Three months later, in the early sweetness of May, Cosmo Livingstone
stood upon an “outside stair,” one of those little flights of stone
steps, clearing the half-cellar shops of the lowest story, which are not
unfrequent in the High Street of Edinburgh, and which make a handy
platform when any thing is to be seen, or place of refuge when any thing
is to be escaped from. A little further down, opposite to him, was the
Tron Church, with its tall steeple striking up into the sunny mid-day
heavens; and above, at a little distance, the fleecy white clouds hung
over the open crown of St. Giles’s, with the freshness of recent rain.
Many bystanders stood on the other “stair-heads,” and groups of heads
looked out from almost every window of the high houses on every side.
The High Street of Edinburgh, lined with expectant lookers-on, darkening
downwards towards the picturesque slope of the Canongate, with its two
varied and noble lines of lofty old houses, black with time, between
which the sunshine breaks down in a moted and streamy glory, as into a
well, is no contemptible object among street sights; and the population
of Edinburgh loves its streets as perhaps only the populations of places
rich in natural beauty can love them. A man who has seen a crowd in the
High Street might almost be tempted to doubt, indeed, whether the
Scottish people were really so reserved and grave and self-restraining
as common report pronounces them. The women on the landings of the
stairs shrilly claiming here and there a Tam or a Sandy, or else
discussing in chorus the event of the moment; the groups of men
promenading up and down upon the pavement with firm-set mouth and
gleaming eyes--the mutter of forcible popular sentiment saying rather
more than it means, and saying that in the plainest and most emphatic
words; and the stir of general excitement in a scene which has already
various recollections of tumults which are historical, make altogether a
picturesque and striking combination, which is neither like a Parisian
mob nor a London one, yet is quite as characteristic as either. It was
not, however, a mob on this day, when Cosmo Livingstone stood on the
stair-head in front of a little bookseller’s shop, the owner of which,
in high excitement, came every minute or two to the door, uttering
vehement little sentences to the little crowd on his steps:--
“We’ll have it oot o’ them if we have to gang to St. Stephen’s very
doors for’t!” cried the shopkeeper. “King William had better mind his
crown than mind his wife. We’re no’ to lose the Bill for a German
whimsey. Hey, laddies! dinna make so muckle clatter--they’re coming! do
ye hear them?”
They were coming, as the increased hum and cluster of the bystanders
told clearly enough--an extraordinary procession of its kind. Without a
note of music, without a tint of color, with a tramp which was not the
steady tramp of trained footsteps, but only the sound of a slowly
advancing crowd, to which immense excitement gave a kind of
solemnity--a long line of men in their common dress, unornamented,
unattended, keeping a mysterious silence, and carrying a few flags,
black, and with ominous devices, which only the strain of a great climax
of national feeling could have suffered to pass without that ridicule
which is more fatal than state prosecutions. Nobody laughed, so far as
we are aware, at the skulls and cross-bones of this voiceless
procession; and the tramp of that multitude of men, timed and cheered by
no music, broken by no shouts, lightened by no gleam of weapons, or
glitter of emblems, or variety of color, and only accompanied by the
agitated hum of the bystanders, had a very remarkable and somewhat
“gruesome” impressiveness. The people who were looking on grew silent
gradually, and held their breath as the long train went slowly past. It
might not be a formidable band. _Punch_--if _Punch_ had been in those
days--might very likely have found a comfortable amount of laughter in
the grim looks of the processionists, who were not likely to do much in
justification of their deadly-looking flags. But the occasion was a
remarkable occasion in the national history; the excitement was such--so
general and overpowering--as no subsequent agitation has been able to
equal. The real force of popular emotion in it covered even its own
mock-heroics, which is no small thing to say; and there was something
solemn in the unanimity of so many sober persons, who were not under the
immediate sway and leadership of any demagogue, nor could be supposed to
look for personal advantages, and whose extreme fervor and excitement at
the same time were not revolutionary, but simply political. The “Bill,”
on which the popular hope had fixed itself, had just met with one of its
failures, and this was the exaggerated, yet expressive way in which the
Edinburgh crowd demonstrated the popular sentiment of the day.
These things can not be judged in cold blood; at that time everybody was
excited. Cosmo Livingstone, white with boyish fervor, watched and
counted them as they passed, with irresistible exclamations--“twenty,
forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred!” the boy cried aloud with triumph, as
score after score went past; and the women on the lower steps of the
stair began to share his calculations and exult in them. The very
children beneath, who were looking on with restless and excited
curiosity, knew something about the “Bill,” which day by day, as the
coach from the south, with the London mails, came in, they had been sent
to learn tidings of; and the bookseller in the little shop could not
restrain himself.
“There will be news of this!” he cried, as the last detachment passed;
“when the men of Edinburgh take up a matter, nothing can stand before
them. There ne’er was a march like it that I ever heard o’ in a’ my
reading. Kings, Lords, and Commons--I defy them to stand against it--how
many?--hurra for Auld Reekie! Our lads, when they do a thing, never make
a fool o’t. Hark to the tramp of them! man, it’s grand!”
“I’ve seen the sodgers out for far less in my day,” said an old woman.
“A snuff for the sodgers!” cried the excited shopkeeper, snapping his
fingers; “‘a wheen mercenaries, selling their bluid for a trade. They
daur nae mair face a band like that than I dare face Munch Meg.”
“Oh, Cosmo--Cosmo Livingstone!” cried a voice from below; “it’s me--look
this way!--do you no’ mind me?--I’m Joanna; come down this moment and
tell us how we’re to get home.”
Cosmo looked down through the railings, close to the bottom of which the
owner of the voice had been pressed by the crowd. She had a little silk
umbrella in her hand, with the end of which, thrust between the rails,
she was impatiently, and by no means lightly, beating upon his foot.
