Читать книгу Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate. A Scottish Historical Romance онлайн

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There, immediately below the arcades of a tenement bearing the arms of the Lord Abbot of Kinloss, stood a shop, the small deep windows of which were secured by gratings, that were each like an iron harrow, built into the ponderous masonry. In the good town, we still build our walls three feet thick; but in the days of James V., they built them six, and even seven feet thick. A board over the door announced it to be the shop of John Mossman, Jeweller, and Makkar of Silverwork to ye King's Majestie; and here the countess and her party tarried a moment to see the new crown of Queen Magdalene, whose coronation was to take place in a month or so.

Master Mossman, a short and pursy, but well-fed burgess, clad in a cassocke-coat of Galloway cloth, was just in the act of giving the finishing touches to a silver maizer, or drinking-cup. He rose up with all his workmen and apprentices on the entrance of the countess, and welcomed her to his shop with studious politeness, though his chief patrons were the Hamiltons. His premises were vaulted with stone, and painted with various ornamental designs between the glazed cupboards of oak, which contained chased and elaborate vessels of silver, sword and dagger-hilts, buckles, and falcon-bells of every pattern and device. A small statue of St. Eloi, the patron of his craft, occupied a gothic niche above the fireplace, so that the silversmith might warm himself when saying his prayers in winter, which was a saving of time; and on each side thereof hung the steel bonnets, swords, and axes with which he and his men armed them for weekly duty, as municipal guards within the eight Fortes of the city.