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rk of Field, St. Mary's Wynd, a pleasant walk along the outside of the fortifications to the great monastery on its plateau, with the Pleasance, a name suggestive of all freshness and greenery and rural pleasure, at its feet. Inside the town, between the castle gates and those of the city, were the crowded habitations of a mediaeval town, the only place where business could be carried on in safety, or rich wares exhibited, or money passed from hand to hand. The Lawnmarket or Linen Market would be the chief centre of sale and merchandise, and there, no doubt, the booths before the lower stories, with all their merchandise displayed, and the salesmen seated at the head of the few deep steps which led into the cavernous depths within, would be full of fine dresses and jewellery, and the gold and silver which, some one complains, was worn away by the fine workmanship, which was then more prized than solid weight. The cloth of gold and silver, the fine satins and velvets, the embroidery, more exquisite than anything we have time or patience for now--embroidery of gold thread which we hear of, an uncomfortable sort of luxury, even upon the linen of great personages--would there be put forth and inspected by gallants in all their fine array, or by the ladies in their veils, half or wholly muffled from public inspection. Even the cheaper booths that adorned the West Bow or smaller wynds, where the country women bought their kirtles of red or green when they brought their produce to the market, would show more gay colours under their shade in a season than we with our soberer taste in years; and the town ladies, in their hoods and silk gowns, which were permitted even in more primitive times to the possessors of so much a year, must have been of themselves a fair sight in all their ornaments, less veiled and muffled from profane view than more high-born dames and demoiselles. No doubt it would be a favourite walk with all to pass the port and see what was doing among the great people down yonder at Holyrood, or watch a gay band of French knights arriving from Leith with their pennons displayed, full of some challenge lately given by the knights of Scotland, or eager to maintain on their own account the beauty of their ladies and the strength of their spears against all comers. Edinburgh can never have been so amusing, never so gay and bright, as in these fine times; though, no doubt, there was always the risk of a rush together of
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