none were more loyal in drinking His Majesty's health in Hugh Blair's best Burgundy, and the Hocheim of the White Horse, than Walter Fenton and his cavalier comrades of the Scots' Musqueteers; none squeezed the orange more emphatically, and none handled so roughly those luckless wights whom they found chaunting Lillibulero, and none drained their vast bumpers more earnestly to the undamning and double damning of the pumpkin-headed and twenty-breeched Dutch.
It was the afternoon of a September day; the last detachment of Dunbarton's Foot had marched into Edinburgh, from the famous expedition against the Macdonalds of Keppoch, in attacking whom they had been co-operating with a battalion of the Guards, and the horsemen of the celebrated Captain Crichton, whose memoirs were edited by Dean Swift; and now to enjoy a complete military re-union, all the cavalier officers of the ancient corps sat down to a banquet in the great dining hall of the White Horse Cellar.
The long apartment was lighted by several windows that faced the Calton hill, which towered away to the north and westward, covered with whin and broom, where the fox, the hare, and the weazel yet made their lairs unheeded and unhunted. The hall was spacious, elegant, and hung with arras, and a great painting by Jameson, our Scottish Vandyke, the pupil of Rubens, hung over the yawning fire-place. It was a fanciful representation of the fair Mary, on that favourite white palfrey, which a hundred and fifty years before had given a name to the hostel, when the range of stabling below it had been occupied as a mews of the Scottish kings. Beneath this, hung the battered headpiece and Jedwood axe which Gibbie Runlet had wielded—and wielded well as the king's rebels knew to their cost—in the wars of the glorious Montrose.
The sturdy legs of the old oak beauffet appeared to bend under the load of glittering crystal, shining plate, and various good things piled upon its shelves, while underneath in columns dark and close, were ranged in deep array the flasks of good old wine, from the cool vaults of the White Horse cellar, and covered with the undisturbed dust and cobwebs of years of long repose.
Clad in their rich military dresses, bright steel, and spotless scarlet, glittering with jewels and gold lace, the row of cavalier guests on each side of that long and festive board, presented a very gay and striking appearance, as the setting sun shone full upon them, and caused the whole vista of the dinner table to glitter with sparkling objects, and the curling steam of the smoking banquet.
In a great chair, with high back and stuffed arms, rough with carving and rich with nails and scarlet leather sat the portly master, Gilbert Runlet (that host of immortal memory), with a vast red face, that seemed like the harvest-moon rising at one end of the table; while the great rotund form spreading out below it, a yard in diameter, loomed like a mountain, closing the long perspective of the board.
Gibbie had been for twenty years the most substantial burgess of the Canongate; and as a stanch and irascible Royalist, had long "ruled the roast" at the council board of that ancient burgh. The beau ideal of a jovial host, he laughed and talked, and helped on all sides incessantly, yet never appeared to be behind any one in emptying his own plate or tankard, which were replenished and emptied with wonderful celerity.
But the dinner! A flourish of trumpets announced it; and well it deserved the compliment of such a preliminary. A huge sirloin, which balanced a baron of beef, was undergoing a rapid process of diminution under Gibbie's long carving whinger; six collared pigs, bristling with cloves, and having flowers stuck in their nostrils, stood erect on great platters. Around them were hares, turkies, geese, ducks, and chickens, roasted, stewed, fricasseed, and boiled. There was a vast silver salt-foot at each end, two grand epergnes of flowers and peacocks' feathers, two great salads, two hundred little manchets, venison, hams, salmon, flounders, crabs, and Crail capons,—all placed pell-mell without order of courses, among tarts, trifles, confections, pyramids of jelly and plumbdames, puddings and fruit of every description, disposed in ornamental figures of trees, birds, &c.
But, far above all this wilderness of viands towered a great edifice, representing a fortress; the towers were of pie-crust, with ramparts of wax; the cannon and sentinels were sugar-paste; the bullets were little bon-bons; the moat was filled with wine, and from the keep hung a flag with St. Andrew's silver saltire. This erection elicited great admiration from the guests, by whom it was unanimously named the Castle of Tangier, beneath the towers of which so many of their brave comrades had found a soldier's grave.
The feast proceeded in gallant style, amid unrestrained hilarity and bursts of military merriment. All did justice to the good things before them; while the servants, or ecuyers trenchant, were kept on the alert pouring forth Rhenish, Gascony, Muscadel, port and sherry, and the rich and luscious wine of Frontiniac, as if there had been a conflagration in the stomach of every guest.