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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortunes of Nigel
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+
+Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5950]
+This file was first posted on September 24, 2002
+Last Updated: June 20, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL
+
+By Sir Walter Scott
+
+
+
+A Tale Which Holdeth Children From Play & Old Men From The Chimney
+Corner --Sir Philip Sidney
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+  But why should lordlings all our praise engross?
+  Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross.
+
+                                        Pope
+
+Having, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some
+degree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those
+accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next
+tempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of
+character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were necessary
+to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of
+the usual accomplishments of those who strut through the pages of this
+sort of composition, I made free with the name of a person who has left
+the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the
+capital of Scotland has to display.
+
+To the Scottish reader little more need be said than that the man
+alluded to is George Heriot. But for those south of the Tweed, it may
+be necessary to add, that the person so named was a wealthy citizen of
+Edinburgh, and the King's goldsmith, who followed James to the English
+capital, and was so successful in his profession, as to die, in 1624,
+extremely wealthy for that period. He had no children; and after making
+a full provision for such relations as might have claims upon him, he
+left the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in which the
+sons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously brought up and educated for
+the station to which their talents may recommend them, and are finally
+enabled to enter life under respectable auspices. The hospital in which
+this charity is maintained is a noble quadrangle of the Gothic order,
+and as ornamental to the city as a building, as the manner in which the
+youths are provided for and educated, renders it useful to the community
+as an institution. To the honour of those who have the management, (the
+Magistrates and Clergy of Edinburgh), the funds of the Hospital have
+increased so much under their care, that it now supports and educates
+one hundred and thirty youths annually, many of whom have done honour to
+their country in different situations.
+
+The founder of such a charity as this may be reasonably supposed to have
+walked through life with a steady pace, and an observant eye, neglecting
+no opportunity of assisting those who were not possessed of the
+experience necessary for their own guidance. In supposing his
+efforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, misguided by the
+aristocratic haughtiness of his own time, and the prevailing tone
+of selfish luxury which seems more peculiar to ours, as well as the
+seductions of pleasure which are predominant in all, some amusement,
+or even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived from the manner in
+which I might bring the exertions of this civic Mentor to bear in his
+pupil's behalf. I am, I own, no great believer in the moral utility
+to be derived from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word
+spoken in season may be of advantage to a young person, it must surely
+be when it calls upon him to attend to the voice of principle and
+self-denial, instead of that of precipitate passion. I could not,
+indeed, hope or expect to represent my prudent and benevolent citizen
+in a point of view so interesting as that of the peasant girl, who
+nobly sacrificed her family affections to the integrity of her moral
+character. Still however, something I hoped might be done not altogether
+unworthy the fame which George Heriot has secured by the lasting
+benefits he has bestowed on his country.
+
+It appeared likely, that out of this simple plot I might weave something
+attractive; because the reign of James I., in which George Heriot
+flourished, gave unbounded scope to invention in the fable, while at the
+same time it afforded greater variety and discrimination of character
+than could, with historical consistency, have been introduced, if the
+scene had been laid a century earlier. Lady Mary Wortley Montague has
+said, with equal truth and taste, that the most romantic region of every
+country is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or
+lowlands. For similiar reasons, it may be in like manner said, that the
+most picturesque period of history is that when the ancient rough and
+wild manners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated upon, and
+contrasted, by the illumination of increased or revived learning, and
+the instructions of renewed or reformed religion. The strong contrast
+produced by the opposition of ancient manners to those which are
+gradually subduing them, affords the lights and shadows necessary to
+give effect to a fictitious narrative; and while such a period entitles
+the author to introduce incidents of a marvellous and improbable
+character, as arising out of the turbulent independence and ferocity,
+belonging to old habits of violence, still influencing the manners of
+a people who had been so lately in a barbarous state; yet, on the other
+hand, the characters and sentiments of many of the actors may, with
+the utmost probability, be described with great variety of shading and
+delineation, which belongs to the newer and more improved period, of
+which the world has but lately received the light.
+
+The reign of James I. of England possessed this advantage in a peculiar
+degree. Some beams of chivalry, although its planet had been for some
+time set, continued to animate and gild the horizon, and although
+probably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men and women
+still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; and
+the ceremonial of the tilt-yard was yet exhibited, though it now only
+flourished as a Place de Carrousel. Here and there a high-spirited
+Knight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
+was found devoted enough to the vows he had taken, to imagine himself
+obliged to compel, by the sword's-point, a fellow-knight or squire
+to restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from a fair
+damsel;[Footnote: See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs.] but yet,
+while men were taking each other's lives on such punctilios of honour,
+the hour was already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the world
+that they were no longer to reason from authority to fact, but to
+establish truth by advancing from fact to fact, till they fixed an
+indisputable authority, not from hypothesis, but from experiment.
+
+The state of society in the reign of James I. was also strangely
+disturbed, and the license of a part of the community was perpetually
+giving rise to acts of blood and violence. The bravo of the Queen's day,
+of whom Shakspeare has given us so many varieties, as Bardolph, Nym,
+Pistol, Peto, and the other companions of Falstaff, men who had their
+humours, or their particular turn of extravaganza, had, since the
+commencement of the Low Country wars, given way to a race of sworders,
+who used the rapier and dagger, instead of the far less dangerous sword
+and buckler; so that a historian says on this subject, "that private
+quarrels were nourished, but especially between the Scots and English;
+and duels in every street maintained; divers sects and peculiar titles
+passed unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring Boys,
+Bonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such like, being persons
+prodigal, and of great expense, who, having run themselves into debt,
+were constrained to run next into factions, to defend themselves
+from danger of the law. These received countenance from divers of the
+nobility; and the citizens, through lasciviousness consuming their
+estates, it was like that the number [of these desperadoes] would rather
+increase than diminish; and under these pretences they entered into many
+desperate enterprizes, and scarce any durst walk in the street after
+nine at night."[Footnote: history of the First Fourteen Years of King
+James's Reign. See Somers's Tracts, edited by Scott, vol. ii. p.266.]
+
+The same authority assures us farther, that "ancient gentlemen, who had
+left their inheritance whole and well furnished with goods and chattels
+(having thereupon kept good houses) unto their sons, lived to see part
+consumed in riot and excess, and the rest in possibility to be utterly
+lost; the holy state of matrimony made but a May-game, by which divers
+families had been subverted; brothel houses much frequented, and even
+great persons, prostituting their bodies to the intent to satisfy their
+lusts, consumed their substance in lascivious appetites. And of
+all sorts, such knights and gentlemen, as either through pride or
+prodigality--had consumed their substance, repairing to the city, and to
+the intent to consume their virtue also, lived dissolute lives; many
+of their ladies and daughters, to the intent to maintain themselves
+according to their dignity, prostituting their bodies in shameful
+manner. Ale-houses, dicing-houses, taverns, and places of iniquity,
+beyond manner abounding in most places."
+
+Nor is it only in the pages of a puritanical, perhaps a satirical
+writer, that we find so shocking and disgusting a picture of the
+coarseness of the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the contrary,
+in all the comedies of the age, the principal character for gaiety and
+wit is a young heir, who has totally altered the establishment of
+the father to whom he has succeeded, and, to use the old simile, who
+resembles a fountain, which plays off in idleness and extravagance
+the wealth which its careful parents painfully had assembled in hidden
+reservoirs.
+
+And yet, while that spirit of general extravagance seemed at work over
+a whole kingdom, another and very different sort of men were gradually
+forming the staid and resolved characters, which afterwards displayed
+themselves during the civil wars, and powerfully regulated and affected
+the character of the whole English nation, until, rushing from one
+extreme to another, they sunk in a gloomy fanaticism the splendid traces
+of the reviving fine arts.
+
+From the quotations which I have produced, the selfish and disgusting
+conduct of Lord Dalgarno will not perhaps appear overstrained; nor will
+the scenes in Whitefriars and places of similar resort seem too highly
+coloured. This indeed is far from being the case. It was in James I.'s
+reign that vice first appeared affecting the better classes in its
+gross and undisguised depravity. The entertainments and amusements of
+Elizabeth's time had an air of that decent restraint which became the
+court of a maiden sovereign; and, in that earlier period, to use the
+words of Burke, vice lost half its evil by being deprived of all its
+grossness. In James's reign, on the contrary, the coarsest pleasures
+were publicly and unlimitedly indulged, since, according to Sir John
+Harrington, the men wallowed in beastly delights; and even ladies
+abandoned their delicacy and rolled about in intoxication. After a
+ludicrous account of a mask, in which the actors had got drunk, and
+behaved themselves accordingly, he adds, "I have much marvelled at these
+strange pageantries, and they do bring to my recollection what passed of
+this sort in our Queen's days, in which I was sometimes an assistant and
+partaker: but never did I see such lack of good order and sobriety as I
+have now done. The gunpowder fright is got out of all our heads, and we
+are going on hereabout as if the devil was contriving every man should
+blow up himself by wild riot, excess, and devastation of time and
+temperance. The great ladies do go well masqued; and indeed, it be the
+only show of their modesty to conceal their countenance, but alack, they
+meet with such countenance to uphold their strange doings, that I marvel
+not at aught that happens."[Footnote: Harrington's Nugae Antique, vol.
+ii. p. 352. For the gross debauchery of the period, too much encouraged
+by the example of the monarch, who was, in other respects, neither
+without talent nor a good-natured disposition, see Winwood's Memorials,
+Howell's Letters, and other Memorials of the time; but particularly,
+consult the Private Letters and Correspondence of Steenie, _alias_
+Buckingham, with his reverend Dad and Gossip, King James, which abound
+with the grossest as well as the most childish language. The learned Mr.
+D'Israeli, in an attempt to vindicate the character of James, has
+only succeeded in obtaining for himself the character of a skilful and
+ingenious advocate, without much advantage to his royal client]
+
+Such being the state of the court, coarse sensuality brought along with
+it its ordinary companion, a brutal degree of undisguised selfishness,
+destructive alike of philanthropy and good breeding; both of which, in
+their several spheres, depend upon the regard paid by each individual
+to the interest as well as the feelings of others. It is in such a time
+that the heartless and shameless man of wealth and power may, like the
+supposed Lord Dalgarno, brazen out the shame of his villainies, and
+affect to triumph in their consequences, so long as they were personally
+advantageous to his own pleasures or profit.
+
+Alsatia is elsewhere explained as a cant name for Whitefriars, which,
+possessing certain privileges of sanctuary, became for that reason a
+nest of those mischievous characters who were generally obnoxious to the
+law. These privileges were derived from its having been an establishment
+of the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded says Stow, in his Survey
+of London, by Sir Patrick Grey, in 1241. Edward I. gave them a plot of
+ground in Fleet Street, to build their church upon. The edifice then
+erected was rebuilt by Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, in the reign of
+Edward. In the time of the Reformation the place retained its immunities
+as a sanctuary, and James I. confirmed and added to them by a charter
+in 1608. Shadwell was the first author who made some literary use of
+Whitefriars, in his play of the Squire of Alsatia, which turns upon the
+plot of the Adelphi of Terence.
+
+In this old play, two men of fortune, brothers, educate two young men,
+(sons to the one and nephews to the other,) each under his own separate
+system of rigour and indulgence. The elder of the subjects of this
+experiment, who has been very rigidly brought up, falls at once into
+all the vices of the town, is debauched by the cheats and bullies of
+Whitefriars, and, in a word, becomes the Squire of Alsatia. The poet
+gives, as the natural and congenial inhabitants of the place, such
+characters as the reader will find in the note. [Footnote: "Cheatly, a
+rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but
+there inveigles young heirs of entail, and helps them to goods and money
+upon great disadvantages, is bound for them, and shares with them till
+he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the
+cant about town.
+
+"Shamwell, cousin to the Belfords, who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made
+a decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he
+lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute
+debauched life.
+
+"Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cowardly, impudent,
+blustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in Flanders, who has run from his
+colours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by
+the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain, marries one that lets lodgings,
+sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd.
+
+"Scrapeall a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise
+fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with
+Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods, and money."--Dramatis
+Personae to the Squire of Alsatia, SHADWELL'S Works, vol. iv.] The play,
+as we learn from the dedication to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, was
+successful above the author's expectations, "no comedy these many years
+having filled the theatre so long together. And I had the great honour,"
+continues Shadwell, "to find so many friends, that the house was never
+so full since it was built as upon the third day of this play, and vast
+numbers went away that could not be admitted." [Footnote: Dedication to
+the Squire of Alsatia, Shadwell's Works, vol. iv.] From the Squire of
+Alsatia the author derived some few hints, and learned the footing
+on which the bullies and thieves of the Sanctuary stood with their
+neighbours, the fiery young students of the Temple, of which some
+intimation is given in the dramatic piece.
+
+Such are the materials to which the author stands indebted for the
+composition of the Fortunes of Nigel, a novel, which may be perhaps one
+of those that are more amusing on a second perusal, than when read a
+first time for the sake of the story, the incidents of which are few and
+meagre.
+
+The Introductory Epistle is written, in Lucio's phrase, "according
+to the trick," and would never have appeared had the writer meditated
+making his avowal of the work. As it is the privilege of a masque or
+incognito to speak in a feigned voice and assumed character, the author
+attempted, while in disguise, some liberties of the same sort; and while
+he continues to plead upon the various excuses which the introduction
+contains, the present acknowledgment must serve as an apology for a
+species of "hoity toity, whisky frisky" pertness of manner, which, in
+his avowed character, the author should have considered as a departure
+from the rules of civility and good taste.
+
+
+ABBOTSFORD.
+
+1st July, 1831.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE
+
+CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK TO THE REVEREND DR. DRYASDUST
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I readily accept of, and reply to the civilities with which you have
+been pleased to honour me in your obliging letter, and entirely agree
+with your quotation, of _"Quam bonum et quam jucundum!"_ We may indeed
+esteem ourselves as come of the same family, or, according to our
+country proverb, as being all one man's bairns; and there needed no
+apology on your part, reverend and dear sir, for demanding of me any
+information which I may be able to supply respecting the subject of your
+curiosity. The interview which you allude to took place in the course
+of last winter, and is so deeply imprinted on my recollection, that it
+requires no effort to collect all its most minute details.
