Penelope's Progress Part 8

"Ou ay," responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike--"ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!"

XI

We were to make our bow to the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale in the evening, and we were in a state of republican excitement at 22, Breadalbane Terrace.

Francesca had surprised us by refusing to be presented at this semi-royal Scottish court. "Not I," she said. "The Marchioness represents the Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has raised the standards of admission, and requires us to 'back out' of the throne-room. I don't propose to do that without London training.

Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own President's receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don't feel like coping with the Reverend Ronald to-night!" (Lady Baird was to take us under her wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir Robert being in Inveraray.)

"Sally, my dear," I said, as Francesca left the room with a bottle of smelling-salts somewhat ostentatiously in evidence, "methinks the damsel doth protest too much. In other words, she devotes a good deal of time and discussion to a gentleman whom she heartily dislikes. As she is under your care, I will direct your attention to the following points:--

"Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of international alliances.

"He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian.

"His father was a famous old school doctor; Francesca is a h.o.m.oeopathist.

"He is serious; Francesca is gay.

"I think, under all the circ.u.mstances, their acquaintance will bear watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists."

"Nonsense!" returned Salemina brusquely. "You think because you are under the spell of the tender pa.s.sion yourself that other people are in constant danger. Francesca detests him."

"Who told you so?"

"She herself," triumphantly.

"Salemina," I said pityingly, "I have always believed you a spinster from choice; don't lead me to think that you have never had any experience in these matters! The Reverend Ronald has also intimated to me as plainly as he dared that he cannot bear the sight of Francesca.

What do I gather from this statement? The general conclusion that if it be true, it is curious that he looks at her incessantly."

"Francesca would never live in Scotland," remarked Salemina feebly.

"Not unless she were asked, of course," I replied.

"He would never ask her."

"Not unless he thought he had a chance of an affirmative answer."

"Her father would never allow it."

"Her father allows what she permits him to allow. You know that perfectly well."

"What shall I do about it, then?"

"Consult me."

"What shall _we_ do about it?"

"Let Nature have her own way."

"I don't believe in Nature."

"Don't be profane, Salemina, and don't be unromantic, which is worse; but if you insist, trust in Providence."

"I would rather trust Francesca's hard heart."

"The hardest hearts melt if sufficient heat be applied. Did I take you to Newhaven and read you 'Christie Johnstone' on the beach for naught?

Don't you remember Charles Reade said that the Scotch are icebergs, with volcanoes underneath; thaw the Scotch ice, which is very cold, and you shall get to the Scotch fire, warmer than any sun of Italy or Spain. I think Mr. Macdonald is a volcano."

"I wish he were extinct," said Salemina petulantly, "and I wish you wouldn't make me nervous."

"If you had any faculty of premonition, you wouldn't have waited for me to make you nervous."

"Some people are singularly omniscient."

"Others are singularly deficient"--And at this moment Susanna Crum came in to announce Miss Jean Dalziel, who had come to see sights with us.

It was our almost daily practice to walk through the Old Town, and we were now familiar with every street and close in that densely crowded quarter. Our quest for the sites of ancient landmarks never grew monotonous, and we were always reconstructing, in imagination, the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Lawnmarket, and the High Street, until we could see Auld Reekie as it was in bygone centuries. In those days of continual war with England, people crowded their dwellings as near the Castle as possible, so floor was piled upon floor and flat upon flat, families ensconcing themselves above other families, the tendency being ever skyward. Those who dwelt on top had no desire to spend their strength in carrying down the corkscrew stairs matter which would descend by the force of gravity if pitched from the window or door; so the wayfarer, especially after dusk, would be greeted with cries of "Get out o' the gait!" or "Gardy loo!" which was in the French "_Gardez l'eau_," and which would have been understood in any language, I fancy, after a little experience. The streets then were filled with the debris flung from a hundred upper windows, while certain ground-floor tenants, such as butchers and candlemakers, contributed their full share to the fragrant heaps. As for these too seldom used narrow turnpike stairs, imagine the dames of fas.h.i.+on tilting their vast hoops and silken show-petticoats up and down in them!

