"That is as may be—what recks it to such as thee, fellow?" rejoined the passenger haughtily, as he tossed a few coins into the extended bonnet of the ferryman, sprang up Mary King's Close, and hurried towards Bristo.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SEDAN.
ADURNI. I will stand
The roughness of the encounter, like a gentleman,
And wait ye to your homes, whate'er befal me.
THE LADY'S TRIAL.
Lord Clermistonlee, as he anticipated, reached the Earl of Dunbarton's house just when the company were separating. The guard of horse was drawn up in the court-yard in courtesy to the guests. Lumbering old-fashioned carriages were rolling solemnly away; sedans, borne by liveried chairmen, and having lighted links flaring in the night-wind before and behind them, were carried off at a trot through the dark and devious windings of the city. The court on the north side of the mansion was becoming comparatively still and empty, and Clermistonlee, with no small anxiety for the success of his plot, looked on all sides for his faithful Juden; but that pink of butlers and factotum of his household was nowhere visible, and he searched in vain for the green livery of Clermont faced with scarlet.
At this crisis a sedan approached bearing the blazon of Napier in a widow's lozenge. It was borne by two men, in whom, though attired as public chairmen, Clermistonlee recognised Juden and his nephew Jock, a strong, lank-bodied fellow, who acted as valet, groom, errand-boy, turnspit, &c., at his Lordship's lodging. He had coarse pimply features, high cheek-bones, and a shock head of red hair waving under a broad bonnet, piggish eyes, and a mouth of vast circumference. His whole vocabulary consisted of a deep gutteral ay, with which he replied to everything and everybody. Half knave, half idiot, he was just the kind of ally required by Clermistonlee, to whom he was intensely devoted, and to whom he looked up as something more than a demigod.
"I am glad you have doffed the green and scarlet," said the lord. "You have been a thought beyond me to-night, Juden. Have her ladyship's sedans been summoned?"
"Half-an-hour syne, my lord."
"Indeed!" rejoined the other, in a breathless voice, and letting fall the rocquelaure which muffled his face. "Mistress Lilian is not departed! Rascal, if she has——"
"Hooly and fairly: we have just come for her, by her ladyship's orders," grinned Juden. "A weary tramp we had to Bruntisfield wi' the auld dame (devil tak' her!); but we coupit her at Dalryburn—ha! ha!"