They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston; and, after many turnings and windings--made evidently to mislead pursuers, were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the standard-stone of the old Scottish muster-place.
I scorn them both! I am too stout a Scotsman, To bear a Southron's rule an instant longer Than discipline obliges. SCOTT.
Unconscious of this bold abduction, a whisper of which would have driven him mad, on the very night it took place, Walter Fenton was seated with Douglas of Finland in the public room of a large hostel or tavern in the central street of Ipswich.
It was the sign of the "Bulloign Gate:" the house was curious and old-fashioned; and on entering, one descended several steps, in consequence of the soil having risen upon the walls. Its fantastic front presented a series of heavy projections, rising from grotesquely-carved oak beams, diagonally crossed with spars of the same wood; little latticed windows, and two deep gloomy galleries, and projecting oriels, over which the then leafless woodbine and honeysuckle clambered, and from thence to the curious stacks of brick chimneys, and broad Swiss-like roofs, with their carved and painted eaves.
The host, a bluff and burly Englishman, with the whole of his vast obesity encased in a spotless-white apron, and exhibiting a great, unmeaning, and bald-pated visage, every line of which receded from the point of his pug nose, sat within the outer bar, where countless jugs of pewter, mugs of Delft, and crystal goblets shone in the light of a sea-coal fire, that roared and blazed in the wide fire-place of the public room.
At a table in one corner of the latter, a ponderously fat Southern was engaged in discussing several pounds of broiled bacon and a small basket of eggs. Over the great pewter trencher his round flushed face beamed like a full moon, while he had the wide cuffs of his coat turned up, and a great napkin like a bib tucked under his chin to enable him to sup without spotting his glossy suit of drap-de-Berri.