+
+You are aware that the share which I had in introducing the Romance,
+called THE MONASTERY, to public notice, has given me a sort of character
+in the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in
+the outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of my
+curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to
+buy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth
+of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, with,
+"Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get a chair for Captain
+Clutterbuck. There is the newspaper, Captain--to-day's paper;" or, "Here
+is the last new work--there is a folder, make free with the leaves;"
+or, "Put it in your pocket and carry it home;" or, "We will make a
+bookseller of you, sir, and you shall have it at trade price." Or,
+perhaps if it is the worthy trader's own publication, his liberality
+may even extend itself to--"Never mind booking such a trifle to
+_you_, sir--it is an over-copy. Pray, mention the work to your reading
+friends." I say nothing of the snug well-selected literary party
+arranged round a turbot, leg of five-year-old mutton, or some such gear,
+or of the circulation of a quiet bottle of Robert Cockburn's choicest
+black--nay, perhaps, of his new ones. All these are comforts reserved
+to such as are freemen of the corporation of letters, and I have the
+advantage of enjoying them in perfection. But all things change under
+the sun; and it is with no ordinary feelings of regret, that, in my
+annual visits to the metropolis, I now miss the social and warm-hearted
+welcome of the quick-witted and kindly friend who first introduced me to
+the public; who had more original wit than would have set up a dozen of
+professed sayers of good things, and more racy humour than would have
+made the fortune of as many more. To this great deprivation has been
+added, I trust for a time only, the loss of another bibliopolical
+friend, whose vigorous intellect, and liberal ideas, have not only
+rendered his native country the mart of her own literature, but
+established there a Court of Letters, which must command respect, even
+from those most inclined to dissent from many of its canons. The effect
+of these changes, operated in a great measure by the strong sense and
+sagacious calculations of an individual, who knew how to avail himself,
+to an unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talent which his
+country produced, will probably appear more clearly to the generation
+which shall follow the present.
+
+I entered the shop at the Cross, to enquire after the health of my
+worthy friend, and learned with satisfaction, that his residence in the
+south had abated the rigour of the symptoms of his disorder. Availing
+myself, then, of the privileges to which I have alluded, I strolled
+onward in that labyrinth of small dark rooms, or _crypts_, to speak our
+own antiquarian language, which form the extensive back-settlements of
+that celebrated publishing-house. Yet, as I proceeded from one obscure
+recess to another, filled, some of them with old volumes, some with such
+as, from the equality of their rank on the shelves, I suspected to be
+the less saleable modern books of the concern, I could not help feeling
+a holy horror creep upon me, when I thought of the risk of intruding on
+some ecstatic bard giving vent to his poetical fury; or it might be,
+on the yet more formidable privacy of a band of critics, in the act of
+worrying the game which they had just run down. In such a supposed case,
+I felt by anticipation the horrors of the Highland seers, whom their
+gift of deuteroscopy compels to witness things unmeet for mortal eye;
+and who, to use the expression of Collins,
+
+     ----"heartless, oft, like moody madness, stare,
+     To see the phantom train their secret work prepare."
+
+Still, however, the irresistible impulse of an undefined curiosity
+drove me on through this succession of darksome chambers, till, like the
+jeweller of Delhi in the house of the magician Bennaskar, I at length
+reached a vaulted room, dedicated to secrecy and silence, and beheld,
+seated by a lamp, and employed in reading a. blotted _revise_,
+[Footnote: The uninitiated must be informed, that a second proof-sheet
+is so called.] the person, or perhaps I should rather say the Eidolon,
+or representative Vision of the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY! You will not be
+surprised at the filial instinct which enabled me at once to acknowledge
+the features borne by this venerable apparition, and that I at once
+bended the knee, with the classical salutation of, _Salve, magne
+parens!_ The vision, however, cut me short, by pointing to a seat,
+intimating at the same time, that my presence was not expected, and that
+he had something to say to me.
+
+I sat down with humble obedience, and endeavoured to note the features
+of him with whom I now found myself so unexpectedly in society. But on
+this point I can give your reverence no satisfaction; for, besides the
+obscurity of the apartment, and the fluttered state of my own nerves, I
+seemed to myself overwhelmed by a sense of filial awe, which prevented
+my noting and recording what it is probable the personage before me
+might most desire to have concealed. Indeed, his figure was so closely
+veiled and wimpled, either with a mantle, morning-gown, or some such
+loose garb, that the verses of Spenser might well have been applied--
+
+    "Yet, certes, by her face and physnomy,
+     Whether she man or woman only were,
+     That could not any creature well descry."
+
+I must, however, go on as I have begun, to apply the masculine gender;
+for, notwithstanding very ingenious reasons, and indeed something like
+positive evidence, have been offered to prove the Author of Waverley to
+be two ladies of talent, I must abide by the general opinion, that he is
+of the rougher sex. There are in his writings too many things
+
+    "Quae maribus sola tribuuntur,"
+
+to permit me to entertain any doubt on that subject. I will proceed, in
+the manner of dialogue, to repeat as nearly as I can what passed betwixt
+us, only observing, that in the course of the conversation, my timidity
+imperceptibly gave way under the familiarity of his address; and that,
+in the concluding part of our dialogue, I perhaps argued with fully as
+much confidence as was beseeming.
+
+_Author of Waverley._ I was willing to see you, Captain Clutterbuck,
+being the person of my family whom I have most regard for, since the
+death of Jedediah Cleishbotham; and I am afraid I may have done you some
+wrong, in assigning to you The Monastery as a portion of my effects. I
+have some thoughts of making it up to you, by naming you godfather
+to this yet unborn babe--(he indicated the proof-sheet with his
+finger)--But first, touching The Monastery--How says the world--you are
+abroad and can learn?
+
+_Captain Clutterbuck._ Hem! hem!--The enquiry is delicate--I have not
+heard any complaints from the Publishers.
+
+_Author._ That is the principal matter; but yet an indifferent work is
+sometimes towed on by those which have left harbour before it, with the
+breeze in their poop.--What say the Critics?
+
+_Captain._ There is a general--feeling--that the White Lady is no
+favourite.
+
+_Author._ I think she is a failure myself; but rather in execution than
+conception. Could I have evoked an _esprit follet_, at the same time
+fantastic and interesting, capricious and kind; a sort of wildfire of
+the elements, bound by no fixed laws, or motives of action; faithful and
+fond, yet teazing and uncertain----
+
+_Captain._ If you will pardon the interruption, sir, I think you are
+describing a pretty woman.
+
+_Author._ On my word, I believe I am. I must invest my elementary
+spirits with a little human flesh and blood--they are too fine-drawn for
+the present taste of the public.
+
+_Captain._ They object, too, that the object of your Nixie ought to
+have been more uniformly noble--Her ducking the priest was no Naiad-like
+amusement.
+
+_Author._ Ah! they ought to allow for the capriccios of what is, after
+all, but a better sort of goblin. The bath into which Ariel, the most
+delicate creation of Shakspeare's imagination, seduces our jolly friend
+Trinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me
+rowing against the stream. I care not who knows it--I write for general
+amusement; and, though I never will aim at popularity by what I think
+unworthy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in the
+defence of my own errors against the voice of the public.
+
+_Captain._ You abandon, then, in the present work--(looking, in my turn,
+towards the proof-sheet)--the mystic, and the magical, and the whole
+system of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages,
+or obscure allusions to future events?
+
+_Author._ Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son--not one bounce on the drum of
+Tedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in
+the wainscot. All is clear and above board--a Scots metaphysician might
+believe every word of it.
+
+_Captain._ And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing
+strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily--like the course of a
+famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic
+grotto--then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course,
+visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of
+interest are presented by the country through which it passes--widening
+and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at
+the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where ships of all kinds
+strike sail and yard?
+
+_Author._ Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why,'tis Ercles' vein,
+and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I, to produce
+a story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and
+widen, and deepen, and all the rest on't. I should be chin-deep in the
+grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all
+the quirks and quiddities which I might have devised for my reader's
+amusement, would lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho's suppressed
+witticisms, when he was under his master's displeasure.--There never was
+a novel written on this plan while the world stood.
+
+_Captain._ Pardon me--Tom Jones.
+
+_Author._ True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of
+the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. He
+challenges a comparison between the Novel and the Epic. Smollett, Le
+Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of
+the rules he has laid down, have written rather a history of the
+miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of
+life, than the plot of a regular and connected epopeia, where every step
+brings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters
+have been satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the
+conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end--just as the
+traveller alights at the inn, because it is evening.
+
+_Captain._ A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at
+least. In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes--"What the devil
+does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?"
+
+_Author._ Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and
+spirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had
+sufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in
+another, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a
+brow bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place
+of bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an
+idler to study the history of his country; in all, save where the
+perusal interrupted the discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless
+amusement,--might not the author of such a work, however inartificially
+executed, plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave,
+who, about to be punished for having spread the false report of a
+victory, saved himself by exclaiming--"Am I to blame, O Athenians, who
+have given you one happy day?"
+
+_Captain._ Will your goodness permit me to mention an anecdote of my
+excellent grandmother?
+
+_Author._ I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain
+Clutterbuck.
+
+_Captain._ It may come into our dialogue on Bayes's plan.--The sagacious
+old lady--rest her soul!--was a good friend to the church, and could
+never hear a minister maligned by evil tongues, without taking his
+part warmly. There was one fixed point, however, at which she always
+abandoned the cause of her reverend _protege_--it was so soon as
+she learned he had preached a regular sermon against slanderers and
+backbiters.
+
+_Author._ And what is that to the purpose?
+
+_Captain._ Only that I have heard engineers say, that one may betray the
+weak point to the enemy, by too much ostentation of fortifying it.
+
+_Author._ And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose?
+
+_Captain._ Nay, then, without farther metaphor, I am afraid this new
+production, in which your generosity seems willing to give me some
+concern, will stand much in need of apology, since you think proper to
+begin your defence before the case is on trial.-The story is hastily
+huddled up, I will venture a pint of claret.
+
+_Author._ A pint of port, I suppose you mean?
+
+_Captain._ I say of claret--good claret of the Monastery. Ah, sir, would
+you but take the advice of your friends, and try to deserve at least
+one-half of the public favour you have met with, we might all drink
+Tokay!
+
+_Author._ I care not what I drink, so the liquor be wholesome.
+
+_Captain._ Care for your reputation, then,--for your fame.
+
+_Author._ My fame?--I will answer you as a very ingenious, able, and
+experienced friend, being counsel for the notorious Jem MacCoul, replied
+to the opposite side of the bar, when they laid weight on his client's
+refusing to answer certain queries, which they said any man who had a
+regard for his reputation would not hesitate to reply to. "My client,"
+said he-by the way, Jem was standing behind him at the time, and a rich
+scene it was-"is so unfortunate as to have no regard for his reputation;
+and I should deal very uncandidly with the Court, should I say he had
+any that was worth his attention."-I am, though from very different
+reasons, in Jem's happy state of indifference. Let fame follow those who
+have a substantial shape. A shadow-and an impersonal author is nothing
+better-can cast no shade.
+
+_Captain._ You are not now, perhaps, so impersonal as here-tofore. These
+Letters to the Member for the University of Oxford--_Author._ Show the
+wit, genius, and delicacy of the author, which I heartily wish to see
+engaged on a subject of more importance; and show, besides, that the
+preservation of my character of _incongnito_ has engaged early talent in
+the discussion of a curious question of evidence. But a cause, however
+ingeniously pleaded, is not therefore gained. You may remember, the
+neatly-wrought chain of circumstantial evidence, so artificially brought
+forward to prove Sir Philip Francis's title to the Letters of Junius,
+seemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has
+passed away, and Junius, in the general opinion, is as much unknown as
+ever. But on this subject I will not be soothed or provoked into saying
+one word more. To say who I am not, would be one step towards saying
+who I am; and as I desire not, any more than a certain justice of peace
+mentioned by Shenstone, the noise or report such things make in the
+world, I shall continue to be silent on a subject, which, in my opinion,
+is very undeserving the noise that has been made about it, and still
+more unworthy of the serious employment of such ingenuity as has been
+displayed by the young letter-writer.
+
+_Captain._ But allowing, my dear sir, that you care not for your
+personal reputation, or for that of any literary person upon whose
+shoulders your faults may be visited, allow me to say, that common
+gratitude to the public, which has received you so kindly, and to the
+critics, who have treated you so leniently, ought to induce you to
+bestow more pains on your story.
+
+_Author._ I do entreat you, my son, as Dr. Johnson would have said,
+"free your mind from cant." For the critics, they have their business,
+and I mine; as the nursery proverb goes--
+
+"The children in Holland take pleasure in making What the children in
+England take pleasure in breaking."
+
+I am their humble jackal, too busy in providing food for them, to have
+time for considering whether they swallow or reject it.--To the public,
+I stand pretty nearly in the relation of the postman who leaves a packet
+at the door of an individual. If it contains pleasing intelligence, a
+billet from a mistress, a letter from an absent son, a remittance from
+a correspondent supposed to be bankrupt,--the letter is acceptably
+welcome, and read and re-read, folded up, filed, and safely deposited in
+the bureau. If the contents are disagreeable, if it comes from a dun or
+from a bore, the correspondent is cursed, the letter is thrown into the
+fire, and the expense of postage is heartily regretted; while all the
+time the bearer of the dispatches is, in either case, as little thought
+on as the snow of last Christmas. The utmost extent of kindness between
+the author and the public which can really exist, is, that the world are
+disposed to be somewhat indulgent to the succeeding works of an original
+favourite, were it but on account of the habit which the public mind has
+acquired; while the author very naturally thinks well of _their_ taste,
+who have so liberally applauded _his_ productions. But I deny there is
+any call for gratitude, properly so called, either on one side or the
+other.
+
+_Captain._ Respect to yourself, then, ought to teach caution.
+
+_Author._ Ay, if caution could augment the chance of my success. But,
+to confess to you the truth, the works and passages in which I have
+succeeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity; and
+when I have seen some of these placed in opposition with others, and
+commended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen and standish,
+that the parts in which I have come feebly off, were by much the more
+laboured. Besides, I doubt the beneficial effect of too much delay, both
+on account of the author and the public. A man should strike while the
+iron is hot, and hoist sail while the wind is fair. If a successful
+author keep not the stage, another instantly takes his ground. If
+a writer lie by for ten years ere he produces a second work, he is
+superseded by others; or, if the age is so poor of genius that this does
+not happen, his own reputation becomes his greatest obstacle. The public
+will expect the new work to be ten times better than its predecessor;
+the author will expect it should be ten times more popular, and 'tis a
+hundred to ten that both are disappointed.
+
+_Captain_. This may justify a certain degree of rapidity in publication,
+but not that which is proverbially said to be no speed. You should take
+time at least to arrange your story.
