued his search until he found himself at the end of the suite of apartments, in a handsome little room wainscotted with gilt panels, and having a large sun gilded over the mantel-piece, from the centre of which, as from a reflector, a blaze of yellow light was thrown by an alabaster lamp.
Lord Mersington, accurately attired in black velvet, plainly laced with silver, Dalyel, with his long white beard and mail-rusted buff coat, looking as ferocious as ever, with his enormous toledo, and Swedish jingle-spurs, which in lieu of rowels had each four metal balls in a bell, and consequently made a great noise when he walked; the unfortunate President Lockhart, the "bluidy Advocate," Mackenzie, the two ancient maiden dames of Pheesgil, Lady Grisel Napier, and Madam Drumsturdy, a tall and raw-boned dowager in black taffeta with pearls, plumes and heartbreakers (or false ringlets) were all intently playing at the old-fashioned game of Primero.
"Hee, hee, my Lady Drumsturdy," said Mersington, simpering like an ape at his partner in his attempts to be pleasing, "the general is a kittle opponent. A spade led."
"Your Lordship will not turn my flank gif I can help it—'tis a knave;" replied the old cavalier, sorting his suite. "I ken Primero weel. Mony a time and oft, d—n me! I have played a round game at it, and Ombre, Knave-out-o'-doors, Post-and-pair on the head o' a kettle-drum, and mony a score o' roubles I have swept off the same gude table: but troth, Mersington, ye are waur to warsle wi' then a Don Cossack—(play, Sir George)—o' whom God wot, I have had some experience in my time."
"Ay, ay—hee, hee—a diamond was played," said Mersington, as the card party exchanged glances of impatience, confidently foreseeing the infliction of some of Sir Thomas's Russian reminiscences.
"Speaking o' Don Cossacks," said he, starting off without further preamble, and clanking his enormous spurs; "it was just this time thirty years ago that we sacked Smolensko and Kiow, after storming them from the Polanders. Dags and pistols! but my squadron of Cossacks shewed themselves born deevils that day. Sabre and spear was the cry. Some braw pickings we got, your ladyships, in that same province of Lithuania, which to an industrious cavalier, who knoweth the fashion of war, is as fine a place for free inquartering as the Garden of Eden would have been, d—n me!"