The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

OLD MORTALITY. 381
and are said to insult and disarm the well-affected who travel in small
numbers."
"We thank you, cousin Gilbertscleugh," said Lady Margaret; "but as
we shall have the escort of my own people, I trust we have less need than
others to be troublesome to our friends. Will you have the goodness to
order Harrison to bring up our people somewhat more briskly; he rides
them towards us as if he were leading a funeral procession."
The gentleman in attendance communicated his lady's orders to the
trusty steward.
I-onest Harrison had his own reasons for doubting the prudence of this
command; but once issued and received, there was a necessity for obeying
it. I-He set off, therefore, at a hand-gallop, followed by the butler, in such a
military attitude as became one who had served under Montrose, and with
a look of defiance, rendered sterner and fiercer by the inspiring fumes of a
gill of brandy, which he had snatched a moment to bolt to the king's health,
and confusion to the Covenant, during the intervals of military duty. Unhappily this potent refreshment wiped away from the tablets of his memory
the necessity of paying some attention to the distresses'and difficulties
of his rear-file, Goose Gibbie. No sooner had the horses struck a canter,
than Gibbie's jackboots, which the poor boy's legs were incapable of steadying, began to play alternately against the horse's flanks, and, being armed
with long-rowelled spurs, overcame the patience of the animal, which
bounced and plunged, while poor Gibbie's entreaties for aid never reached
the ears of the too heedless butler, being drowned partly in the concave of
the steel cap in which his head was immersed, and partly in the martial
tune of the Gallant Grimes, which Mr. Gudyill whistled with all his power
of lungs.
The upshot was, that the steed speedily took the matter into his own
hands, and having gambolled hither and thither to the great amusement
of all spectators, set off at full speed towards the huge family-coach already
described. Gibbie's pike, escaping from its sling, had fallen to a level
direction across his hands, which, I grieve to say, were seeking dishonourable safety in as strong a grasp of the mane as their muscles could manage.
His casque, too, had slipped completely over his face, so that he saw as little
in front as he did in rear. Indeed, if he could, it would have availed him
little in the circumstances; for his horse, as if in league with the disaffected, ran full tilt towards the solemn equipage of the Duke, which the
projecting lance threatened to perforate from window to window, at the risk
of 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 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