+
+_Author_. That is a sore point with me, my son. Believe me, I have not
+been fool enough to neglect ordinary precautions. I have repeatedly laid
+down my future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters,
+and endeavoured to construct a story which I meant should evolve itself
+gradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, and stimulate curiosity;
+and which, finally, should terminate in a striking catastrophe. But I
+think there is a demon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when I
+begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand
+under my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the
+materials increase; my regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and
+the work is closed long before I have attained the point I proposed.
+
+_Captain_. Resolution and determined forbearance might remedy that evil.
+
+_Author_. Alas! my dear sir, you do not know the force of paternal
+affection. When I light on such a character as Bailie Jarvie, or
+Dalgetty, my imagination brightens, and my conception becomes clearer
+at every step which I take in his company, although it leads me many
+a weary mile away from the regular road, and forces me leap hedge and
+ditch to get back into the route again. If I resist the temptation,
+as you advise me, my thoughts become prosy, flat, and dull; I write
+painfully to myself, and under a consciousness of flagging which makes
+me flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had invested the
+incidents, departs from them, and leaves every thing dull and gloomy.
+I am no more the same author I was in my better mood, than the dog in a
+wheel, condemned to go round and round for hours, is like the same
+dog merrily chasing his own tail, and gambolling in all the frolic of
+unrestrained freedom. In short, sir, on such occasions, I think I am
+bewitched.
+
+_Captain_. Nay, sir, if you plead sorcery, there is no more to be
+said--he must needs go whom the devil drives. And this, I suppose, sir,
+is the reason why you do not make the theatrical attempt to which you
+have been so often urged?
+
+_Author_. It may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that
+I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too
+favourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of
+poetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which,
+being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have hastily
+considered the offspring of my mother-wit. Now, the manner in which I
+became possessed of these fragments is so extraordinary, that I cannot
+help telling it to you.
+
+You must know, that, some twenty years since, I went down to visit an
+old friend in Worcestershire, who had served with me in the----Dragoons.
+
+_Captain._ Then you _have_ served, sir?
+
+_Author._ I have--or I have not, which signifies the same thing--Captain
+is a good travelling name.--I found my friend's house unexpectedly
+crowded with guests, and, as usual, was condemned--the mansion being
+an old one--to the _haunted apartment._ I have, as a great modern said,
+seen too many ghosts to believe in them, so betook myself seriously
+to my repose, lulled by the wind rustling among the lime-trees, the
+branches of which chequered the moonlight which fell on the floor
+through the diamonded casement, when, behold, a darker shadow interposed
+itself, and I beheld visibly on the floor of the apartment--
+
+_Captain._ The White Lady of Avenel, I suppose?--You have told the very
+story before.
+
+_Author._ No--I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, and apron,
+sleeves tucked up to the elbow, a dredging-box in the one hand, and in
+the other a sauce-ladle. I concluded, of course, that it was my friend's
+cook-maid walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value for Sally,
+who could toss a pancake with any girl in the country, I got up
+to conduct her safely to the door. But as I approached her, she
+said,--"Hold, sir! I am not what you take me for;"--words which seemed
+so opposite to the circumstances, that I should not have much minded
+them, had it not been for the peculiarly hollow sound in which they were
+uttered.--"Know, then," she said, in the same unearthly accents, "that
+I am the spirit of Betty Barnes."--"Who hanged herself for love of the
+stage-coachman," thought I; "this is a proper spot of work!"--"Of that
+unhappy Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr. Warburton, the
+painful collector, but ah! the too careless custodier, of the largest
+collection of ancient plays ever known--of most of which the titles only
+are left to gladden the Prolegomena of the Variorum Shakspeare. Yes,
+stranger, it was these ill-fated hands That consigned to grease and
+conflagration the scores of small quartos, which, did they now exist,
+would drive the whole Roxburghe Club out of their senses--it was these
+unhappy pickers and stealers that singed fat fowls and wiped dirty
+trenchers with the lost works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger,
+Jonson, Webster--what shall I say?--even of Shakspeare himself!"
+
+Like every dramatic antiquary, my ardent curiosity after some play named
+in the Book of the Master of Revels, had often been checked by finding
+the object of my research numbered amongst the holocaust of victims
+which this unhappy woman had sacrificed to the God of Good Cheer. It is
+no wonder then, that, like the Hermit of Parnell,
+
+      "I broke the bands of fear, and madly cried,
+       'You careless jade!'--But scarce the words began,
+       When Betty brandish'd high her saucing-pan."
+
+"Beware," she said, "you do not, by your ill-timed anger, cut off the
+opportunity I yet have to indemnify the world for the errors of my
+ignorance. In yonder coal-hole, not used for many a year, repose the few
+greasy and blackened fragments of the elder Drama which were not totally
+destroyed. Do thou then"--Why, what do you stare at, Captain? By my
+soul, it is true; as my friend Major Longbow says, "What should I tell
+you a lie for?"
+
+_Captain._ Lie, sir! Nay, Heaven forbid I should apply the word to a
+person so veracious. You are only inclined to chase your tail a little
+this morning, that's all. Had you not better reserve this legend to form
+an introduction to "Three Recovered Dramas," or so?
+
+_Author._ You are quite right--habit's a strange thing, my son. I had
+forgot whom I was speaking to. Yes, Plays for the closet, not for the
+stage--
+
+_Captain._ Right, and so you are sure to be acted; for the managers,
+while thousands of volunteers are desirous of serving them, are
+wonderfully partial to pressed men.
+
+_Author._ I am a living witness, having been, like a second Laberius,
+made a dramatist whether I would or not. I believe my muse would be
+_Terry_-fied into treading the stage, even if I should write a sermon.
+
+_Captain._ Truly, if you did, I am afraid folks might make a farce
+of it; and, therefore, should you change your style, I still advise a
+volume of dramas like Lord Byron's.
+
+_Author._ No, his lordship is a cut above me--I won't run my horse
+against his, if I can help myself. But there is my friend Allan has
+written just such a play as I might write myself, in a very sunny day,
+and with one of Bramah's extra-patent pens. I cannot make neat work
+without such appurtenances.
+
+_Captain._ Do you mean Allan Ramsay?
+
+_Author._ No, nor Barbara Allan either. I mean Allan Cunningham, who
+has just published his tragedy of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, full of
+merry-making and murdering, kissing and cutting of throats, and passages
+which lead to nothing, and which are very pretty passages for all
+that. Not a glimpse of probability is there about the plot, but so much
+animation in particular passages, and such a vein of poetry through the
+whole, as I dearly wish I could infuse into my Culinary Remains, should
+I ever be tempted to publish them. With a popular impress, people would
+read and admire the beauties of Allan--as it is, they may perhaps only
+note his defects--or, what is worse, not note him at all.--But
+never mind them, honest Allan; you are a credit to Caledonia for all
+that.--There are some lyrical effusions of his, too, which you would do
+well to read, Captain. "It's hame, and it's hame," is equal to Burns.
+
+_Captain._ I will take the hint. The club at Kennaquhair are turned
+fastidious since Catalan! visited the Abbey. My "Poortith Cauld" has
+been received both poorly and coldly, and "the Banks of Bonnie Doon"
+have been positively coughed down--_Tempora mutantur._
+
+_Author._ They cannot stand still, they will change with all of us. What
+then?
+
+                 "A man's a man for a' that."
+
+But the hour of parting approaches.
+
+_Captain._ You are determined to proceed then in your own system?
+Are you aware that an unworthy motive may be assigned for this rapid
+succession of publication? You will be supposed to work merely for the
+lucre of gain.
+
+_Author._ Supposing that I did permit the great advantages which must
+be derived from success in literature, to join with other motives in
+inducing me to come more frequently before the public,--that emolument
+is the voluntary tax which the public pays for a certain species of
+literary amusement--it is extorted from no one, and paid, I presume,
+by those only who can afford it, and who receive gratification in
+proportion to the expense. If the capital sum which these volumes have
+put into circulation be a very large one, has it contributed to my
+indulgences only? or can I not say to hundreds, from honest Duncan the
+paper-manufacturer, to the most snivelling of the printer's devils,
+"Didst thou not share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?" I profess I think
+our Modern Athens much obliged to me for having established such an
+extensive manufacture; and when universal suffrage comes in fashion,
+I intend to stand for a seat in the House on the interest of all the
+unwashed artificers connected with literature.
+
+_Captain._ This would be called the language of a calico-manufacturer.
+
+_Author._ Cant again, my dear son--there is lime in this sack,
+too--nothing but sophistication in this world! I do say it, in spite of
+Adam Smith and his followers, that a successful author is a productive
+labourer, and that his works constitute as effectual a part of the
+public wealth, as that which is created by any other manufacture. If a
+new commodity, having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be
+the result of the operation, why are the author's bales of books to be
+esteemed a less profitable part of the public stock than the goods of
+any other manufacturer? I speak with reference to the diffusion of the
+wealth arising to the public, and the degree of industry which even such
+a trifling work as the present must stimulate and reward, before the
+volumes leave the publisher's shop. Without me it could not exist,
+and to this extent I am a benefactor to the country. As for my own
+emolument, it is won by my toil, and I account myself answerable to
+Heaven only for the mode in which I expend it. The candid may hope it is
+not all dedicated to selfish purposes; and, without much pretensions to
+merit in him who disburses it, a part may "wander, heaven-directed, to
+the poor."
+
+_Captain._ Yet it is generally held base to write from the mere motives
+of gain.
+
+_Author._ It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to make it a
+principal motive for literary exertion. Nay, I will venture to say,
+that no work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of
+a certain sum of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the
+lawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician who prescribes,
+the clergyman--if such there be--who preaches, without any zeal for his
+profession, or without any sense of its dignity, and merely on account
+of the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to the rank of sordid
+mechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of the learned faculties
+at least, their services are considered as unappreciable, and are
+acknowledged, not by any exact estimate of the services rendered, but by
+a _honorarium,_ or voluntary acknowledgment. But let a client or patient
+make the experiment of omitting this little ceremony of the honorarium,
+which is _cense_ to be a thing entirely out of consideration between
+them, and mark how the learned gentleman will look upon his case. Cant
+set apart, it is the same thing with literary emolument. No man of
+sense, in any rank of life, is, or ought to be, above accepting a just
+recompense for his time, and a reasonable share of the capital which
+owes its very existence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the
+trenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and nobles, statesmen,
+and divines, the most distinguished of their time, have not scorned to
+square accounts with their bookseller.
+
+_Captain. (Sings._)
+
+    "O if it were a mean thing,
+       The gentles would not use it;
+     And if it were ungodly,
+       The clergy would refuse it."
+
+_Author._ You say well. But no man of honour, genius, or spirit, would
+make the mere love of gain, the chief, far less the only, purpose of his
+labours. For myself, I am not displeased to find the game a winning one;
+yet while I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely for
+the pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as most folks that
+love of composition, which is perhaps the strongest of all instincts,
+driving the author to the pen, the painter to the pallet, often without
+either the chance of fame or the prospect of reward. Perhaps I have said
+too much of this. I might, perhaps, with as much truth as most people,
+exculpate myself from the charge of being either of a greedy or
+mercenary disposition; but I am not, therefore, hypocrite enough to
+disclaim the ordinary motives, on account of which the whole world
+around me is toiling unremittingly, to the sacrifice of ease, comfort,
+health, and life. I do not affect the disinterestedness of that
+ingenious association of gentlemen mentioned by Goldsmith, who sold
+their magazine for sixpence a-piece, merely for their own amusement.
+
+_Captain._ I have but one thing more to hint.--The world say you will
+run yourself out.
+
+_Author._ The world say true: and what then? When they dance no longer,
+I will no longer pipe; and I shall not want flappers enough to remind me
+of the apoplexy.
+
+_Captain._ And what will become of us then, your poor family? We shall
+fall into contempt and oblivion.
+
+_Author._ Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number
+of his family, I cannot help going on to increase it--"'Tis my vocation,
+Hal."--Such of you as deserve oblivion--perhaps the whole of you--may be
+consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is
+more than can be said of some of your contemporaries, of less fortune
+and more merit. They cannot say but that you _had_ the crown. It is
+always something to have engaged the public attention for seven years.
+Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to
+the established phrase, "the ingenious author of a novel much admired
+at the time." I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley
+is sustained very much by the praises of those, who may be inclined to
+prefer that tale to its successors.
+
+_Captain._ You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for
+present popularity?
+
+_Author. Meliora spero._ Horace himself expected not to survive in all
+his works--I may hope to live in some of mine;--_non omnis moriar._ It
+is some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries
+have been the most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those
+who have been best received in their own time, have also continued to
+be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present
+generation, as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers
+future condemnation.
+
+_Captain._ Were all to act on such principles, the public would be
+inundated.
+
+_Author_ Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the
+public were obliged to read books merely because they are printed--your
+friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good.
+The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of,
+is, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the
+present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed
+us.
+
+_Captain._ I do not see how that is to happen.
+
+_Author._ The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James, of
+the alarming fertility of the press, were as loud as they are at
+present--yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age
+flowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen--
+
+     ----"Besrrew'd all with rich array,
+     Of pearl and precious stones of great assay;
+     And all the gravel mix'd with golden ore."
+
+Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age,
+the next may discover treasures.
+
+_Captain._ Some books will defy all alchemy.
+
+_Author._ They will be but few in number; since, as for the writers, who
+are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their
+works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of
+annoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding
+undertaking booksellers.
+
+_Captain._ You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity?
+
+_Author._ There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and
+virtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart--
+
+    "Where as she look'd about, she did behold
+     How over that same door was likewise writ,
+     _Be Bold--Be Bold,_ and everywhere _Be Bold._
+     Whereat she mused, and could not construe it;
+     At last she spied at that room's upper end
+     Another iron door, on which was writ--
+     BE NOT TOO BOLD."
+
+_Captain._ Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on your own
+principles.
+
+_Author._ Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here
+till the dinner hour is over.--I will add this work to your patrimony,
+_valeat quantum._
+
+Here our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced Apollyon from
+the Canongate came to demand the proof-sheet on the part of Mr.
+M'Corkindale; and I heard Mr. C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment
+of the same labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to
+penetrate so far into the _penetralia_ of their temple.
+
+I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning the import of this
+dialogue, and I cannot but believe I shall meet the wishes of our common
+parent in prefixing this letter to the work which it concerns.
