The Yellow Frigate; or, The Three Sisters — John Shaqi
The Yellow Frigate; or, The Three SistersGrant, James
History
The Yellow Frigate; or, The Three Sisters
Grant, James
Scotland -- History -- 1057-1603 -- Fiction
From the eight stone gurgoyles of the market-cross, which, as usual
in Scotland, was surmounted by a tall octagonal column, bearing the
unicorn _sejant_, resting its forepaws on the imperial scutcheon,
wine was flowing, and a noisy contest waging among the young
_gamins_, seamen, and others, who struggled and thrust each other
aside, not always with good humour, to fill their quaighs, cups, and
luggies with the generous Rhenish and claret, which gushed forth
alternately from the mouths of the dragons and wyverns; but order was
stringently kept by the constable of Dundee, Sir James of Dudhope,
who had brought into the burgh five hundred of his troopers from the
Howe of Angus--all sturdy yeomen, who wore black iron casquetels,
with oreillets over the cheeks and spikes on the top, and were armed
with that deadly weapon the ghisarma, which had been but recently
introduced.
Escorted by a numerous retinue of well armed serving men, all of whom
had _the sleuthhound_ embroidered on the sleeves of their gaberdines,
and were accoutred with jacks and bonnets of steel, two-handed
swords, and wooden targets covered with threefold hide, the daughters
of Lord Drummond, with their aunt the Duchess of Montrose, the Lady
of Strathmartine, and many other noble dames from the Carse of
Gowrie, were grouped together on horseback, awaiting the king.
Robert Barton, Sir David Falconer, and other gentlemen, attended them
on foot, and held their bridles, having assigned their own horses to
the care of the pages, who carried their swords and helmets,--for a
page was at that time indispensable to every gentleman of pretensions.
Conspicuous amid all was the old Duchess of Montrose, a tall and
noble-looking matron, whose height on horseback, when her stupendous
coif was added, became almost startling; for, like old people
generally, "being behind her age," she still retained one of those
enormous head-dresses which our ladies had copied from the French,
and which had been introduced by Isabel of Bavaria, consort of
Charles VI., who had to enlarge all the doors in the Palace of
Vincennes after the arrival of his bride.
Nor must we forget that redoubtable Knight of the Post and Chevalier
d'Industrie, Sir Hew Borthwick, who loitered near, bowing and smiling
to people who knew him not, or knowing, who disdained him. After
completely failing to attract the attention of Falconer or Barton, he
swaggered through the crowd, clinking a pair of enormous brass spurs,
and exhibiting a new scarlet cloak, which he had procured by the
recent replenishing of his exchequer; he tilted up the tail of this
by his long sword, pointed his mustachios, and from time to time
turned up his eyes complacently, to watch the nodding of an absurdly
long feather that drooped from his head-dress; and the latter being a
velvet hat, like that of an Englishman, the people murmured, and made
angry observations about it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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