His features were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, his
mouth tending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be
more dark than was then thought consistent with masculine beauty. But,
in despite of his having always breathed the air of a crowded city,
his complexion had the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health;
his turned-up nose gave an air of spirit and raillery to what he said,
and seconded the laugh of his eyes; and his wide mouth was garnished
with a pair of well-formed and well-coloured lips, which, when he
laughed, disclosed a range of teeth strong and well set, and as white
as the very pearl. Such was the elder apprentice of David Ramsay,
Memory's Monitor, watchmaker, and constructor of horologes, to his
Most Sacred Majesty James I.
Jenkin's companion was the younger apprentice, though, perhaps, he
might be the elder of the two in years. At any rate, he was of a much
more staid and composed temper. Francis Tunstall was of that ancient
and proud descent who claimed the style of the "unstained;" because,
amid the various chances of the long and bloody wars of the Roses,
they had, with undeviating faith, followed the House of Lancaster, to
which they had originally attached themselves. The meanest sprig of
such a tree attached importance to the root from which it derived
itself; and Tunstall was supposed to nourish in secret a proportion of
that family pride, which had exhorted tears from his widowed and
almost indigent mother, when she saw herself obliged to consign him to
a line of life inferior, as her prejudices suggested, to the course
held by his progenitors.
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