It was clearly not his object to read the proclamation, for after a glance at it his eyes were turned towards Ralph's face. If he had hoped to catch the light of an expression there he was disappointed. Ralph read the proclamation without changing a muscle of his countenance. He was returning the link to its owner, when the little man reached out his long finger, and, touching the paper as it hung on the Cross, looked up into Ralph's eyes with a cunning leer, and said, “Unco' gude, eh?”
Ralph made no reply. As though determined to draw him into converse, the little man shrugged his shoulders, and added, “Clarendon's work that, eh?”
There was still no response, so the speaker continued: “It'll deceive none. It's lang sin' the like of it stood true in England—worse luck!”
The dialect in which this was spoken was of that mongrel sort which in these troublous days was sometimes adopted by degenerate Scotchmen who, living in England, had reasons of their own for desiring to conceal their nationality.
“I'll wager it's all a joke,” added the speaker, dropping his voice, but still addressing Ralph, and ignoring the people that stood around them.
Ralph turned about, and, giving but a glance to his interlocutor, passed out of the crowd without a word.
The little man remained a moment or two behind, and then slunk down the street in the direction which Ralph had taken.
There was to be a performance at the theatre that night, and already the people had begun to troop towards St. Leonard's Gate. Chairs were being carried down the causeway, with link-boys walking in front of them, and coaches were winding their way among the fires in the streets. Scarlet cloaks were mingling with the gray jerkins of the townspeople, and swords were here and there clanking on the pavement.
The theatre was a rude wooden structure that stood near the banks of the river, on a vacant plot of ground that bordered the city on the east and skirted the fields. It had a gallery that sloped upwards from the pit, and the more conspicuous seats in it were draped in crimson cloth. The stage, which went out as a square chamber from one side of the circular auditorium, was lighted by lamps that hung above the heads of the actors.
Before the performance began every seat was filled. The men hailed their friends from opposite sides of the house, and laughed and chaffed, and sang snatches of Royalist and other ballads. The women, who for the most part wore veils or masks, whispered together, flirted their fans, and returned without reserve the salutations that were offered them.