+
+I am, reverend and dear Sir,
+
+Very sincerely and affectionately
+
+Yours,
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL
+
+  _Knifegrinder._ Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
+                               _Poetry of the Antijacobin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+  Now Scot and English are agreed,
+  And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
+  Where, such the splendours that attend him,
+  His very mother scarce had kend him.
+  His metamorphosis behold,
+  From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
+  His back-sword, with the iron hilt,
+  To rapier, fairly hatch'd and gilt;
+  Was ever seen a gallant braver!
+  His very bonnet's grown a beaver.
+                  _The Reformation._
+
+The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the
+south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been happily
+terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the English
+Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland was worn
+by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and the
+succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate national
+prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were
+removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed brought to regard
+those upon the opposite bank as friends and as brethren.
+
+These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of
+King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of
+his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged
+him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neglecting
+those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much indebted.
+
+The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him
+perpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions,
+whose brawls disturbed the Court. But, notwithstanding all his
+precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual
+hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years,
+had been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which menaced
+a general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the lowest
+classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament, factions in
+the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less productive of riots
+and brawls amongst the lower orders.
+
+While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in the
+city of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned mechanic,
+much devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who, whether
+recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the courtiers
+alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his birthplace, in
+the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James's household the
+post of maker of watches and horologes to his Majesty. He scorned
+not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few yards to the
+eastward of Saint Dunstan's Church.
+
+The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed, was
+something very different from those we now see in the same locality. The
+goods were exposed to sale in cases, only defended from the weather by
+a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the stalls and booths now
+erected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair,
+rather than the established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most
+of the shopkeepers of note, and David Ramsay amongst others, had their
+booth connected with a small apartment which opened backward from it,
+and bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's
+cavern did to the tent which he erected before it.
+
+To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of
+his abstruse calculations; for he aimed at improvements and discoveries
+in his own art, and sometimes pushed his researches, like Napier, and
+other mathematicians of the period, into abstract science. When thus
+engaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial establishment to be
+maintained by two stout-bodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who kept
+up the cry of, "What d'ye lack? what d'ye lack?" accompanied with the
+appropriate recommendations of the articles in which they dealt.
+
+This direct and personal application for custom to those who chanced to
+pass by, is now, we believe, limited to Monmouth Street, (if it
+still exists even in that repository of ancient garments,) under the
+guardianship of the scattered remnant of Israel. But at the time we
+are speaking of, it was practised alike by Jew and Gentile, and served,
+instead of all our present newspaper puffs and advertisements, to
+solicit the attention of the public in general, and of friends in
+particular, to the unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they
+offered to sale upon such easy terms, that it might fairly appear that
+the venders had rather a view to the general service of the public, than
+to their own particular advantage.
+
+The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this
+advantage over those who, in the present day, use the public papers for
+the same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their address to
+the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. [This, as
+we have said, was also the case in Monmouth Street in our remembrance.
+We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral
+habiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more
+beseemingly; but this is a digression.] This direct and personal mode of
+invitation to customers became, however, a dangerous temptation to the
+young wags who were employed in the task of solicitation during
+the absence of the principal person interested in the traffic; and,
+confiding in their numbers and civic union, the 'prentices of London
+were often seduced into taking liberties with the passengers, and
+exercising their wit at the expense of those whom they had no hopes of
+converting into customers by their eloquence. If this were resented by
+any act of violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour forth
+in succour; and in the words of an old song which Dr. Johnson was used
+to hum,--
+
+    "Up then rose the 'prentices all,
+     Living in London, both proper and tall."
+
+Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the
+Templars, or other youths connected with the aristocracy, were insulted,
+or conceived themselves to be so. Upon such occasions, bare steel was
+frequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sometimes
+ensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of the time
+had no other resource than by the Alderman of the ward calling out the
+householders, and putting a stop to the strife by overpowering numbers,
+as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon the stage.
+
+At the period when such was the universal custom of the most
+respectable, as well as the most inconsiderable, shopkeepers in London,
+David Ramsay, on the evening to which we solicit the attention of
+the reader, retiring to more abstruse and private labours, left
+the administration of his outer shop, or booth, to the aforesaid
+sharp-witted, active, able-bodied, and well-voiced apprentices, namely,
+Jenkin Vincent and Frank Tunstall.
+
+Vincent had been educated at the excellent foundation of Christ's Church
+Hospital, and was bred, therefore, as well as born, a Londoner, with
+all the acuteness, address, and audacity which belong peculiarly to
+the youth of a metropolis. He was now about twenty years old, short in
+stature, but remarkably strong made, eminent for his feats upon holidays
+at foot-ball, and other gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled in
+the broad-sword play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of
+single-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and sequestered court of
+the ward, better than his catechism; was alike active in his master's
+affairs, and in his own adventures of fun and mischief; and so managed
+matters, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him out, or at
+least served for his apology, when the latter propensity led him into
+scrapes, of which, however, it is but fair to state, that they had
+hitherto inferred nothing mean or discreditable. Some aberrations there
+were, which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to reduce to regular
+order when he discovered them, and others which he winked at--supposing
+them to answer the purpose of the escapement of a watch, which disposes
+of a certain quantity of the extra power of that mechanical impulse
+which puts the whole in motion.
+
+The physiognomy of Jin Vin--by which abbreviation he was familiarly
+known through the ward--corresponded with the sketch we have given
+of his character. His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was
+generally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered
+with thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely, and
+would have grown to great length, but for the modest custom enjoined by
+his state in life and strictly enforced by his master, which compelled
+him to keep it short-cropped,--not unreluctantly, as he looked with
+envy on the flowing ringlets, in which the courtiers, and aristocratic
+students of the neighbouring Temple, began to indulge themselves, as
+marks of superiority and of gentility.
+
+Vincent's eyes were deep set in his head, of a strong vivid black, full
+of fire, roguery, and intelligence, and conveying a humorous expression,
+even while he was uttering the usual small-talk of his trade, as if
+he ridiculed those who were disposed to give any weight to his
+commonplaces. He had address enough, however, to add little touches of
+his own, which gave a turn of drollery even to this ordinary routine of
+the booth; and the alacrity of his manner--his ready and obvious wish
+to oblige--his intelligence and civility, when he thought civility
+necessary, made him a universal favourite with his master's customers.
+
+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. Yet, with all this aristocratic prejudice, his master found
+the well-born youth more docile, regular, and strictly attentive to
+his duty, than his far more active and alert comrade. Tunstall also
+gratified his master by the particular attention which he seemed
+disposed to bestow on the abstract principles of science connected with
+the trade which he was bound to study, the limits of which were daily
+enlarged with the increase of mathematical science.
+
+Vincent beat his companion beyond the distance-post, in every thing like
+the practical adaptation of thorough practice, in the dexterity of
+hand necessary to execute the mechanical branches of the art, and
+doubled-distanced him in all respecting the commercial affairs of the
+shop. Still David Ramsay was wont to say, that if Vincent knew how to do
+a thing the better of the two, Tunstall was much better acquainted with
+the principles on which it ought to be done; and he sometimes objected
+to the latter, that he knew critical excellence too well ever to be
+satisfied with practical mediocrity.
+
+The disposition of Tunstall was shy, as well as studious; and, though
+perfectly civil and obliging, he never seemed to feel himself in his
+place while he went through the duties of the shop. He was tall
+and handsome, with fair hair, and well-formed limbs, good features,
+well-opened light-blue eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and a countenance
+which expressed both good-humour and intelligence, but qualified by a
+gravity unsuitable to his years, and which almost amounted to dejection.
+He lived on the best of terms with his companion, and readily stood by
+him whenever he was engaged in any of the frequent skirmishes, which, as
+we have already observed, often disturbed the city of London about this
+period. But though Tunstall was allowed to understand quarter-staff (the
+weapon of the North country) in a superior degree, and though he was
+naturally both strong and active, his interference in such affrays
+seemed always matter of necessity; and, as he never voluntarily joined
+either their brawls or their sports, he held a far lower place in the
+opinion of the youth of the ward than his hearty and active friend Jin
+Vin. Nay, had it not been for the interest made for his comrade, by the
+intercession of Vincent, Tunstall would have stood some chance of being
+altogether excluded from the society of his contemporaries of the same
+condition, who called him, in scorn, the Cavaliero Cuddy, and the Gentle
+Tunstall.
+
+On the other hand, the lad himself, deprived of the fresh air in which
+he had been brought up, and foregoing the exercise to which he had
+formerly been accustomed, while the inhabitant of his native mansion,
+lost gradually the freshness of his complexion, and, without showing any
+formal symptoms of disease, grew more thin and pale as he grew older,
+and at length exhibited the appearance of indifferent health, without
+any thing of the habits and complaints of an invalid, excepting a
+disposition to avoid society, and to spend his leisure time in private
+study, rather than mingle in the sports of his companions, or even
+resort to the theatres, then the general rendezvous of his class; where,
+according to high authority, they fought for half-bitten apples, cracked
+nuts, and filled the upper gallery with their clamours.
+
+Such were the two youths who called David Ramsay master; and with both
+of whom he used to fret from morning till night, as their peculiarities
+interfered with his own, or with the quiet and beneficial course of his
+traffic.
+
+Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached to their master, and
+he, a good-natured, though an absent and whimsical man, was scarce
+less so to them; and when a little warmed with wine at an occasional
+junketing, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his "twa bonnie
+lads, and the looks that the court ladies threw at them, when visiting
+his shop in their caroches, when on a frolic into the city." But David
+Ramsay never failed, at the same time, to draw up his own tall,
+thin, lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming grin, and
+indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of his little
+grey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street worth looking
+at than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, the
+sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip-top revellers of
+the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, distinguished more deeply
+the sort of attention paid by the females of quality, who so regularly
+visited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates. "The boy Frank," she
+admitted, "used to attract the attention of the young ladies, as having
+something gentle and downcast in his looks; but then he could not better
+himself, for the poor youth had not a word to throw at a dog. Now Jin
+Vin was so full of his jibes and jeers, and so willing, and so ready,
+and so serviceable, and so mannerly all the while, with a step that
+sprung like a buck's in Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as
+black as a gipsy's, that no woman who knew the world would make a
+comparison betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the
+man," she said, "was a civil neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless,
+and might be a rich man if he had common sense to back his learning; and
+doubtless, for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but
+he was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings,
+and smeared with lamp-black and oil, that Dame Simmons judged it would
+require his whole shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to
+touch the said neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a pair of tongs."
+
+A still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Benjamin Suddlechop, the
+barber, was of exactly the same opinion.
+
+Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, the two youths,
+who, in a fine April day, having first rendered their dutiful service
+and attendance on the table of their master and his daughter, at their
+dinner at one o'clock,--Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe
+discipline undergone by your predecessors!--and having regaled
+themselves upon the fragments, in company with two female domestics, one
+a cook, and maid of all work, the other called Mistress Margaret's maid,
+now relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; and agreeably
+to the established custom, were soliciting, by their entreaties and
+recommendations of their master's manufacture, the attention and
+encouragement of the passengers.
+
+In this species of service it may be easily supposed that Jenkin Vincent
+left his more reserved and bashful comrade far in the background. The
+latter could only articulate with difficulty, and as an act of duty
+which he was rather ashamed of discharging, the established words
+of form--"What d'ye lack?--What d'ye lack?--Clocks--watches--barnacles?
+--What d'ye lack?--Watches--clocks--barnacles?--What d'ye lack, sir? What
+d'ye lack, madam?--Barnacles--watches--clocks?"
+
+But this dull and dry iteration, however varied by diversity of verbal
+arrangement, sounded flat when mingled with the rich and recommendatory
+oratory of the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-witted Jenkin
+Vincent.--"What d'ye lack, noble sir?--What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?"
+he said, in a tone at once bold and soothing, which often was so applied
+as both to gratify the persons addressed, and to excite a smile from
+other hearers.--"God bless your reverence," to a beneficed clergyman;
+"the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your reverence's eyes--Buy a pair of
+David Ramsay's barnacles. The King--God bless his Sacred Majesty!--never
+reads Hebrew or Greek without them."
+
+"Are you well avised of that?" said a fat parson from the Vale of
+Evesham. "Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,--God bless his
+Sacred Majesty!--I will try what they can do for me; for I have not
+been able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since--I cannot
+remember the time--when I had a bad fever. Choose me a pair of his
+most Sacred Majesty's own wearing, my good youth."
+
+"This is a pair, and please your reverence," said Jenkin, producing a
+pair of spectacles which he touched with an air of great deference and
+respect, "which his most blessed Majesty placed this day three weeks on
+his own blessed nose; and would have kept them for his own sacred use,
+but that the setting being, as your reverence sees, of the purest jet,
+was, as his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a bishop than
+for a secular prince."
+
+"His Sacred Majesty the King," said the worthy divine, "was ever a very
+Daniel in his judgment. Give me the barnacles, my good youth, and who
+can say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?--our reverend
+brother of Gloucester waxes in years." He then pulled out his purse,
+paid for the spectacles, and left the shop with even a more important
+step than that which had paused to enter it.
+
+"For shame," said Tunstall to his companion; "these glasses will never
+suit one of his years."
+
+"You are a fool, Frank," said Vincent, in reply; "had the good doctor
+wished glasses to read with, he would have tried them before buying.
+He does not want to look through them himself, and these will serve
+the purpose of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best
+magnifiers in the shop.--What d'ye lack?" he cried, resuming his
+solicitations. "Mirrors for your toilette, my pretty madam; your
+head-gear is something awry--pity, since it is so well fancied." The
+woman stopped and bought a mirror.--"What d'ye lack?--a watch, Master
+Sergeant--a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and true
+as your own eloquence?"
+
+"Hold your peace, sir," answered the Knight of the Coif, who was
+disturbed by Vin's address whilst in deep consultation with an eminent
+attorney; "hold your peace! You are the loudest-tongued varlet betwixt
+the Devil's Tavern and Guildhall."
+
+"A watch," reiterated the undaunted Jenkin, "that shall not lose
+thirteen minutes in a thirteen years' lawsuit.--He's out of hearing--A
+watch with four wheels and a bar-movement--a watch that shall tell you,
+Master Poet, how long the patience of the audience will endure your next
+piece at the Black Bull." The bard laughed, and fumbled in the pocket of
+his slops till he chased into a corner, and fairly caught, a small piece
+of coin.
+
+"Here is a tester to cherish thy wit, good boy," he said.
