Goring was fat and swarthy: his nose small and
supercilious, and his eye grey and piercing. He cared not whom he
wounded, provided the shafts he drew were well pointed; and his wit
quick and well-aimed, causing the king to laugh, and his victim to
writhe during their operation.
As the monarch sate discoursing with the Duke of Buckingham, being sore
heated, he threw open the windows of his coach, from whence he
occasionally obtruded his wise head for a survey, and a visit from some
vagrant and silly breeze, if any were abroad. The roads admitted not of
aught but the gentlest paces, and the great clamour and cloud about the
procession made the dust and heat excessively annoying; whereupon the
king, it is said, did apply a very uncourteous epithet to some of his
loving subjects, who came too close upon his person, which, though not
generally averse to being gazed at, was in too warm an atmosphere at
present for enjoying these kingly exhibitions.
"O' my saul, that meikle stane would build a bra' chappin-block for my
Lord Provost," said royalty, its head again stationed at the window,
surveying with solemn curiosity an egg-shaped stone of the boulder sort,
which, sure enough, was of a remarkable bigness, though not of that
rarity or infrequence that should have drawn forth the wonder of a king.
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