"Saint George and Saint Andrew!" exclaimed the amazed Roland Graeme to
himself, "was there ever such an audacious quean!--she seems a little
ashamed of her mummery too, for she holds the lap of her cloak to her
face, and her colour is heightened--but Santa Maria, how she threads
the throng, with as firm and bold a step as if she had never tied
petticoat round her waist!--Holy Saints! she holds up her riding-rod
as if she would lay it about some of their ears, that stand most in
her way--by the hand of my father! she bears herself like the very
model of pagehood.--Hey! what! sure she will not strike frieze-jacket
in earnest?" But he was not long left in doubt; for the lout whom he
had before repeatedly noticed, standing in the way of the bustling
page, and maintaining his place with clownish obstinacy or stupidity,
the advanced riding-rod was, without a moment's hesitation, sharply
applied to his shoulders, in a manner which made him spring aside,
rubbing the part of the body which had received so unceremonious a
hint that it was in the way of his betters. The party injured growled
forth an oath or two of indignation, and Roland Graeme began to think
of flying down stairs to the assistance of the translated Catherine;
but the laugh of the yard was against frieze-jacket, which indeed had,
in those days, small chance of fair play in a quarrel with velvet and
embroidery; so that the fellow, who was menial in the inn, slunk back
to finish his task of dressing the bonny gray, laughed at by all, but
most by the wench in the stammel waistcoat, his fellow-servant, who,
to crown his disgrace, had the cruelty to cast an applauding smile
upon the author of the injury, while, with a freedom more like the
milk-maid of the town than she of the plains, she accosted him
with--"Is there any one you want here, my pretty gentleman, that you
seem in such haste?"
"I seek a sprig of a lad," said the seeming gallant, "with a sprig of
holly in his cap, black hair, and black eyes, green jacket, and the
air of a country coxcomb--I have sought him through every close and
alley in the Canongate, the fiend gore him!"
"Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!" muttered Roland Graeme, much bewildered.
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