+
+"Gramercy," said Vin; "at the next play of yours I will bring down a
+set of roaring boys, that shall make all the critics in the pit, and the
+gallants on the stage, civil, or else the curtain shall smoke for it."
+
+"Now, that I call mean," said Tunstall, "to take the poor rhymer's
+money, who has so little left behind."
+
+"You are an owl, once again," said Vincent; "if he has nothing left to
+buy cheese and radishes, he will only dine a day the sooner with some
+patron or some player, for that is his fate five days out of the seven.
+It is unnatural that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer; I will
+drink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; and when his
+third night comes round, he shall have penniworths for his coin, I
+promise you.--But here comes another-guess customer. Look at that
+strange fellow--see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow
+the wares.--O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not
+the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply
+their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that same
+fellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show he's of
+gentle blood, God wot--his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his sword with a
+ton of iron in the handle--his grey thread-bare cloak--his step like a
+Frenchman--his look like a Spaniard--a book at his girdle, and a broad
+dudgeon-dagger on the other side, to show him half-pedant, half-bully.
+How call you that pageant, Frank?"
+
+"A raw Scotsman," said Tunstall; "just come up, I suppose, to help the
+rest of his countrymen to gnaw old England's bones; a palmerworm, I
+reckon, to devour what the locust has spared."
+
+"Even so, Frank," answered Vincent; "just as the poet sings sweetly,--
+
+    'In Scotland he was born and bred,
+     And, though a beggar, must be fed.'"
+
+"Hush!" said Tunstall, "remember our master."
+
+"Pshaw!" answered his mercurial companion; "he knows on which side
+his bread is buttered, and I warrant you has not lived so long among
+Englishmen, and by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an English
+mind. But see, our Scot has done gazing at St. Dunstan's, and comes our
+way. By this light, a proper lad and a sturdy, in spite of freckles and
+sun-burning.--He comes nearer still, I will have at him."
+
+"And, if you do," said his comrade, "you may get a broken head--he looks
+not as if he would carry coals."
+
+"A fig for your threat," said Vincent, and instantly addressed the
+stranger. "Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane--buy a watch, to count
+the hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind
+you.--Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your
+gripe.--Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days; for,
+were your pockets as bare as Father Fergus's, you are a Scot in London,
+and you will be stocked in that time." The stranger looked sternly
+at the waggish apprentice, and seemed to grasp his cudgel in rather a
+menacing fashion. "Buy physic," said the undaunted Vincent, "if you will
+buy neither time nor light--physic for a proud stomach, sir;--there is a
+'pothecary's shop on the other side of the way."
+
+Here the probationary disciple of Galen, who stood at his master's door
+in his flat cap and canvass sleeves, with a large wooden pestle in his
+hand, took up the ball which was flung to him by Jenkin, with, "What
+d'ye lack, sir?--Buy a choice Caledonian salve, _Flos sulphvr. cum
+butyro quant. suff._"
+
+"To be taken after a gentle rubbing-down with an English oaken towel,"
+said Vincent.
+
+The bonny Scot had given full scope to the play of this small artillery
+of city wit, by halting his stately pace, and viewing grimly, first the
+one assailant, and then the other, as if menacing either repartee or
+more violent revenge. But phlegm or prudence got the better of his
+indignation, and tossing his head as one who valued not the raillery to
+which he had been exposed, he walked down Fleet Street, pursued by the
+horse-laugh of his tormentors.
+
+"The Scot will not fight till he see his own blood," said Tunstall, whom
+his north of England extraction had made familiar with all manner of
+proverbs against those who lay yet farther north than himself.
+
+"Faith, I know not," said Jenkin; "he looks dangerous, that
+fellow--he will hit some one over the noddle before he goes
+far.--Hark!--hark!--they are rising."
+
+Accordingly, the well-known cry of,
+"'Prentices--'prentices--Clubs--clubs!" now rang along Fleet Street; and
+Jenkin, snatching up his weapon, which lay beneath the counter ready
+at the slightest notice, and calling to Tunstall to take his bat and
+follow, leaped over the hatch-door which protected the outer-shop, and
+ran as fast as he could towards the affray, echoing the cry as he ran,
+and elbowing, or shoving aside, whoever stood in his way. His comrade,
+first calling to his master to give an eye to the shop, followed
+Jenkin's example, and ran after him as fast as he could, but with more
+attention to the safety and convenience of others; while old David
+Ramsay, with hands and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and a
+glass which he had been polishing thrust into his bosom, came forth
+to look after the safety of his goods and chattels, knowing, by old
+experience, that, when the cry of "Clubs" once arose, he would have
+little aid on the part of his apprentices.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+  This, sir, is one among the Seignory,
+  Has wealth at will, and will to use his wealth,
+  And wit to increase it. Marry, his worst folly
+  Lies in a thriftless sort of charity,
+  That goes a-gadding sometimes after objects,
+  Which wise men will not see when thrust upon them.
+                             _The Old Couple._
+
+The ancient gentleman bustled about his shop, in pettish displeasure
+at being summoned hither so hastily, to the interruption of his more
+abstract studies; and, unwilling to renounce the train of calculation
+which he had put in progress, he mingled whimsically with the fragments
+of the arithmetical operation, his oratory to the passengers, and angry
+reflections on his idle apprentices. "What d'ye lack, sir? Madam,
+what d'ye lack--clocks for hall or table--night-watches--day
+watches?--_Locking wheel being 48--the power of retort 8--the striking
+pins are 48_--What d'ye lack, honoured sir?--_The quotient--the
+multiplicand_--That the knaves should have gone out this blessed
+minute!--_the acceleration being at the rate of 5 minutes, 55 seconds,
+53 thirds, 59 fourths_--I will switch them both when they come back--I
+will, by the bones of the immortal Napier!"
+
+Here the vexed philosopher was interrupted by the entrance of a grave
+citizen of a most respectable appearance, who, saluting him familiarly
+by the name of "Davie, my old acquaintance," demanded what had put him
+so much out of sorts, and gave him at the same time a cordial grasp of
+his hand.
+
+The stranger's dress was, though grave, rather richer than usual. His
+paned hose were of black velvet, lined with purple silk, which garniture
+appeared at the slashes. His doublet was of purple cloth, and his
+short cloak of black velvet, to correspond with his hose; and both were
+adorned with a great number of small silver buttons richly wrought in
+filigree. A triple chain of gold hung round his neck; and, in place of
+a sword or dagger, he wore at his belt an ordinary knife for the purpose
+of the table, with a small silver case, which appeared to contain
+writing materials. He might have seemed some secretary or clerk engaged
+in the service of the public, only that his low, flat, and unadorned
+cap, and his well-blacked, shining shoes, indicated that he belonged to
+the city. He was a well-made man, about the middle size, and seemed in
+firm health, though advanced in years. His looks expressed sagacity and
+good-humour: and the air of respectability which his dress announced,
+was well supported by his clear eye, ruddy cheek, and grey hair. He used
+the Scottish idiom in his first address, but in such a manner that it
+could hardly be distinguished whether he was passing upon his friend a
+sort of jocose mockery, or whether it was his own native dialect, for
+his ordinary discourse had little provincialism.
+
+In answer to the queries of his respectable friend, Ramsay groaned
+heavily, answering by echoing back the question, "What ails me, Master
+George? Why, every thing ails me! I profess to you that a man may
+as well live in Fairyland as in the Ward of Farringdon-Without. My
+apprentices are turned into mere goblins--they appear and disappear like
+spunkies, and have no more regularity in them than a watch without a
+scapement. If there is a ball to be tossed up, or a bullock to be driven
+mad, or a quean to be ducked for scolding, or a head to be broken,
+Jenkin is sure to be at the one end or the other of it, and then
+away skips Francis Tunstall for company. I think the prize-fighters,
+bear-leaders, and mountebanks, are in a league against me, my dear
+friend, and that they pass my house ten times for any other in the city.
+Here's an Italian fellow come over, too, that they call Punchinello;
+and, altogether----"
+
+"Well," interrupted Master George, "but what is all this to the present
+case?"
+
+"Why," replied Ramsay, "here has been a cry of thieves or murder, (I
+hope that will prove the least of it amongst these English pock-pudding
+swine!) and I have been interrupted in the deepest calculation ever
+mortal man plunged into, Master George."
+
+"What, man!" replied Master George, "you must take patience--You are a
+man that deals in time, and can make it go fast and slow at pleasure;
+you, of all the world, have least reason to complain, if a little of it
+be lost now and then.--But here come your boys, and bringing in a slain
+man betwixt them, I think--here has been serious mischief, I am afraid."
+
+"The more mischief the better sport," said the crabbed old
+watchmaker. "I am blithe, though, that it's neither of the twa loons
+themselves.--What are ye bringing a corpse here for, ye fause villains?"
+he added, addressing the two apprentices, who, at the head of a
+considerable mob of their own class, some of whom bore evident marks of
+a recent fray, were carrying the body betwixt them.
+
+"He is not dead yet, sir," answered Tunstall.
+
+"Carry him into the apothecary's, then," replied his master. "D'ye
+think I can set a man's life in motion again, as if he were a clock or a
+timepiece?"
+
+"For godsake, old friend," said his acquaintance, "let us have him here
+at the nearest--he seems only in a swoon."
+
+"A swoon?" said Ramsay, "and what business had he to swoon in the
+streets? Only, if it will oblige my friend Master George, I would take
+in all the dead men in St. Dunstan's parish. Call Sam Porter to look
+after the shop." So saying, the stunned man, being the identical
+Scotsman who had passed a short time before amidst the jeers of the
+apprentices, was carried into the back shop of the artist, and there
+placed in an armed chair till the apothecary from over the way came to
+his assistance. This gentleman, as sometimes happens to those of the
+learned professions, had rather more lore than knowledge, and began to
+talk of the sinciput and occiput, and cerebrum and cerebellum, until he
+exhausted David Ramsay's brief stock of patience.
+
+"Bell-um! bell-ell-um!" he repeated, with great indignation; "What
+signify all the bells in London, if you do not put a plaster on the
+child's crown?"
+
+Master George, with better-directed zeal, asked the apothecary whether
+bleeding might not be useful; when, after humming and hawing for a
+moment, and being unable, upon the spur of the occasion, to suggest any
+thing else, the man of pharmacy observed, that it would, at all events,
+relieve the brain or cerebrum, in case there was a tendency to the
+depositation of any extravasated blood, to operate as a pressure upon
+that delicate organ.
+
+Fortunately he was adequate to performing this operation; and, being
+powerfully aided by Jenkin Vincent (who was learned in all cases of
+broken heads) with plenty of cold water, and a little vinegar, applied
+according to the scientific method practised by the bottle-holders in a
+modern ring, the man began to raise himself on his chair, draw his cloak
+tightly around him, and look about like one who struggles to recover
+sense and recollection.
+
+"He had better lie down on the bed in the little back closet," said Mr.
+Ramsay's visitor, who seemed perfectly familiar with the accommodations
+which the house afforded.
+
+"He is welcome to my share of the truckle," said Jenkin,--for in
+the said back closet were the two apprentices accommodated in one
+truckle-bed,--"I can sleep under the counter."
+
+"So can I," said Tunstall, "and the poor fellow can have the bed all
+night."
+
+"Sleep," said the apothecary, "is, in the opinion of Galen,
+a restorative and febrifuge, and is most naturally taken in a
+truckle-bed."
+
+"Where a better cannot be come by,"--said Master George; "but these are
+two honest lads, to give up their beds so willingly. Come, off with his
+cloak, and let us bear him to his couch--I will send for Dr. Irving, the
+king's chirurgeon--he does not live far off, and that shall be my share
+of the Samaritan's duty, neighbour Ramsay."
+
+"Well, sir," said the apothecary, "it is at your pleasure to send for
+other advice, and I shall not object to consult with Dr. Irving or any
+other medical person of skill, neither to continue to furnish such drugs
+as may be needful from my pharmacopeia. However, whatever Dr. Irving,
+who, I think, hath had his degrees in Edinburgh, or Dr. Any-one-beside,
+be he Scottish or English, may say to the contrary, sleep, taken
+timeously, is a febrifuge, or sedative, and also a restorative."
+
+He muttered a few more learned words, and concluded by informing
+Ramsay's friend in English far more intelligible than his Latin, that he
+would look to him as his paymaster, for medicines, care, and attendance,
+furnished, or to be furnished, to this party unknown.
+
+Master George only replied by desiring him to send his bill for what he
+had already to charge, and to give himself no farther trouble unless he
+heard from him. The pharmacopolist, who, from discoveries made by the
+cloak falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of
+this chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case
+espoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to
+quit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master
+George, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing
+when occasion required, to send to his own dwelling this Esculapius of
+Temple Bar.
+
+When they were rid of Mr. Raredrench, the charitable efforts of Jenkin
+and Francis, to divest the patient of his long grey cloak, were firmly
+resisted on his own part.--"My life suner--my life suner," he muttered
+in indistinct murmurs. In these efforts to retain his upper garment,
+which was too tender to resist much handling, it gave way at length with
+a loud rent, which almost threw the patient into a second syncope,
+and he sat before them in his under garments, the looped and repaired
+wretchedness of which moved at once pity and laughter, and had certainly
+been the cause of his unwillingness to resign the mantle, which, like
+the virtue of charity, served to cover so many imperfections.
+
+The man himself cast his eyes on his poverty-struck garb, and seemed so
+much ashamed of the disclosure, that, muttering between his teeth, that
+he would be too late for his appointment, he made an effort to rise and
+leave the shop, which was easily prevented by Jenkin Vincent and his
+comrade, who, at the nod of Master George, laid hold of and detained him
+in his chair.
+
+The patient next looked round him for a moment, and then said faintly,
+in his broad northern language--"What sort of usage ca' ye this,
+gentlemen, to a stranger a sojourner in your town? Ye hae broken my
+head--ye hae riven my cloak, and now ye are for restraining my personal
+liberty! They were wiser than me," he said, after a moment's pause,
+"that counselled me to wear my warst claithing in the streets of
+London; and, if I could have got ony things warse than these mean
+garments,"--("which would have been very difficult," said Jin Vin, in a
+whisper to his companion,)--"they would have been e'en ower gude for the
+grips o' men sae little acquented with the laws of honest civility."
+
+"To say the truth," said Jenkin, unable to forbear any longer, although
+the discipline of the times prescribed to those in his situation a
+degree of respectful distance and humility in the presence of parents,
+masters, or seniors, of which the present age has no idea--"to say the
+truth, the good gentleman's clothes look as if they would not brook much
+handling."
