Two of these parties, each headed by a person of
importance, chanced to meet in the very centre of the street, or, as
it was called, "the crown of the cause-way," a post of honour as
tenaciously asserted in Scotland, as that of giving or taking the wall
used to be in the more southern part of the island. The two leaders
being of equal rank, and, most probably, either animated by political
dislike, or by recollection of some feudal enmity, marched close up to
each other, without yielding an inch to the right or the left; and
neither showing the least purpose of giving way, they stopped for an
instant, and then drew their swords. Their followers imitated their
example; about a score of weapons at once flashed in the sun, and
there was an immediate clatter of swords and bucklers, while the
followers on either side cried their master's name; the one shouting
"Help, a Leslie! a Leslie!" while the others answered with shouts of
"Seyton! Seyton!" with the additional punning slogan, "Set on, set
on--bear the knaves to the ground!"
If the falconer found difficulty in getting the page to go forward
before, it was now perfectly impossible. He reined up his horse,
clapped his hands, and, delighted with the fray, cried and shouted as
fast as any of those who were actually engaged in it.
The noise and cries thus arising on the Highgate, as it was called,
drew into the quarrel two or three other parties of gentlemen and
their servants, besides some single passengers, who, hearing a fray
betwixt these two distinguished names, took part in it, either for
love or hatred.
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