OLD MORTALITY.
31
CHAPTER II.
Summon an hundred horse by break of day
To wait our pleasure at the castle gates.
Douglas.
Under the reign of the last Stuarts, there was an anxious wish on the part of government to counteract, by every means in their power, the strict or puritanical spirit which had been the chief characteristic of the republican government, and to revive those feudal institutions which united the vassal to the liege-lord, and both to the crown. Frequent musters and assemblies of the people, both for military exercise and for sports and pastimes, were appointed by authority. The interference, in the latter case, was impolitic, to say the least; for, as usual upon such occasions, the consciences which were at first only scru-
