In total and happy ignorance of the events of the past night, Roland awoke next morning. The dawn was struggling through an atmosphere of mist and fog. Though roused by the tramp of feet and the lumbering roll of artillery wheels, he would fain have slept a little longer, for the palace clock was only striking four; but he sprang out of bed with the resolution of a soldier, and found old Lintstock all accoutred in his sleeved habergeon, with gourgerin, salade, sword, dagger, and priming-horn, ready to dress and arm him, a process which use and wont made wonderfully short, when we consider that Roland was to be encased in a complete suit of plate armour. It was elaborately gilded and engraved with legends of the Scottish saints, for such was the superstition of the age, that such devices were deemed a protection greater even than a coat of tempered mail. His helmet was surmounted by the crest of the Viponts, a swan's head rising from a ducal coronet, all of frosted silver, and above it floated his plume. A belt of perfumed and embroidered leather sustained his sword and dagger, and in his hand he carried a gilt baton as captain or master of the ordnance. For breakfast, a slice of beef and a pot of wine from the relics of the supper sufficed both him and Lintstock, who said-- "Now that old bundle of roguery, who keeps the _Cross and Gillstoup_, will be ready to curse himsel' wi' bell, book, and candle, when he finds we're awa'; and he may whistle on the wind for payment." "Till I return, say, I pray you." "Of course; we'll pick up some braw things by way o' contribution. The king's soldiers, gentlemen of the sword, maun live, and live wi' honour." "Is the earl here?" "The earl!" "Of course; he is going with us." "To look for himself?" "Surely--an excellent joke; I meant to take him, where in reality none expect to find him; for I tell thee, Lintstock, this march westward is all a trick of mine enemies at court, to banish me from the king's presence and this good town of Edinburgh, when they know I would give my ears to remain in it." "Aha!" said Lintstock, giving under his helmet a shrewd Scots wink with his solitary eye; "I can see into a millstone as far as my neighbours; but, certes! I saw na this." Roland yawned below his visor as he faced the cold breeze that swept from the sea round Arthur's Seat, and gave a casual glance at the hundred soldiers of the guard whom his friend Leslie was arraying with their arquebuses, rests, and bandoliers; and another at his sixteen gunners, who were all stout men in steel bonnets and jacks, armed with swords and glove of plate, and who were tracing the horses, and preparing two very handsome French culverins for the march. These were two of those fifty-six beautiful pieces of brass cannon, presented by Francis I. to his daughter Magdalene on her becoming queen of Scotland, and which were long after known in the arsenal by his cipher, which was engraved on them.