"
"The queen tore her biggonets for perfect anger,--ye'll hae heard o' that
too?" said Plumdamas. "And the king, they say, kickit Sir Robert Walpole
for no keeping down the mob of Edinburgh; but I dinna believe he wad
behave sae ungenteel."
"It's dooms truth, though," said Saddletree; "and he was for kickin' the
Duke of Argyle* too."
* Note O. John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.
"Kickin' the Duke of Argyle!" exclaimed the hearers at once, in all the
various combined keys of utter astonishment.
"Ay, but MacCallummore's blood wadna sit down wi' that; there was risk of
Andro Ferrara coming in thirdsman."
"The duke is a real Scotsman--a true friend to the country," answered
Saddletree's hearers.
"Ay, troth is he, to king and country baith, as ye sall hear," continued
the orator, "if ye will come in bye to our house, for it's safest
speaking of sic things _inter parietes._"
When they entered his shop, he thrust his prentice boy out of it, and,
unlocking his desk, took out, with an air of grave and complacent
importance, a dirty and crumpled piece of printed paper; he observed,
"This is new corn--it's no every body could show you the like o' this.
It's the duke's speech about the Porteous mob, just promulgated by the
hawkers. Ye shall hear what Ian Roy Cean* says for himsell.
* Red John the warrior, a name personal and proper in the Highlands to
John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, as MacCummin was that of his race or
dignity.
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