+
+"Hold your peace, young man," said Master George, with a tone of
+authority; "never mock the stranger or the poor--the black ox has not
+trod on your foot yet--you know not what lands you may travel in, or
+what clothes you may wear, before you die."
+
+Vincent held down his head and stood rebuked, but the stranger did not
+accept the apology which was made for him.
+
+"I _am_ a stranger, sir," said he, "that is certain; though methinks,
+that, being such, I have been somewhat familiarly treated in this town
+of yours; but, as for my being poor, I think I need not be charged with
+poverty, till I seek siller of somebody."
+
+"The dear country all over," said Master George, in a whisper, to David
+Ramsay, "pride and poverty."
+
+But David had taken out his tablets and silver pen, and, deeply immersed
+in calculations, in which he rambled over all the terms of arithmetic,
+from the simple unit to millions, billions, and trillions, neither heard
+nor answered the observation of his friend, who, seeing his abstraction,
+turned again to the Scot.
+
+"I fancy now, Jockey, if a stranger were to offer you a noble, you would
+chuck it back at his head?"
+
+"Not if I could do him honest service for it, sir," said the Scot; "I
+am willing to do what I may to be useful, though I come of an honourable
+house, and may be said to be in a sort indifferently weel provided for."
+
+"Ay!" said the interrogator, "and what house may claim the honour of
+your descent?"
+
+"An ancient coat belongs to it, as the play says," whispered Vincent to
+his companion.
+
+"Come, Jockey, out with it," continued Master George, observing that the
+Scot, as usual with his countrymen, when asked a blunt, straightforward
+question, took a little time before answering it.
+
+"I am no more Jockey, sir, than you are John," said the stranger, as if
+offended at being addressed by a name, which at that time was used, as
+Sawney now is, for a general appellative of the Scottish nation. "My
+name, if you must know it, is Richie Moniplies; and I come of the old
+and honourable house of Castle Collop, weel kend at the West-Port of
+Edinburgh."
+
+"What is that you call the West-Port?" proceeded the interrogator.
+
+"Why, an it like your honour," said Richie, who now, having recovered
+his senses sufficiently to observe the respectable exterior of Master
+George, threw more civility into his manner than at first, "the
+West-Port is a gate of our city, as yonder brick arches at Whitehall
+form the entrance of the king's palace here, only that the West-Port is
+of stonern work, and mair decorated with architecture and the policy of
+bigging."
+
+"Nouns, man, the Whitehall gateways were planned by the great Holbein,"
+answered Master George; "I suspect your accident has jumbled your
+brains, my good friend. I suppose you will tell me next, you have
+at Edinburgh as fine a navigable river as the Thames, with all its
+shipping?"
+
+"The Thames!" exclaimed Richie, in a tone of ineffable contempt--"God
+bless your honour's judgment, we have at Edinburgh the Water-of-Leith
+and the Nor-loch!"
+
+"And the Pow-Burn, and the Quarry-holes, and the Gusedub, ye fause
+loon!" answered Master George, speaking Scotch with a strong and natural
+emphasis; "it is such land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and
+fair fashions, bring reproach on our whole country."
+
+"God forgie me, sir," said Richie, much surprised at finding the
+supposed southron converted into a native Scot, "I took your honour for
+an Englisher! But I hope there was naething wrang in standing up for
+ane's ain country's credit in a strange land, where all men cry her
+down?"
+
+"Do you call it for your country's credit, to show that she has a lying,
+puffing rascal, for one of her children?" said Master George. "But come,
+man, never look grave on it,--as you have found a countryman, so you
+have found a friend, if you deserve one--and especially if you answer me
+truly."
+
+"I see nae gude it wad do me to speak ought else but truth," said the
+worthy North Briton.
+
+"Well, then--to begin," said Master George, "I suspect you are a son of
+old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher, at the West-Port."
+
+"Your honour is a witch, I think," said Richie, grinning.
+
+"And how dared you, sir, to uphold him for a noble?"
+
+"I dinna ken, sir," said Richie, scratching his head; "I hear muckle
+of an Earl of Warwick in these southern parts,--Guy, I think his name
+was,--and he has great reputation here for slaying dun cows, and boars,
+and such like; and I am sure my father has killed more cows and boars,
+not to mention bulls, calves, sheep, ewes, lambs, and pigs, than the
+haill Baronage of England."
+
+"Go to! you are a shrewd knave," said Master George; "charm your tongue,
+and take care of saucy answers. Your father was an honest burgher, and
+the deacon of his craft: I am sorry to see his son in so poor a coat."
+
+"Indifferent, sir," said Richie Moniplies, looking down on his
+garments--"very indifferent; but it is the wonted livery of poor
+burghers' sons in our country--one of Luckie Want's bestowing upon
+us--rest us patient! The king's leaving Scotland has taken all custom
+frae Edinburgh; and there is hay made at the Cross, and a dainty crop
+of fouats in the Grass-market. There is as much grass grows where my
+father's stall stood, as might have been a good bite for the beasts he
+was used to kill."
+
+"It is even too true," said Master George; "and while we make fortunes
+here, our old neighbours and their families are starving at home. This
+should be thought upon oftener.--And how came you by that broken head,
+Richie?--tell me honestly."
+
+"Troth, sir, I'se no lee about the matter," answered Moniplies. "I was
+coming along the street here, and ilk ane was at me with their jests and
+roguery. So I thought to mysell, ye are ower mony for me to mell with;
+but let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I
+could gar some of ye sing another sang. Sae ae auld hirpling deevil of
+a potter behoved just to step in my way and offer me a pig, as he
+said, just to put my Scotch ointment in, and I gave him a push, as but
+natural, and the tottering deevil coupit ower amang his ain pigs, and
+damaged a score of them. And then the reird raise, and hadna these twa
+gentlemen helped me out of it, murdered I suld hae been, without remeid.
+And as it was, just when they got haud of my arm to have me out of the
+fray, I got the lick that donnerit me from a left-handed lighterman."
+
+Master George looked to the apprentices as if to demand the truth of
+this story.
+
+"It is just as he says, sir," replied Jenkin; "only I heard nothing
+about pigs.--The people said he had broke some crockery, and that--I beg
+pardon, sir--nobody could thrive within the kenning of a Scot."
+
+"Well, no matter what they said, you were an honest fellow to help the
+weaker side.--And you, sirrah," continued Master George, addressing his
+countryman, "will call at my house to-morrow morning, agreeable to this
+direction."
+
+"I will wait upon your honour," said the Scot, bowing very low; "that
+is, if my honourable master will permit me."
+
+"Thy master?" said George,--"Hast thou any other master save Want, whose
+livery you say you wear?"
+
+"Troth, in one sense, if it please your honour, I serve twa masters,"
+said Richie; "for both my master and me are slaves to that same beldam,
+whom we thought to show our heels to by coming off from Scotland. So
+that you see, sir, I hold in a sort of black ward tenure, as we call it
+in our country, being the servant of a servant."
+
+"And what is your master's name?" said Master George; and observing that
+Richie hesitated, he added, "Nay, do not tell me, if it is a secret."
+
+"A secret that there is little use in keeping," said Richie; "only ye
+ken that our northern stomachs are ower proud to call in witnesses to
+our distress. No that my master is in mair than present pinch, sir," he
+added, looking towards the two English apprentices, "having a large sum
+in the Royal Treasury--that is," he continued, in a whisper to Master
+George,--"the king is owing him a lot of siller; but it's ill getting at
+it, it's like.--My master is the young Lord Glenvarloch."
+
+Master George testified surprise at the name.--"_You_ one of the young
+Lord Glenvarloch's followers, and in such a condition?"
+
+"Troth, and I am all the followers he has, for the present that is; and
+blithe wad I be if he were muckle better aff than I am, though I were to
+bide as I am."
+
+"I have seen his father with four gentlemen and ten lackeys at his
+heels," said Master George, "rustling in their laces and velvets. Well,
+this is a changeful world, but there is a better beyond it.--The good
+old house of Glenvarloch, that stood by king and country five hundred
+years!"
+
+"Your honour may say a thousand," said the follower.
+
+"I will say what I know to be true, friend," said the citizen, "and not
+a word more.--You seem well recovered now--can you walk?"
+
+"Bravely, sir," said Richie; "it was but a bit dover. I was bred at the
+West-Port, and my cantle will stand a clour wad bring a stot down."
+
+"Where does your master lodge?"
+
+"We pit up, an it like your honour," replied the Scot, "in a sma' house
+at the fit of ane of the wynds that gang down to the water-side, with
+a decent man, John Christie, a ship-chandler, as they ca't. His father
+came from Dundee. I wotna the name of the wynd, but it's right anent the
+mickle kirk yonder; and your honour will mind, that we pass only by our
+family-name of simple Mr. Nigel Olifaunt, as keeping ourselves retired
+for the present, though in Scotland we be called the Lord Nigel."
+
+"It is wisely done of your master," said the citizen. "I will find
+out your lodgings, though your direction be none of the clearest."
+So saying, and slipping a piece of money at the same time into Richie
+Moniplies's hand, he bade him hasten home, and get into no more affrays.
+
+"I will take care of that now, sir," said Richie, with a look of
+importance, "having a charge about me. And so, wussing ye a' weel, with
+special thanks to these twa young gentlemen----"
+
+"I am no gentleman," said Jenkin, flinging his cap on his head; "I am
+a tight London 'prentice, and hope to be a freeman one day. Frank may
+write himself gentleman, if he will."
+
+"I _was_ a gentleman once," said Tunstall, "and I hope I have done
+nothing to lose the name of one."
+
+"Weel, weel, as ye list," said Richie Moniplies; "but I am mickle
+beholden to ye baith--and I am not a hair the less like to bear it in
+mind that I say but little about it just now.--Gude-night to you, my
+kind countryman." So saying, he thrust out of the sleeve of his ragged
+doublet a long bony hand and arm, on which the muscles rose like
+whip-cord. Master George shook it heartily, while Jenkin and Frank
+exchanged sly looks with each other.
+
+Richie Moniplies would next have addressed his thanks to the master of
+the shop, but seeing him, as he afterwards said, "scribbling on his
+bit bookie, as if he were demented," he contented his politeness
+with "giving him a hat," touching, that is, his bonnet, in token of
+salutation, and so left the shop.
+
+"Now, there goes Scotch Jockey, with all his bad and good about him,"
+said Master George to Master David, who suspended, though unwillingly,
+the calculations with which he was engaged, and keeping his pen within
+an inch of the tablets, gazed on his friend with great lack-lustre eyes,
+which expressed any thing rather than intelligence or interest in the
+discourse addressed to him.--"That fellow," proceeded Master George,
+without heeding his friend's state of abstraction, "shows, with great
+liveliness of colouring, how our Scotch pride and poverty make liars
+and braggarts of us; and yet the knave, whose every third word to an
+Englishman is a boastful lie, will, I warrant you, be a true and tender
+friend and follower to his master, and has perhaps parted with his
+mantle to him in the cold blast, although he himself walked _in cuerpo,_
+as the Don says.--Strange! that courage and fidelity--for I will warrant
+that the knave is stout--should have no better companion than this
+swaggering braggadocio humour.--But you mark me not, friend Davie."
+
+"I do--I do, most heedfully," said Davie.--"For, as the sun goeth round
+the dial-plate in twenty-four hours, add, for the moon, fifty minutes
+and a half----"
+
+"You are in the seventh heavens, man," said his companion.
+
+"I crave your pardon," replied Davie.--"Let the wheel A go round in
+twenty-four hours--I have it--and the wheel B in twenty-four hours,
+fifty minutes and a half--fifty-seven being to fifty-four, as fifty-nine
+to twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half, or very nearly,--I crave
+your forgiveness, Master George, and heartily wish you good-even."
+
+"Good-even?" said Master George; "why, you have not wished me good-day
+yet. Come, old friend, lay by these tablets, or you will crack the inner
+machinery of _your_ skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case
+of his damaged.--Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with you so
+easily. I came to get my four hours' nunchion from you, man, besides a
+tune on the lute from my god-daughter, Mrs. Marget."
+
+"Good faith! I was abstracted, Master George--but you know me. Whenever
+I get amongst the wheels," said Mr. Ramsay, "why, 'tis----"
+
+"Lucky that you deal in small ones," said his friend; as, awakened from
+his reveries and calculations, Ramsay led the way up a little back-stair
+to the first storey, occupied by his daughter and his little household.
+
+The apprentices resumed their places in the front-shop, and relieved
+Sam Porter; when Jenkin said to Tunstall--"Didst see, Frank, how the old
+goldsmith cottoned in with his beggarly countryman? When would one
+of his wealth have shaken hands so courteously with a poor
+Englishman?--Well, I'll say that for the best of the Scots, that they
+will go over head and ears to serve a countryman, when they will not
+wet a nail of their finger to save a Southron, as they call us, from
+drowning. And yet Master George is but half-bred Scot neither in that
+respect; for I have known him do many a kind thing to the English too."
+
+"But hark ye, Jenkin," said Tunstall, "I think you are but half-bred
+English yourself. How came you to strike on the Scotsman's side after
+all?"
+
+"Why, you did so, too," answered Vincent.
+
+"Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no Cumberland fashion
+to fall fifty upon one," replied Tunstall.
+
+"And no Christ Church fashion neither," said Jenkin. "Fair play and Old
+England for ever!--Besides, to tell you a secret, his voice had a twang
+in it--in the dialect I mean--reminded me of a little tongue, which I
+think sweeter--sweeter than the last toll of St. Dunstan's will sound,
+on the day that I am shot of my indentures--Ha!--you guess who I mean,
+Frank?"
+
+"Not I, indeed," answered Tunstall.--"Scotch Janet, I suppose, the
+laundress."
+
+
+"Off with Janet in her own bucking-basket!--No, no, no!--You blind
+buzzard,--do you not know I mean pretty Mrs. Marget?"
+
+"Umph!" answered Tunstall, dryly.
+
+A flash of anger, not unmingled with suspicion, shot from Jenkin's keen
+black eyes.
+
+"Umph!--and what signifies umph? I am not the first 'prentice has
+married his master's daughter, I suppose?"
+
+"They kept their own secret, I fancy," said Tunstall, "at least till
+they were out of their time."
+
+"I tell you what it is, Frank," answered Jenkin, sharply, "that may
+be the fashion of you gentlefolks, that are taught from your biggin to
+carry two faces under the same hood, but it shall never be mine."
+
+"There are the stairs, then," said Tunstall, coolly; "go up and ask Mrs.
