The shadows of an early evening, in the ungenial month of March, were already gathering among the narrow streets and _wynds_ of the Scottish metropolis. There was a melancholy air of solitude about the grim and dusky edifices, which towered to the height of twelve or thirteen stories against the gray horizon. No lights streamed from the casements, no voices sounded in loud revelry or chastened merriment from the dwellings of the gloomy quarter in which the scene of our narrative is laid. The cheerless aspect of the night, together with the drizzling rain, which fell in silent copiousness, had banished every human being from the streets; and, except the smoke which eddied from the dilapidated chimneys, and was instantly beat down to earth by the violence of the shower, there was no sign of any other inhabitants, than the famished dogs which were snarling over the relics of some thrice-picked bone. Suddenly the sharp clatter of hoofs, in rapid motion over the broken pavement, rose above the splashing of the flooded gutters, betokening the approach of men; and ere a minute had elapsed two horsemen, gallantly mounted, rode hotly up the street. The foremost bestriding, with the careless ease of an accomplished rider, a jennet, whose thin jaws, expanded nostril, and flashing eye, no less than the deerlike springiness of its gait, and its unrivalled symmetry, proclaimed it sprung from the best blood of the desert, was of a figure that could not be looked upon, however slightly, without awakening a sense of interest, perhaps of admiration, in all beholders. His countenance, of an oval form, and of a darker hue than the blue-eyed sons of northern latitudes are wont to exhibit--the full and somewhat wild expression of his dark eye, the melancholy smile which played upon his curling lip, pencilled mustache, and the peaked beard--contributing to form a face that Antonio Vandyke would have loved to paint, and after ages to admire, when invested with the life of his rich coloring. His dress of russet velvet slashed with satin, his feathered cap, with its gay fanfarona[E] and enamelled medal, his jeweled rapier, and the bright spurs in his falling buskins, were well adapted to the agile limbs and slender, though symmetrical proportions of the horseman. [E] The _Fanfarona_ was a richly-fashioned chain of goldsmith’s work, not worn about the neck, but twisted in two or more circuits around the rim of the cap, or bonnet, and terminating in a heavy medal. It was probably of Spanish origin, but was much in vogue in the courts of Mary and Elizabeth.