"Indeed!" rejoined Wallace, sternly. "Let all the whigamore scum of Scotland come, they are welcome. I am one of the good old race of Elderslie, and I thank heaven that in an hour like this, it hath been the hap of one of my name to have entrusted to his care the defence of the palace of our princes, and yonder holy fane, the sepulchre of their bones—one of the fairest piles that ancient piety ever founded, or modern fanaticism destroyed." His swart countenance lighted up, and signing the cross (for this noble cavalier was a true catholic), he drew his sword.
"Hark, a chamade!" said Walter Fenton; "now let us hear what these rascals have the impudence to say;" and the three cavaliers repaired to the porch, leaving the divine to continue his devoirs to the brandy keg. They beheld a very extraordinary scene.
Wallace's company was an Independent one. It was something less than a hundred strong, and had the great porch of the palace and the two lesser gates of the boundary wall to defend. In the former there were sixty musqueteers drawn up, as it was the point of the greatest danger; the remainder were posted at the small gates, which were well secured by internal barricades. The great façade of the magnificent palace, with its deep quadrangle and six round towers, loomed through the starless gloom of the winter night; lights flickered in the gallery of the Kings of Scotland, and through the lofty casements of its long corridors and echoing chambers, for there many proscribed catholic and cavalier families, terrified women, and helpless children, hud fled for refuge. And from the great western windows of the chapel royal shone "the dim religious light" of the distant altar, where many a devout worshipper, in the ancient faith of our fathers, sent up, with catholic fervour, the most solemn prayers to God for conquest and for succour.
How different was the scene without those sacred walls, with their shadowy aisles, their glimmering shrines and marble tombs—their dark, deep, solemn arches, and mysterious echoes.
Through the strong gate of vertical iron bars that closed the dark round archway of the porch, the cavaliers beheld the long vista of the Canon-gate, extending to the westward. Its long perspective of ancient and picturesque edifices, turrets, outshots, and gables, was vividly lit up by the crimson glare of the blazing houses on the Abbey-hill, to the northward of the palace.
A dense mob that had gathered in the Cow-gate, provided with weapons and torches, mingled with Trained Bandsmen, and having drums beating, and the Earl of Perth's effigy, borne aloft before them, after traversing the West Bow and High-street, maltreating all they met, were now descending the Canon-gate; and the light of their brandished flambeaux streamed through the groined portal of the palace, glittering on the helmets and arms of the soldiers drawn up within it in close array, and beyond on the tall outline of the tower of James V.
As the drums of the Trained Bands continued to beat the point of war, the rabble poured forth from all the diverging wynds and alleys, until, like a river swollen by a hundred tributary streams, the dense mass that debouched upon the open space around the ancient Girth-cross of the once holy sanctuary, covered the whole arena. The united roar of ten thousand angry voices swelled along the lofty street, and the red torchlight revealed many an uncouth visage, distorted by drunkenness, fanaticism, and ferocity. Several musquets and pistols were incessantly discharged, while stones, sticks, fragments of furniture, dead cats, and every available and imaginable missile were hurled in showers over the battlements of the porch, and strewed the pavement of the court within.
In front were Grahame and Macgill, two captains in the trained band, armed with their buff coats, steel caps, and half pikes; several baillies, in their scarlet gowns and gold chains; Lord Mersington, reeling about and brandishing a partisan, his senatorial wig and robes in a woeful plight; the Rev. Ichabod Bummel, bare-headed and spurring like a madman a short, plump, and active Galloway cob of which he had possessed himself, and over the flanks of which, his long spindle shanks and scabbard trailed upon the ground. On each side were the Marchmont and Islay heralds, the Unicorn and Ormond pursuivants, in their tabards blazing with embroidery, and their tall plumed bonnets; behind was a confused forest of uplifted hands, and weapons, swords, pikes, staves, and halberts which flashed incessantly in the wavering glare of the brandished torches, and chief above all were the effigy of the Chancellor, and a great orange and blue standard; the first the colour of the Revolutionists, the second of the Covenanters.
The houses of the Earl of Perth, the Lairds of Niddry, Blairdrummond, and others, were blazing close by, and the sky was sheeted with fire. The contents of their cellars were rolled into the streets and staved, and the rich and luscious wines of France, the nut-brown ale, and crystal usquebaugh streamed along the swollen gutters, where hundreds of rioters were wallowing like pigs in the kennel, and were trod to death beneath the feet of the mighty host that swept over them. After a flourish of trumpets, the senior herald cried with a loud voice,—
"In the name of the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, I, the Islay Herald-at-Arms, summon, warn, and charge you, Captain William Wallace, under pain and penalty of loss of life and escheat of goods——"