+Marget of our master just now, and see what sort of a face he will wear
+under _his_ hood."
+
+"No, I wonnot," answered Jenkin; "I am not such a fool as that neither.
+But I will take my own time; and all the Counts in Cumberland shall not
+cut my comb, and this is that which you may depend upon."
+
+Francis made no reply; and they resumed their usual attention to the
+business of the shop, and their usual solicitations to the passengers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+_Bobadil._ I pray you, possess no gallant of your acquaintance with a
+knowledge of my lodging. _Master Matthew._ Who, I, sir?--Lord, sir! _Ben
+Jonson._
+
+The next morning found Nigel Olifaunt, the young Lord of Glenvarloch,
+seated, sad and solitary, in his little apartment, in the mansion
+of John Christie, the ship-chandler; which that honest tradesman, in
+gratitude perhaps to the profession from which he derived his chief
+support, appeared to have constructed as nearly as possible upon the
+plan of a ship's cabin.
+
+It was situated near to Paul's Wharf, at the end of one of those
+intricate and narrow lanes, which, until that part of the city was swept
+away by the Great Fire in 1666, constituted an extraordinary labyrinth
+of small, dark, damp, and unwholesome streets and alleys, in one corner
+or other of which the plague was then as surely found lurking, as in the
+obscure corners of Constantinople in our own time. But John Christie's
+house looked out upon the river, and had the advantage, therefore,
+of free air, impregnated, however, with the odoriferous fumes of the
+articles in which the ship-chandler dealt, with the odour of pitch, and
+the natural scent of the ooze and sludge left by the reflux of the tide.
+
+Upon the whole, except that his dwelling did not float with the
+flood-tide, and become stranded with the ebb, the young lord was nearly
+as comfortably accommodated as he was while on board the little trading
+brig from the long town of Kirkaldy, in Fife, by which he had come a
+passenger to London. He received, however, every attention which could
+be paid him by his honest landlord, John Christie; for Richie Moniplies
+had not thought it necessary to preserve his master's _incognito_ so
+completely, but that the honest ship-chandler could form a guess that
+his guest's quality was superior to his appearance.
+
+As for Dame Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laughter-loving dame,
+with black eyes, a tight well-laced bodice, a green apron, and a red
+petticoat edged with a slight silver lace, and judiciously shortened so
+as to show that a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon her
+well-burnished shoe,--she, of course, felt interest in a young man, who,
+besides being very handsome, good-humoured, and easily satisfied with
+the accommodations her house afforded, was evidently of a rank, as well
+as manners, highly superior to the skippers (or Captains, as they called
+themselves) of merchant vessels, who were the usual tenants of the
+apartments which she let to hire; and at whose departure she was sure to
+find her well-scrubbed floor soiled with the relics of tobacco, (which,
+spite of King James's Counterblast, was then forcing itself into use,)
+and her best curtains impregnated with the odour of Geneva and strong
+waters, to Dame Nelly's great indignation; for, as she truly said, the
+smell of the shop and warehouse was bad enough without these additions.
+
+But all Mr. Olifaunt's habits were regular and cleanly, and his address,
+though frank and simple, showed so much of the courtier and gentleman,
+as formed a strong contrast with the loud halloo, coarse jests, and
+boisterous impatience of her maritime inmates. Dame Nelly saw that her
+guest was melancholy also, notwithstanding his efforts to seem contented
+and cheerful; and, in short, she took that sort of interest in him,
+without being herself aware of the extent, which an unscrupulous gallant
+might have been tempted to improve to the prejudice of honest John,
+who was at least a score of years older than his helpmate. Olifaunt,
+however, had not only other matters to think of, but would have regarded
+such an intrigue, had the idea ever occurred to him, as an abominable
+and ungrateful encroachment upon the laws of hospitality, his religion
+having been by his late father formed upon the strict principles of the
+national faith, and his morality upon those of the nicest honour. He
+had not escaped the predominant weakness of his country, an overweening
+sense of the pride of birth, and a disposition to value the worth and
+consequence of others according to the number and the fame of their
+deceased ancestors; but this pride of family was well subdued, and
+in general almost entirely concealed, by his good sense and general
+courtesy.
+
+Such as we have described him, Nigel Olifaunt, or rather the young
+Lord Glenvarloch, was, when our narrative takes him up, under great
+perplexity respecting the fate of his trusty and only follower, Richard
+Moniplies, who had been dispatched by his young master, early the
+preceding morning, as far as the court at Westminster, but had not yet
+returned. His evening adventures the reader is already acquainted with,
+and so far knows more of Richie than did his master, who had not heard
+of him for twenty-four hours.
+
+Dame Nelly Christie, in the meantime, regarded her guest with some
+anxiety, and a great desire to comfort him, if possible. She placed on
+the breakfast-table a noble piece of cold powdered beef, with its usual
+guards of turnip and carrot, recommended her mustard as coming direct
+from her cousin at Tewkesbury, and spiced the toast with her own
+hands--and with her own hands, also, drew a jug of stout and nappy ale,
+all of which were elements of the substantial breakfast of the period.
+
+When she saw that her guest's anxiety prevented him from doing justice
+to the good cheer which she set before him, she commenced her career
+of verbal consolation with the usual volubility of those women in her
+station, who, conscious of good looks, good intentions, and good lungs,
+entertain no fear either of wearying themselves or of fatiguing their
+auditors.
+
+"Now, what the good year! are we to send you down to Scotland as thin
+as you came up?--I am sure it would be contrary to the course of nature.
+There was my goodman's father, old Sandie Christie, I have heard he was
+an atomy when he came up from the North, and I am sure he died, Saint
+Barnaby was ten years, at twenty stone weight. I was a bare-headed girl
+at the time, and lived in the neighbourhood, though I had little thought
+of marrying John then, who had a score of years the better of me--but he
+is a thriving man and a kind husband--and his father, as I was saying,
+died as fat as a church-warden. Well, sir, but I hope I have not
+offended you for my little joke--and I hope the ale is to your honour's
+liking,--and the beef--and the mustard?"
+
+"All excellent--all too good," answered Olifaunt; "you have every thing
+so clean and tidy, dame, that I shall not know how to live when I go
+back to my own country--if ever I go back there."
+
+This was added as it seemed involuntarily, and with a deep sigh.
+
+"I warrant your honour go back again if you like it," said the dame:
+"unless you think rather of taking a pretty well-dowered English lady,
+as some of your countryfolk have done. I assure you, some of the best of
+the city have married Scotsmen. There was Lady Trebleplumb, Sir Thomas
+Trebleplumb the great Turkey merchant's widow, married Sir Awley
+Macauley, whom your honour knows, doubtless; and pretty Mistress
+Doublefee, old Sergeant Doublefee's daughter, jumped out of window,
+and was married at May-fair to a Scotsman with a hard name; and old
+Pitchpost the timber merchant's daughters did little better, for they
+married two Irishmen; and when folks jeer me about having a Scotsman
+for lodger, meaning your honour, I tell them they are afraid of their
+daughters and their mistresses; and sure I have a right to stand up for
+the Scots, since John Christie is half a Scotsman, and a thriving man,
+and a good husband, though there is a score of years between us; and so
+I would have your honour cast care away, and mend your breakfast with a
+morsel and a draught."
+
+"At a word, my kind hostess, I cannot," said Olifaunt; "I am anxious
+about this knave of mine, who has been so long absent in this dangerous
+town of yours."
+
+It may be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of
+consolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and
+she is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who
+had lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be
+better to-morrow, which perhaps might not have proved an appropriate,
+even if it had been a possible, mode of relief.
+
+On this occasion she denied stoutly that Richie had been absent
+altogether twenty hours; and as for people being killed in the streets
+of London, to be sure two men had been found in Tower-ditch last week,
+but that was far to the east, and the other poor man that had his throat
+cut in the fields, had met his mishap near by Islington; and he that was
+stabbed by the young Templar in a drunken frolic, by Saint Clement's
+in the Strand, was an Irishman. All which evidence she produced to show
+that none of these casualties had occurred in a case exactly parallel
+with that of Richie, a Scotsman, and on his return from Westminster.
+
+"My better comfort is, my good dame," answered Olifaunt, "that the lad
+is no brawler or quarreller, unless strongly urged, and that he has
+nothing valuable about him to any one but me."
+
+"Your honour speaks very well," retorted the inexhaustible hostess, who
+protracted her task of taking away, and putting to rights, in order
+that she might prolong her gossip. "I'll uphold Master Moniplies to be
+neither reveller nor brawler, for if he liked such things, he might
+be visiting and junketing with the young folks about here in the
+neighbourhood, and he never dreams of it; and when I asked the young
+man to go as far as my gossip's, Dame Drinkwater, to taste a glass of
+aniseed, and a bit of the groaning cheese,--for Dame Drinkwater has had
+twins, as I told your honour, sir,--and I meant it quite civilly to the
+young man, but he chose to sit and keep house with John Christie; and
+I dare say there is a score of years between them, for your honour's
+servant looks scarce much older than I am. I wonder what they could have
+to say to each other. I asked John Christie, but he bid me go to sleep."
+
+"If he comes not soon," said his master, "I will thank you to tell me
+what magistrate I can address myself to; for besides my anxiety for the
+poor fellow's safety, he has papers of importance about him."
+
+"O! your honour may be assured he will be back in a quarter of an hour,"
+said Dame Nelly; "he is not the lad to stay out twenty-four hours at a
+stretch. And for the papers, I am sure your honour will pardon him for
+just giving me a peep at the corner, as I was giving him a small cup,
+not so large as my thimble, of distilled waters, to fortify his stomach
+against the damps, and it was directed to the King's Most Excellent
+Majesty; and so doubtless his Majesty has kept Richie out of civility to
+consider of your honour's letter, and send back a fitting reply."
+
+Dame Nelly here hit by chance on a more available topic of consolation
+than those she had hitherto touched upon; for the youthful lord had
+himself some vague hopes that his messenger might have been delayed at
+Court until a fitting and favourable answer should be dispatched back to
+him. Inexperienced, however, in public affairs as he certainly was,
+it required only a moment's consideration to convince him of the
+improbability of an expectation so contrary to all he had heard of
+etiquette, as well as the dilatory proceedings in a court suit, and he
+answered the good-natured hostess with a sigh, that he doubted whether
+the king would even look on the paper addressed to him, far less take it
+into his immediate consideration.
+
+"Now, out upon you for a faint-hearted gentleman!" said the good
+dame; "and why should he not do as much for us as our gracious Queen
+Elizabeth? Many people say this and that about a queen and a king, but
+I think a king comes more natural to us English folks; and this good
+gentleman goes as often down by water to Greenwich, and employs as many
+of the barge-men and water-men of all kinds; and maintains, in his royal
+grace, John Taylor, the water-poet, who keeps both a sculler and a pair
+of oars. And he has made a comely Court at Whitehall, just by the river;
+and since the king is so good a friend to the Thames, I cannot see,
+if it please your honour, why all his subjects, and your honour in
+specialty, should not have satisfaction by his hands."
+
+"True, dame--true,--let us hope for the best; but I must take my cloak
+and rapier, and pray your husband in courtesy to teach me the way to a
+magistrate."
+
+"Sure, sir," said the prompt dame, "I can do that as well as he, who has
+been a slow man of his tongue all his life, though I will give him his
+due for being a loving husband, and a man as well to pass in the world
+as any betwixt us and the top of the lane. And so there is the sitting
+alderman, that is always at the Guildhall, which is close by Paul's, and
+so I warrant you he puts all to rights in the city that wisdom can mend;
+and for the rest there is no help but patience. But I wish I were as
+sure of forty pounds as I am that the young man will come back safe and
+sound."
+
+Olifaunt, in great and anxious doubt of what the good dame so strongly
+averred, flung his cloak on one shoulder, and was about to belt on his
+rapier, when first the voice of Richie Moniplies on the stair, and
+then that faithful emissary's appearance in the chamber, put the matter
+beyond question. Dame Nelly, after congratulating Moniplies on his
+return, and paying several compliments to her own sagacity for having
+foretold it, was at length pleased to leave the apartment. The truth
+was, that, besides some instinctive feelings of good breeding which
+combated her curiosity, she saw there was no chance of Richie's
+proceeding in his narrative while she was in the room, and she therefore
+retreated, trusting that her own address would get the secret out of one
+or other of the young men, when she should have either by himself.
+
+"Now, in Heaven's name, what is the matter?" said Nigel
+Olifaunt.--"Where have you been, or what have you been about? You look
+as pale as death. There is blood on your hand, and your clothes are
+torn. What barns-breaking have you been at? You have been drunk,
+Richard, and fighting."
+
+"Fighting I have been," said Richard, "in a small way; but for being
+drunk, that's a job ill to manage in this town, without money to come
+by liquor; and as for barns-breaking, the deil a thing's broken but my
+head. It's not made of iron, I wot, nor my claithes of chenzie-mail; so
+a club smashed the tane, and a claught damaged the tither. Some misleard
+rascals abused my country, but I think I cleared the causey of them.
+However, the haill hive was ower mony for me at last, and I got this
+eclipse on the crown, and then I was carried, beyond my kenning, to
+a sma' booth at the Temple Port, whare they sell the whirligigs and
+mony-go-rounds that measure out time as a man wad measure a tartan
+web; and then they bled me, wold I nold I, and were reasonably civil,
+especially an auld country-man of ours, of whom more hereafter."
+
+"And at what o'clock might this be?" said Nigel.
+
+"The twa iron carles yonder, at the kirk beside the Port, were just
+banging out sax o' the clock."
+
+"And why came you not home as soon as you recovered?" said Nigel.
+
+"In troth, my lord, every _why_ has its _wherefore_, and this has a gude
+ane," answered his follower. "To come hame, I behoved to ken whare hame
+was; now, I had clean tint the name of the wynd, and the mair I asked,
+the mair the folk leugh, and the farther they sent me wrang; sae I gave
+it up till God should send daylight to help me; and as I saw mysell near
+a kirk at the lang run, I e'en crap in to take up my night's quarters in
+the kirkyard."
+
+"In the churchyard?" said Nigel--"But I need not ask what drove you to
+such a pinch."
