A few officers of the Fusilier Guards in their gilt breast-plates, scarlet coats, and white scarfs, cavaliers of Claver'se regiment, and other "bucks of the first fashion," in all the magnificence of laced taffeta, long rapiers, perfumed scarfs, and tall feathers, were lounging about the pillars of the Venetian arcade, in front of Blair's Coffee House, or jested and flirted with those passing fair ones who flaunted their long trains under the cool shade of the Mahogany-lands, as certain old balconied edifices that have long since disappeared were named.
Jangling in mid air under the gothic crown of the old cathedral, the musical bells rang merrily, mingling with the busy hum that floated upward from the dense population below. The gift of Thomas Moodie, a citizen, these bells had been hung there in 1681. In one of the recesses formed by the buttresses of the church, a man was reading to a crowd, that listened intently, around the barrel on which he had perched himself. It was the _Caledonius Mercurius_, from the columns of which he was detailing some of Louis XIVths religious persecutions under the intolerant Mazarine, which now and then brought a muttered execration from the listeners.
Paunchy and gorbellied citizens, whose shops were in the gloomy recesses of the Luckenbooths, the cruicks of the Bow, or cellars of the Lawnmarket, were grouped about the city cross, which, with its tall octagon spire and unicorn, was for ages one of the chief beauties of the city. On one side of it stood the Dyvours-stane, whereon sat a row of those unfortunates, who for misfortune or roguery were, by act of the council, compelled to appear there each market day at noon, in the bankrupt's garb--a yellow bonnet, and coat, one half yellow, the other brown, under pain of three months' imprisonment.
On the other side groaned a wretched woman, who, for the heinous enormity of drinking the devil's health had just undergone the triple punishment of having her tongue bored, her cheek branded, and her back scourged.
The cross was the 'Change of the city, and on the spot where it stood, every Wednesday our traders yet meet to buy and sell, and to consult with sharp Clerks to the Signet, and more sharping Solicitors, where bargains are daily made as of old, but requiring ratifications more binding than merely standing on "our lady's steps" at the east end of St. Giles, or the pressure of wetted thumbs on a certain mysterious stone which was there kept for that purpose.