An elderly person, looking very much frightened, clung close to her arm,
and a girl somewhat younger stood a little apart, looking with bright,
vivacious eyes and parted lips after the disappearing procession.
The swarm of lads, of idle women and children, who followed in the wake
of the Reformers, as of every other march, had overwhelmed for a moment
this little group, which was not like them; and the tumult of voices,
which rose when the sight was over, made it difficult to hear even
Joanna, clear, loud, and unhesitating as her claim was.
“Miss Huntley!” cried Cosmo, with a momentary start--but it was not so
much to witness his recognition as to save his foot from further
chastisement.
“It’s no’ Miss Huntley--it’s me!” cried Joanna; “we’ve lost our
road--come and tell us how we’re to go. Oh, madame, don’t hold so fast
to my arm!”
Cosmo made haste to swing himself down over the railings, when Joanna’s
elderly companion immediately addressed herself to him in a long and
most animated speech, which, unfortunately, however, was in French, and
entirely unintelligible to the poor boy. He blushed violently, and stood
listening with a natural deference, but without the slightest hope of
comprehending her--making now and then a faint attempt to interrupt the
stream. Joanna in the meantime, who was not a great deal more
enlightened than he was, vainly endeavored to stay the course of
madame’s eloquence by pulling her shawl and elbow.
“He does not understand you! he canna understand you!” cried Joanna, in
words which, the Frenchwoman comprehended as little as Cosmo did _her_
address.
During this little episode, the other girl stood by with an evident
impulse to laughter, and a sparkle of amusement in her black eyes. At
last she started forward with a rapid motion, said something to madame
which succeeded better than the remonstrances of Joanna, and addressed
Cosmo in her turn.
“Madame says,” said the lively little stranger, “that she can not
understand your countrymen--they are so grave, so impassionate, so
sorrowful, she knows not if they march in _le corétge funêbre_ or go to
make the barricades. Madame says there is no music, no shouts, no voice.
She demands what the _jeune Monsieur_ thinks of a so grave procession.”
“The men are displeased,” said Cosmo, hastily; “they think that the
government trifles with them, and they warn it how they feel. They don’t
mean to make a riot, or break the peace--we call it a demonstration
here.”
“A de-mon-stracion!” said the little Frenchwoman; “I shall look for it
in my dictionary. They are angry with the king--_eh bien!_--why do not
they fight?”
“Fight! they could fight the whole world if they liked!” cried Joanna;
“but they would scorn to fight for every thing like people that have
nothing else to do. Desirée and I wanted to see it, Cosmo, and madame
did not know in the least where we were bringing her to--and so we got
into the crowd, and I don’t know how to get back to Moray Place, unless
you’ll show us the way.”
“Madame says,” said the other girl laughing, after receiving another
vehement communication from the governess, “that _ce jeune Monsieur_ is
to go with us only to Princes Street--then we shall find our own way. He
is not to go with you, _belle_ Joanna; and madame demands to know what
all the people say.”
“What all the people say!--they’re gossiping, and scolding, and speaking
about the procession, and about us, and about their own concerns, and
about every thing,” said Joanna; “and how can I tell her? Oh, Cosmo,
I’ve looked everywhere for you! but you never walk where we walk; and I
saw your mother at the church, and I saw Katie Logan, and I told Katie
to write you word to come and see me--but everybody teazes us to death
about being proper; however, come along, and I’ll tell you all about
everybody--wasn’t it grand to see the procession? Papa’s a terrible
Tory, and says it’ll destroy the country--so I hope they’ll get it. Are
you for the Reform?”
“Yes,” said Cosmo, but the truth was, the boy felt considerably
embarrassed walking onward by the side of Joanna, with the governess and
the little Frenchwoman behind, talking in their own language with a
rapidity which made Cosmo dizzy, interrupted by occasional bursts of
laughter from the girl, which he, being still very young and
inexperienced, and highly self-conscious, could not help suspecting to
be excited by himself--an idea which made him excessively awkward.
However, Joanna trudged along, with her umbrella in one hand, and with
the other holding up the skirt of her dress, which, however, was neither
very long nor very wide. Joanna’s tall figure might possibly be handsome
some day--but it certainly wanted filling up and rounding in the
meantime--and was not remarkably elegant at present, either in garb or
gait.
But her young companion was of a very different aspect. She was little,
graceful, light, with a step which, even in the High Street, reminded
Cosmo of Jaacob’s bit of sentiment--“a foot that rang on the path like
siller bells"--with sparkling black eyes, a piquant rosy mouth, and so
bright and arch a look, that the boy forgave her for laughing at
himself, as he supposed she was doing. Desirée!--there was a charm too
in the strange foreign name which he could not help saying over to
himself--and if Joanna had been less entirely occupied with talking to
him, she could not have failed to notice how little he answered, and how
gravely he conducted the party to Princes Street, from whence the
governess knew her way. Joanna shook hands with Cosmo heartily at
parting, and told him she should write to Katie Logan to say she had
seen him--while Desirée made him a pretty parting salutation, half a
curtsey, with a mischievous glance out of her bright eyes, and madame
made him thanks in excellent French, which the lad did not appreciate.
By that time, as he turned homeward, Cosmo had forgotten all about the
procession, we are grieved to say, and was utterly indifferent to the
fate of the “Bill.”
He was quite confused in his thoughts, poor boy, as he betook himself to
his little room and his high window. This half frolic, half adventure,
which gave the two girls a little private incident to talk of, such as
girls delight in, buzzed about Cosmo’s brain with embarrassing pleasure.
He felt half disposed to begin learning French on the instant--not that
he might have a better chance of improving his acquaintance with
Desirée--by no means--but only that he might never feel so awkward and
so mortified again as he did to-day, when he found himself addressed in
a language which he did not know.