That swine roamed at will in these Elysian fields is to be presumed, since we have this amusing picture of three High Street belles and beauties in the "Traditions of Edinburgh:"--

"So easy were the manners of the great, fabled to be so stiff and decorous," says the author, "that Lady Maxwell's daughter Jane, who afterward became the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, was seen riding a sow up the High Street, while her sister Eglantine (afterwards Lady Wallace of Craigie) thumped l.u.s.tily behind with a stick."

No wonder, in view of all this, that King James VI., when about to bring home his "darrest spous" Anne of Denmark, wrote to the Provost, "For G.o.d's sake see a' things are richt at our hame-coming; a king with a new-married wife doesna come hame ilka day."

Had it not been for these royal home-comings and visits of distinguished foreigners, now and again aided by something still more salutary, an occasional outbreak of the plague, the easy-going authorities would never have issued any "cleansing edicts," and the still easier-going inhabitants would never have obeyed them. It was these dark, tortuous wynds and closes, nevertheless, that made up the Court End of Old Edinbro'; for some one writes in 1530, "Via vaccarum in qua habitant patricii et senatores urbis" (The n.o.bility and chief senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate). And as for the Canongate, this Saxon _gaet_ or way of the Holyrood canons, it still sheltered in 1753 "two dukes, sixteen earls, two dowager countesses, seven lords, seven lords of session, thirteen baronets, four commanders of the forces in Scotland, and five eminent men,"--fine game indeed for Mally Lee!

"A' doun alang the Canongate Were beaux o' ilk degree; And mony ane turned round to look At bonny Mally Lee.

And we're a' gaun east an' west, We're a' gaun agee, We're a' gaun east an' west Courtin' Mally Lee!"

Every corner bristles with memories. Here is the Stamp Office Close, from which the lovely Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, was wont to issue on a.s.sembly nights; she, six feet in height, with a brilliantly fair complexion and a "face of the maist bewitching loveliness." Her seven daughters and stepdaughters were all conspicuously handsome, and it was deemed a goodly sight to watch the long procession of eight gilded sedan-chairs pa.s.s from the Stamp Office Close, bearing her and her stately brood to the a.s.sembly Room, amid a crowd that was "hushed with respect and admiration to behold their lofty and graceful figures step from the chairs on the pavement."

Here itself is the site of those old a.s.semblies presided over at one time by the famous Miss Nicky Murray, a directress of society affairs, who seems to have been a feminine premonition of Count d'Orsay and our own McAllister. Rather dull they must have been, those old Scotch b.a.l.l.s, where Goldsmith saw the ladies and gentlemen in two dismal groups divided by the length of the room.

"The a.s.sembly Close received the fair-- Order and elegance presided there-- Each gay Right Honourable had her place, To walk a minuet with becoming grace.

No racing to the dance with rival hurry, Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray!"

It was half past nine in the evening when Salemina and I drove to Holyrood, our humble cab-horse jogging faithfully behind Lady Baird's brougham, and it was the new experience of seeing Auld Reekie by lamplight that called up these gay visions of other days,--visions and days so thoroughly our mental property that we could not help resenting the fact that women were hanging was.h.i.+ng from the Countess of Eglinton's former windows, and popping their unkempt heads out of the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon's old doorway.

The Reverend Ronald is so kind! He enters so fully into our spirit of inquiry, and takes such pleasure in our enthusiasms! He even sprang lightly out of Lady Baird's carriage and called to our "lamiter" to halt while he showed us the site of the Black Turnpike, from whose windows Queen Mary saw the last of her kingdom's capital.

"Here was the Black Turnpike, Miss Hamilton!" he cried; "and from here Mary went to Loch Leven, where you Hamiltons and the Setons came gallantly to her help. Don't you remember the 'far ride to the Solway sands'?"

I looked with interest, though I was in such a state of delicious excitement that I could scarce keep my seat.