The Ayrshire Legatees; Or, The Pringle FamilyGalt, John
General
The Ayrshire Legatees; Or, The Pringle Family
Galt, John
Scotland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
When we had taken our dinner, we went out to walk and see the town of
Windsor; but there was such a mob of coaches going and coming, and men
and horses, that we left the streets, and went to inspect the king's
policy, which is of great compass, but in a careless order, though it
costs a world of money to keep it up. Afterwards, we went back to the
inns, to get tea for Mrs. Pringle and her daughter, while Andrew Pringle,
my son, was seeing if he could get tickets to buy, to let us into the
inside of the Castle, to see the burial--but he came back without luck,
and I went out myself, being more experienced in the world, and I saw a
gentleman's servant with a ticket in his hand, and I asked him to sell it
to me, which the man did with thankfulness, for five shillings, although
the price was said to be golden guineas. But as this ticket admitted
only one person, it was hard to say what should be done with it when I
got back to my family. However, as by this time we were all very much
fatigued, I gave it to Andrew Pringle, my son, and Mrs. Pringle, and her
daughter Rachel, agreed to bide with me in the inns.
Andrew Pringle, my son, having got the ticket, left us sitting, when
shortly after in came a nobleman, high in the cabinet, as I think he must
have been, and he having politely asked leave to take his tea at our
table, because of the great throng in the house, we fell into a
conversation together, and he, understanding thereby that I was a
minister of the Church of Scotland, said he thought he could help us into
a place to see the funeral; so, after he had drank his tea, he took us
with him, and got us into the Castle-yard, where we had an excellent
place, near to the Glasgow manufacturer that drank the champaign. The
drink by this time, however, had got into that poor man's head, and he
talked so loud, and so little to the purpose, that the soldiers who were
guarding were obliged to make him hold his peace, at which he was not a
little nettled, and told the soldiers that he had himself been a soldier,
and served the king without pay, having been a volunteer officer. But
this had no more effect than to make the soldiers laugh at him, which was
not a decent thing at the interment of their master, our most gracious
Sovereign that was.
However, in this situation we saw all; and I can assure you it was a very
edifying sight; and the people demeaned themselves with so much
propriety, that there was no need for any guards at all; indeed, for that
matter, of the two, the guards, who had eaten the king's bread, were the
only ones there, saving and excepting the Glasgow manufacturer, that
manifested an irreverent spirit towards the royal obsequies. But they
are men familiar with the king of terrors on the field of battle, and it
was not to be expected that their hearts would be daunted like those of
others by a doing of a civil character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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