"Nay, good sooth," said the Major, "the damnable dinner that Noll gave us at Worcester a few days afterwards drove all your good cheer out of my memory.—But how's this?—you have even the great Turkey-leather elbow-chair, with the tapestry cushions, placed in state."
"The throne, brother, if you please," said Lady Margaret, gravely.
"Well, the throne be it, then," continued the Major. "Is that to be Claver'se's post in the attack upon the pasty?"
"No, brother," said the lady; "as these cushions have been once honoured by accommodating the person of our most sacred Monarch, they shall never, please Heaven, during my life-time, be pressed by any less dignified weight."
"You should not then," said the old soldier, "put them in the way of an honest old cavalier, who has ridden ten miles before breakfast; for, to confess the truth, they look very inviting. But where is Edith?"
"On the battlements of the warder's turret," answered the old lady, "looking out for the approach of our guests."
"Why, I'll go there too; and so should you, Lady Margaret, as soon as you have your line of battle properly formed in the hall here. It's a pretty thing, I can tell you, to see a regiment of horse upon the march."
Thus speaking, he offered his arm with an air of old-fashioned gallantry, which Lady Margaret accepted with such a courtesy of acknowledgment as ladies were wont to make in Holyroodhouse before the year 1642, which, for one while, drove both courtesies and courts out of fashion.
Upon the bartizan of the turret, to which they ascended by many a winding passage and uncouth staircase, they found Edith, not in the attitude of a young lady who watches with fluttering curiosity the approach of a smart regiment of dragoons, but pale, downcast, and evincing, by her countenance, that sleep had not, during the preceding night, been the companion of her pillow. The good old veteran was hurt at her appearance, which, in the hurry of preparation, her grandmother had omitted to notice.
"What is come over you, you silly girl?" he said; "why, you look like an officer's wife when she opens the News-letter after an action, and expects to find her husband among the killed and wounded. But I know the reason—you will persist in reading these nonsensical romances, day and night, and whimpering for distresses that never existed. Why, how the devil can you believe that Artamines, or what d'ye call him, fought singlehanded with a whole battalion? One to three is as great odds as ever fought and won, and I never knew any body that cared to take that, except old Corporal Raddlebanes. But these d—d books put all pretty men's actions out of countenance. I daresay you would think very little of Raddlebanes, if he were alongside of Artamines.—I would have the fellows that write such nonsense brought to the picquet for leasing-making."