At the top only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I could
spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out
and in, I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole
appearance of the place interested me like a tale.
I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in
time and clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of
a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a
great coat. He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of
courtesy, genteel and insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as
he went, and his face was sly and handsome. I thought his eye took
me in, but could not meet it. This procession went by to a door in
the close, which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two
of the soldier-lads carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering
with their firelocks by the door.
There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some
following of idle folk and children. It was so now; but the more
part melted away incontinent until but three were left. One was a
girl; she was dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond
colours on her head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers
were ragged gillies, such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen
in my Highland journey.
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