Corn-fields lie under the low green hills, here bending their golden load under the busy reaper’s hand, there shorn and naked, with the gathered sheaves in heaps where yesterday they grew. Pleasant sounds are in the clear rich autumn air—harvest voices, harvest mirth, purified by a little distance from all its coarseness; and through the open cottage doors you see the eldest child, matronly and important in one house, idling with a sense of guilt in the other, who has been left at home in charge, that all elder and abler people might get to the field. Pleasant excitement and haste touch you with a contagious cheer and activity as you pass. Here hath our bountiful mother been rendering riches out of her full breast once more; here, under those broad bright, smiling heavens, the rain and the sun, which God sends upon the just and the unjust, have day by day cherished the seed, and brought it forth in blade and ear; and now there is a thanksgiving in all the air, and quickened steps and cheerful labouring proclaim the unconscious sentiment which animates the whole. Bright, prosperous, wealthy autumn days, wherein the reaper has no less share than his master, and the whole world is enriched with the universal gain.
And now the Firth comes flashing into sight, making the whole horizon a silver line, with one white sail, far off, floating on it like a cloud. Heavily, as if it overhung the water, that dark hill prints its bold outline on the mingled glory of sky and sea; and under its shadow lie quiet houses, musing on the beach, so still that you could fancy them only lingering, meditating there. But little meditation is under those humble roofs, for the fishers of Largo are out on the Firth, as yonder red sails tell you, straying forth at the wide mouth of the bay; and the women at home are weaving nets, and selling fish, and have time for anything but meditation.
But now Largo Law is left behind, and there is a grand scene beyond. The skies are clear and distinct as skies are only in autumn; and yonder couches the lion, who watches our fair Edinburgh night and day; and there she stands herself, his Una, with her grey wimple over her head, and her feet on the sands of her vassal sea. Queenlike attendants these are: they are almost her sole glory now; for her crown is taken from her head, and her new life of genius has scarcely begun; but none can part the forlorn queen and her two faithful henchmen, the Firth and the hill.
There are few other passengers to cross the ferry with our little party; for Lady Anne has only one manservant for escort and protection to herself, Katie Stewart, and their formidable maid. In those days people were easily satisfied with travelling accommodation. The ferryboat was a little dingy sloop, lifting up a huge picturesque red sail to catch the soft wind, which carried them along only very slowly; but Katie Stewart leaned over its grim bulwark, watching the water—so calm, that it seemed to have consistence and shape as the slow keel cut it asunder—softly gliding past the little vessel’s side, and believed she had never been so happy.
It was night when they reached Edinburgh, under the care of a little band of Lady Colville’s servants and hangers-on—all the male force the careful Lady Betty could muster—who had been waiting for them at the water-side. The Chevalier’s forces were rapidly approaching the city, and Katie Stewart’s heart thrilled with a fear which had more delight in it than any previous joy, as slowly in their heavy cumbrous carriage, with their little body of adherents, they moved along through the gloom and rustling sounds of the beautiful night. In danger! not unlike the errant ladies of the old time; and approaching to the grand centre of romance and song—the Edinburgh of dreams.
Lady Colville’s house was in the High Street, opposite the old Cross of Edinburgh; and, with various very audible self-congratulations on the part of their attendants, the visitors entered the narrow dark gateway, and arrived in the paved court within. It was not very large this court; and, illuminated by the fitful light of a torch, which just showed the massy walls frowning down, with all kinds of projections on every side, the dwelling-place of Lady Colville did not look at all unlike one of the mysterious houses of ancient story. Here were twin windows, set in a richly ornamented gable, sending out gleams of fierce reflection as the light flashed into their small dark panes; and yonder, tier above tier, the great mansion closes up darkly to the sky, which fits the deep well of this court like a roof glowing with its “little lot of stars.” Katie had time to observe it all while the good maternal Lady Betty welcomed her young sister at the door. Very dark, high, and narrow was the entrance, more like a cleft in great black rocks, admitting to some secret cavern, than a passage between builded walls; and the dark masses of shadow which lay in those deep corners, and the elfin torchlight throwing wild gleams here and there over the heavy walls, and flashing back from unseen windows, everywhere, made a strange picturesque scene—relieved as it was by the clear, faint stars above, and the warm light from the opened door.
But it was not at that time the most peaceful of residences, this house of Lady Colville’s; for in a day or two Katie began to start in her high chamber at the long boom of the Castle guns; and in these balmy lightsome nights, excited crowds paced up and down, from the Canongate and the Lawnmarket, and gathered in groups about the Cross, discussing the hundred rumours to which the crisis gave birth. At all times this Edinburgh crowd does dearly love to gather like waves in the great street of the old city, and amuse itself with an excitement when the times permit. As they sweep along—knots of old men, slowly deliberating—clusters of young ones, quickening their pace as their conversation and thoughts intensify—all in motion, continually coming and going, the wide street never sufficiently thronged to prevent their passage, but enough so to secure all the animation of a crowd; and women looking on only from the “close mouths” and outer stairs, spectators merely, not actors in the ferment which growls too deeply for them to join—the scene is always interesting, always exciting to a stranger; it loses somehow the natural meanness of a vulgar mob, and you see something historical, which quickens your pulse, and makes your blood warm, in the angry crowd of the High Street, if it be only some frolic of soldiers from the Castle which has roused its wrath.
Out, little Katie! out on the round balcony of that high oriel window—something approaches which eyes of noble ladies around you brighten to see. On the other balcony below this, Lady Anne, with a white ribbon on her breast, leans over the carved balustrade, eagerly looking out for its coming, with a flushed and animated face, to which enthusiasm gives a certain charm. Even now in her excitement she has time to look up, time to smile—though she is almost too anxious to smile—and wave her fluttering handkerchief to you above there, Katie Stewart, to quicken your zeal withal. But there, little stubborn Whig, unmoved except by curiosity, and with not a morsel of white ribbon about her whole person, and her handkerchief thrown away into the inner room, least she should be tempted to wave it, stands the little Hanoverian Katie, firmly planting her feet upon the window-sill, and leaning on the great shoulder of Bauby Rodger, who thrusts her forward from behind. Bauby is standing on a stool within the room, her immense person looming through the oppressed window, and one of her mighty hands, with a handkerchief nearly as large as the main-sail of a sloop, squeezed up within it like a ball, ready to be thrown loose to the winds when he comes, grasping, like Lady Anne, the rail of the balustrade.
There is a brilliant sky overhead, and all the way along, until the street loses itself in its downward slope to the palace, those high-crested coroneted windows are crowded with the noble ladies of Scotland. Below, the crowd thickens every moment—a murmuring, moving mass, with many minds within it like Katie Stewart’s, hostile as fears for future, and remembrance of past injuries can make them, to the hero of the day. And banners float in the air, which high above there is misty with the palpable gold of this exceeding sunshine; and distant music steals along the street, and far-off echoed cheers tell that he is coming—he is coming! Pretender—Prince—Knight-errant—the last of a doomed and hapless race.
Within the little boudoir on the lower story, which this oriel window lights, Lady Colville sits in a great elbow chair apart, where she can see the pageant without, and not herself be seen; for Lady Betty wisely remembers that, though the daughter of a Jacobite earl, she is no less the wife of a Whig lord, whose flag floats over the broad sea far away, in the name of King George. Upon her rich stomacher you can scarcely discern the modest white ribbon which, like an innocent ornament, conceals itself under the folds of lace; but the ribbon, nevertheless, is there; and ladies in no such neutral position as hers—offshoots of the attainted house of Mar, and other gentle cousins, crowd her other windows, though no one has seen herself on the watch to hail the Chevalier.