Gentlemen still wore the plain Scottish bonnet, or the vast cavalier hat, looped up and plumed; snug burgesses and staring countrymen thronged past, attired (conform to Act of the Estates) in linsey-woolsey, hodden-grey, tartan, coarse blue bonnets, and ribbed galligaskins, a style of dress which formed a strong contrast to the splendid vestments of their superiors, whose silks and velvets, slashed and laced, were glittering everywhere in the sun.
A few officers of the Fusilier Guards in their gilt breast-plates, scarlet coats, and white scarfs, cavaliers of Claver'se regiment, and other "bucks of the first fashion," in all the magnificence of laced taffeta, long rapiers, perfumed scarfs, and tall feathers, were lounging about the pillars of the Venetian arcade, in front of Blair's Coffee House, or jested and flirted with those passing fair ones who flaunted their long trains under the cool shade of the Mahogany-lands, as certain old balconied edifices that have long since disappeared were named.
Jangling in mid air under the gothic crown of the old cathedral, the musical bells rang merrily, mingling with the busy hum that floated upward from the dense population below. The gift of Thomas Moodie, a citizen, these bells had been hung there in 1681. In one of the recesses formed by the buttresses of the church, a man was reading to a crowd, that listened intently, around the barrel on which he had perched himself. It was the Caledonius Mercurius, from the columns of which he was detailing some of Louis XIVths religious persecutions under the intolerant Mazarine, which now and then brought a muttered execration from the listeners.
Paunchy and gorbellied citizens, whose shops were in the gloomy recesses of the Luckenbooths, the cruicks of the Bow, or cellars of the Lawnmarket, were grouped about the city cross, which, with its tall octagon spire and unicorn, was for ages one of the chief beauties of the city. On one side of it stood the Dyvours-stane, whereon sat a row of those unfortunates, who for misfortune or roguery were, by act of the council, compelled to appear there each market day at noon, in the bankrupt's garb—a yellow bonnet, and coat, one half yellow, the other brown, under pain of three months' imprisonment.
On the other side groaned a wretched woman, who, for the heinous enormity of drinking the devil's health had just undergone the triple punishment of having her tongue bored, her cheek branded, and her back scourged.
The cross was the 'Change of the city, and on the spot where it stood, every Wednesday our traders yet meet to buy and sell, and to consult with sharp Clerks to the Signet, and more sharping Solicitors, where bargains are daily made as of old, but requiring ratifications more binding than merely standing on "our lady's steps" at the east end of St. Giles, or the pressure of wetted thumbs on a certain mysterious stone which was there kept for that purpose.
With a velvet mantle floating from his left shoulder, a long yellow feather waving over the right, and having in his carriage all that indefinable air which the consciousness of rank and spirit seldom fail to impart, Clermistonlee walked hastily up the street, poking his nose into the hood of every woman that passed. He kissed his hand to fair Annie Laurie, as she sailed out of Peebles Wynd with her fan spread before, and her vast fardingale behind her: he made a long step to cross the grave of Merlin, (whose stone coffin for ages marked the street he had been the first to pave), he roundly cursed the sooty Tronmen who did not make sufficient way for him, kicked a water barrel ten yards off, and laid his cane across the shoulders of the aquarius, its owner, bowed to the gay fellows under Blair's pillars, and with the air of a man who knew he was pretty well observed, made a pirouette near the cathedral, surveying all around him, but without seeing the person of whom he was in quest.
"Juden," said he to that respectable personage, who stuck close to his skirts, "I see not this knave, with whom I would fain come to blows while my spirit is in its bitterest mood."
"Right, my lord; but I warrant they will be cooing and billing on the Castle-hill yet."
"They—whom? Dost mean to tell me that Lilian Napier hath appeared there with her spark?"