t
in person; and, indeed, from what afterwards followed, it seemed to have
been given with an express view to that result; for, on the landlord's
placing the wine before his guest, the latter requested him, with great
politeness of manner, to sit down and share it with him; saying that he
wanted a little information on two or three particular points. Mine
host, seating himself as desired, expressed his readiness to afford him
any information of which he himself was possessed. Having thanked the
former for his civility, and pressed him, not in vain, to taste of his
own wine, the stranger said--

"Is the queen, my friend, just now at Holyrood?"

He was answered in the affirmative. The querist paused, sighed, and next
inquired if she walked much abroad--what were the hours she devoted to
that recreation--whether she was accompanied by many attendants on these
occasions--and whether her ordinary promenade was a place easy of
access. Having been informed on all these points, he again relapsed into
thought, and again sighed profoundly. After a short time, however, he
once more recovered himself, and suddenly exclaimed, but more by way of
soliloquy than inquiry--

"Is she not beautiful--transcendently beautiful?"

Mine host, who was not a little surprised by the abruptness of the
question, and the enthusiasm of manner in which it was expressed,
replied, that she surely was "Just as bonny a creature as he had ever
clapt ee on--a plump, sonsy, nice-lookin lass."

A slight expression of disgust, or rather of horror, at the homely terms
employed by mine host in speaking of the beauty of the queen, passed
over the countenance of his guest. It was, however, but momentary, and
was not observed, or at any rate not understood, by him whose language
had called it forth.

"Ay, beautiful is she," went on the enthusiastic stranger, leaning back
in his chair, and gazing on the roof, in a fit of ecstasy, and in
seeming unconsciousness of the presence of a third party--"beautiful is
she to look upon, as is the rising sun emerging from the purpled east;
beautiful as his setting amidst the burnished clouds of the west; lovely
as the full moon hanging midway in her field of azure; grateful to the
sight as the green fields of spring, or the flowers of the garden; and
pleasant to the ear are the tones of her voice, as the song of the
nightingale in the grove, or the sound of the distant waterfall."

Here the speaker paused in his rhapsody,