nuate between two jests. No
doubt Campbella and Hamilla would laugh at the little man's compliments,
his bows and admiring glances, yet would not object to his exposition of
the tartan screen, the delicate silken plaid under which they shielded
their radiant complexions and golden locks.

Allan must have seen many curious sights from those windows. The riding
of the Parliament, when in gallant order two by two--the commissioners
of the boroughs and the counties leading the way, the peers following,
through the guards on either side who lined the streets--they rode up
solemnly from Holyrood to the Parliament House, with crown and sword and
sceptre borne before them, the old insignia, without which the Acts of
the ancient Parliaments of Scotland were not considered valid--marching
for the last time to their place of meeting to give up their
trust--would be one of the most remarkable. The commoners had each two
lackeys to attend him, the barons three, the earls four, a blue-coated
brigade, relic of the old days when no gentleman moved abroad without a
following; and Lyon King-at-arms in his finery to direct the line. With
lamentation and humiliation was the session closed; even wise men who
upheld the Union consenting to the general pang with which the last
Scots Parliament went its way. And the glare of the fire must have
lighted up the poet's rooms, and angry sparks fallen, and hoarse roar of
voices drowned all domestic sounds, when the Porteous Mob turned
Edinburgh streets into a fierce scene of tragedy for one exciting night.
It would be vain indeed to describe again what Scott has set before us
in the most vivid brilliant narrative. Such a scene breaking into the
burgher quietude--the decent households which had all retired into
decorous darkness for the night waking up again with lights flitting
from story to story, the axes crashing against the doors of the
Tolbooth, the wild procession whirling down the tortuous gloom of the
West Bow--was such an interruption of monotonous life as few towns in
the eighteenth century could have equalled; and it is curious to
remember the intense national feeling and keen patriotic understanding
of how far the populace would or could endure interference, which made
Duncan Forbes in his place in Parliament stand up as almost the defender
of that wild outburst of lawlessness, and John of Argyle turn from the
royal presence to prepare his hounds, as he said, against the Queen's
threat o