transfixing as many in its passage as
the celebrated thrust of Orlando, which, according to the Italian epic
poet, broached as many Moors as a Frenchman spits frogs.

On beholding the bent of this misdirected career, a panic shout of
mingled terror and wrath was set up by the whole equipage, insides and
outsides, at once, which had the happy effect of averting the threatened
misfortune. The capricious horse of Goose Gibbie was terrified by the
noise, and stumbling as he turned short round, kicked and plunged
violently as soon as he recovered. The jack-boots, the original cause of
the disaster, maintaining the reputation they had acquired when worn by
better cavaliers, answered every plunge by a fresh prick of the spurs,
and, by their ponderous weight, kept their place in the stirrups. Not so
Goose Gibbie, who was fairly spurned out of those wide and ponderous
greaves, and precipitated over the horse's head, to the infinite
amusement of all the spectators. His lance and helmet had forsaken him in
his fall, and, for the completion of his disgrace, Lady Margaret
Bellenden, not perfectly aware that it was one of her warriors who was
furnishing so much entertainment, came up in time to see her diminutive
man-at-arms stripped of his lion's hide,--of the buff-coat, that is, in
which he was muffled.

As she had not been made acquainted with this metamorphosis, and could
not even guess its cause, her surprise and resentment were extreme, nor
were they much modified by the excuses and explanations of her steward
and butler. She made a hasty retreat homeward, extremely indignant at the
shouts and laughter of the company, and much disposed to vent her
displeasure on the refractory agriculturist whose place Goose Gibbie had
so unhappily supplied. The greater part of the gentry now dispersed, the
whimsical misfortune which had befallen the gens d'armerie of
Tillietudlem furnishing them with huge entertainment on their road
homeward. The horsemen also, in little parties, as their road lay
together, diverged from the place of rendezvous, excepting such as,
having tried their dexterity at the popinjay, were, by ancient custom,
obliged to partake of a grace-cup with their captain before their
departure.

CHAPTER IV.

At fairs he play'd before the spearmen,
And gaily graithed in their gear then,
Steel bonnets, pikes, and swords shone clear then
As ony bead; Now wha sall play before sic