+
+"It wasna sae much the want o' siller, my Lord Nigel," said Richie,
+with an air of mysterious importance, "for I was no sae absolute without
+means, of whilk mair anon; but I thought I wad never ware a saxpence
+sterling on ane of their saucy chamberlains at a hostelry, sae lang as
+I could sleep fresh and fine in a fair, dry, spring night. Mony a time,
+when I hae come hame ower late, and faund the West-Port steekit, and the
+waiter ill-willy, I have garr'd the sexton of Saint Cuthbert's calf-ward
+serve me for my quarters. But then there are dainty green graffs in
+Saint Cuthbert's kirkyard, whare ane may sleep as if they were in a
+down-bed, till they hear the lavrock singing up in the air as high as
+the Castle; whereas, and behold, these London kirkyards are causeyed
+with through-stanes, panged hard and fast thegither; and my cloak being
+something threadbare, made but a thin mattress, so I was fain to give
+up my bed before every limb about me was crippled. Dead folks may sleep
+yonder sound enow, but deil haet else."
+
+"And what became of you next?" said his master.
+
+"I just took to a canny bulkhead, as they ca' them here; that is, the
+boards on the tap of their bits of outshots of stalls and booths,
+and there I sleepit as sound as if I was in a castle. Not but I was
+disturbed with some of the night-walking queans and swaggering billies,
+but when they found there was nothing to be got by me but a slash of my
+Andrew Ferrara, they bid me good-night for a beggarly Scot; and I was
+e'en weel pleased to be sae cheap rid of them. And in the morning, I cam
+daikering here, but sad wark I had to find the way, for I had been
+east as far as the place they ca' Mile-End, though it is mair like
+sax-mile-end."
+
+"Well, Richie," answered Nigel, "I am glad all this has ended so
+well--go get something to eat. I am sure you need it."
+
+"In troth do I, sir," replied Moniplies; "but, with your lordship's
+leave--"
+
+"Forget the lordship for the present, Richie, as I have often told you
+before."
+
+"Faith," replied Richie, "I could weel forget that your honour was a
+lord, but then I behoved to forget that I am a lord's man, and that's
+not so easy. But, however," he added, assisting his description with the
+thumb and the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after the
+fashion of a bird's claw, while the little finger and ring-finger were
+closed upon the palm, "to the Court I went, and my friend that promised
+me a sight of his Majesty's most gracious presence, was as gude as
+his word, and carried me into the back offices, where I got the best
+breakfast I have had since we came here, and it did me gude for the rest
+of the day; for as to what I have eaten in this accursed town, it is aye
+sauced with the disquieting thought that it maun be paid for. After a',
+there was but beef banes and fat brose; but king's cauff, your honour
+kens, is better than ither folk's corn; at ony rate, it was a' in free
+awmous.--But I see," he added, stopping short, "that your honour waxes
+impatient."
+
+"By no means, Richie," said the young nobleman, with an air of
+resignation, for he well knew his domestic would not mend his pace for
+goading; "you have suffered enough in the embassy to have a right to
+tell the story in your own way. Only let me pray for the name of the
+friend who was to introduce you into the king's presence. You were very
+mysterious on the subject, when you undertook, through his means, to
+have the Supplication put into his Majesty's own hands, since those
+sent heretofore, I have every reason to think, went no farther than his
+secretary's."
+
+"Weel, my lord," said Richie, "I did not tell you his name and quality
+at first, because I thought you would be affronted at the like of him
+having to do in your lordship's affairs. But mony a man climbs up in
+Court by waur help. It was just Laurie Linklater, one of the yeomen of
+the kitchen, that was my father's apprentice lang syne."
+
+"A yeoman in the kitchen--a scullion!" exclaimed Lord Nigel, pacing the
+room in displeasure.
+
+"But consider, sir," said Richie, composedly, "that a' your great
+friends hung back, and shunned to own you, or to advocate your petition;
+and then, though I am sure I wish Laurie a higher office, for your
+lordship's sake and for mine, and specially for his ain sake, being a
+friendly lad, yet your lordship must consider, that a scullion, if a
+yeoman of the king's most royal kitchen may be called a scullion, may
+weel rank with a master-cook elsewhere; being that king's cauff, as I
+said before, is better than--"
+
+"You are right, and I was wrong," said the young nobleman. "I have no
+choice of means of making my case known, so that they be honest."
+
+"Laurie is as honest a lad as ever lifted a ladle," said Richie; "not
+but what I dare to say he can lick his fingers like other folk, and
+reason good. But, in fine, for I see your honour is waxing impatient, he
+brought me to the palace, where a' was astir for the king going out to
+hunt or hawk on Blackheath, I think they ca'd it. And there was a horse
+stood with all the quarries about it, a bonny grey as ever was foaled;
+and the saddle and the stirrups, and the curb and bit, o' burning gowd,
+or silver gilded at least; and down, sir, came the king, with all his
+nobles, dressed out in his hunting-suit of green, doubly laced, and laid
+down with gowd. I minded the very face o' him, though it was lang since
+I saw him. But my certie, lad, thought I, times are changed since ye
+came fleeing down the back stairs of auld Holyrood House, in grit fear,
+having your breeks in your hand without time to put them on, and Frank
+Stewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, hard at your haunches; and if auld
+Lord Glenvarloch hadna cast his mantle about his arm, and taken bluidy
+wounds mair than ane in your behalf, you wald not have craw'd sae
+crouse this day; and so saying, I could not but think your lordship's
+Sifflication could not be less than most acceptable; and so I banged
+in among the crowd of lords. Laurie thought me mad, and held me by the
+cloak-lap till the cloth rave in his hand; and so I banged in right
+before the king just as he mounted, and crammed the Sifflication into
+his hand, and he opened it like in amaze; and just as he saw the first
+line, I was minded to make a reverence, and I had the ill luck to hit
+his jaud o' a beast on the nose with my hat, and scaur the creature,
+and she swarved aside, and the king, that sits na mickle better than a
+draff-pock on the saddle, was like to have gotten a clean coup, and that
+might have cost my craig a raxing-and he flung down the paper amang the
+beast's feet, and cried, 'Away wi' the fause loon that brought it!' And
+they grippit me, and cried treason; and I thought of the Ruthvens that
+were dirked in their ain house, for, it may be, as small a forfeit.
+However, they spak only of scourging me, and had me away to the porter's
+lodge to try the tawse on my back, and I was crying mercy as loud as
+I could; and the king, when he had righted himself on the saddle, and
+gathered his breath, cried to do me nae harm; for, said he, he is ane
+of our ain Norland stots, I ken by the rowt of him,--and they a'
+laughed and rowted loud eneugh. And then he said, 'Gie him a copy of
+the Proclamation, and let him go down to the North by the next light
+collier, before waur come o't.' So they let me go, and rode out, a
+sniggering, laughing, and rounding in ilk ither's lugs. A sair life I
+had wi' Laurie Linklater; for he said it wad be the ruin of him. And
+then, when I told him it was in your matter, he said if he had known
+before he would have risked a scauding for you, because he minded
+the brave old lord, your father. And then he showed how I suld have
+done,--and that I suld have held up my hand to my brow, as if the
+grandeur of the king and his horse-graith thegither had casten the
+glaiks in my een, and mair jackanape tricks I suld hae played, instead
+of offering the Sifflication, he said, as if I had been bringing guts to
+a bear." [Footnote: I am certain this prudential advice is not original
+on Mr. Linklater's part, but I am not at present able to produce my
+authority. I think it amounted to this, that James flung down a petition
+presented by some supplicant who paid no compliments to his horse,
+and expressed no admiration at the splendour of his furniture, saying,
+"Shall a king cumber himself about the petition of a beggar, while
+the beggar disregards the king's splendour?" It is, I think, Sir John
+Harrington who recommends, as a sure mode to the king's favour, to
+praise the paces of the royal palfrey.]
+
+'For,' said he, 'Richie, the king is a weel-natured and just man of
+his ain kindly nature, but he has a wheen maggots that maun be cannily
+guided; and then, Richie,' says he, in a very laigh tone, 'I would tell
+it to nane but a wise man like yoursell, but the king has them about him
+wad corrupt an angel from heaven; but I could have gi'en you avisement
+how to have guided him, but now it's like after meat mustard.'--'Aweel,
+aweel, Laurie,' said I, 'it may be as you say', but since I am clear of
+the tawse and the porter's lodge, sifflicate wha like, deil hae Richie
+Moniplies if he come sifflicating here again.'--And so away I came, and
+I wasna far by the Temple Port, or Bar, or whatever they ca' it, when I
+met with the misadventure that I tauld you of before."
+
+"Well, my honest Richie," said Lord Nigel, "your attempt was well meant,
+and not so ill conducted, I think, as to have deserved so bad an issue;
+but go to your beef and mustard, and we'll talk of the rest afterwards."
+
+"There is nae mair to be spoken, sir," said his follower, "except that
+I met ane very honest, fair-spoken, weel-put-on gentleman, or rather
+burgher, as I think, that was in the whigmaleery man's back-shop; and
+when he learned wha I was, behold he was a kindly Scot himsell, and,
+what is more, a town's-bairn o' the gude town, and he behoved to compel
+me to take this Portugal piece, to drink, forsooth--my certie, thought
+I, we ken better, for we will eat it--and he spoke of paying your
+lordship a visit."
+
+"You did not tell him where I lived, you knave?" said the Lord Nigel,
+angrily. "'Sdeath! I shall have every clownish burgher from Edinburgh
+come to gaze on my distress, and pay a shilling for having seen the
+motion of the Poor Noble!"
+
+"Tell him where you lived?" said Richie, evading the question; "How
+could I tell him what I kendna mysell? If I had minded the name of the
+wynd, I need not have slept in the kirkyard yestreen."
+
+"See, then, that you give no one notice of our lodging," said the young
+nobleman; "those with whom I have business I can meet at Paul's, or in
+the Court of Requests."
+
+"This is steeking the stable-door when the steed is stolen," thought
+Richie to himself; "but I must put him on another pin."
+
+So thinking, he asked the young lord what was in the Proclamation which
+he still held folded in his hand; "for, having little time to spell at
+it," said he, "your lordship well knows I ken nought about it but the
+grand blazon at the tap--the lion has gotten a claught of our auld
+Scottish shield now, but it was as weel upheld when it had a unicorn on
+ilk side of it."
+
+Lord Nigel read the Proclamation, and he coloured deep with shame and
+indignation as he read; for the purport was, to his injured feelings,
+like the pouring of ardent spirits upon a recent wound.
+
+"What deil's in the paper, my lord?" said Richie, unable to suppress his
+curiosity as he observed his master change colour; "I wadna ask such a
+thing, only the Proclamation is not a private thing, but is meant for a'
+men's hearing."
+
+"It is indeed meant for all men's hearing," replied Lord Nigel, "and it
+proclaims the shame of our country, and the ingratitude of our Prince."
+
+"Now the Lord preserve us! and to publish it in London, too!" ejaculated
+Moniplies.
+
+"Hark ye, Richard," said Nigel Olifaunt, "in this paper the Lords of the
+Council set forth, that, 'in consideration of the resort of idle persons
+of low condition forth from his Majesty's kingdom of Scotland to his
+English Court--filling the same with their suits and supplications,
+and dishonouring the royal presence with their base, poor, and beggarly
+persons, to the disgrace of their country in the estimation of the
+English; these are to prohibit the skippers, masters of vessels
+and others, in every part of Scotland, from bringing such miserable
+creatures up to Court under pain of fine and impisonment."'
+
+"I marle the skipper took us on board," said Richie.
+
+"Then you need not marvel how you are to get back again," said Lord
+Nigel, "for here is a clause which says, that such idle suitors are to
+be transported back to Scotland at his Majesty's expense, and punished
+for their audacity with stripes, stocking, or incarceration, according
+to their demerits--that is to say, I suppose, according to the degree of
+their poverty, for I see no other demerit specified."
+
+"This will scarcely," said Richie, "square with our old proverb--
+
+     A King's face
+     Should give grace--
+
+But what says the paper farther, my lord?"
+
+"O, only a small clause which especially concerns us, making some still
+heavier denunciations against those suitors who shall be so bold as to
+approach the Court, under pretext of seeking payment of old debts due
+to them by the king, which, the paper states, is, of all species of
+importunity, that which is most odious to his Majesty."
+
+"The king has neighbours in that matter," said Richie; "but it is not
+every one that can shift off that sort of cattle so easily as he does."
+
+Their conversation was here interrupted by a knocking at the door.
+Olifaunt looked out at the window, and saw an elderly respectable person
+whom he knew not. Richie also peeped, and recognised, but, recognising,
+chose not to acknowledge, his friend of the preceding evening. Afraid
+that his share in the visit might be detected, he made his escape out
+of the apartment under pretext of going to his breakfast; and left their
+landlady the task of ushering Master George into Lord Nigel's apartment,
+which she performed with much courtesy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+  Ay, sir, the clouted shoe hath oft times craft in't,
+  As says the rustic proverb; and your citizen,
+  In's grogram suit, gold chain, and well-black'd shoes,
+  Bears under his flat cap ofttimes a brain
+  Wiser than burns beneath the cap and feather,
+  Or seethes within the statesman's velvet nightcap.
+                               _Read me my Riddle._
+
+The young Scottish nobleman received the citizen with distant
+politeness, expressing that sort of reserve by which those of the higher
+ranks are sometimes willing to make a plebeian sensible that he is an
+intruder. But Master George seemed neither displeased nor disconcerted.
+He assumed the chair, which, in deference to his respectable appearance,
+Lord Nigel offered to him, and said, after a moment's pause, during
+which he had looked attentively at the young man, with respect not
+unmingled with emotion--"You will forgive me for this rudeness, my
+lord; but I was endeavouring to trace in your youthful countenance the
+features of my good old lord, your excellent father."
+
+There was a moment's pause ere young Glenvarloch replied, still with
+a reserved manner,--"I have been reckoned like my father, sir; and am
+happy to see any one that respects his memory. But the business which
+calls me to this city is of a hasty as well as a private nature, and--"
+
+"I understand the hint, my lord," said Master George, "and would not
+be guilty of long detaining you from business, or more agreeable
+conversation. My errand is almost done when I have said that my name is
+George Heriot, warmly befriended, and introduced into the employment
+of the Royal Family of Scotland, more than twenty years since, by your
+excellent father; and that, learning from a follower of yours that your
+lordship was in this city in prosecution of some business of importance,
+it is my duty,--it is my pleasure,--to wait on the son of my respected
+patron; and, as I am somewhat known both at the Court, and in the city,
+to offer him such aid in the furthering of his affairs as my credit and
+experience may be able to afford."
+
+"I have no doubt of either, Master Heriot," said Lord Nigel, "and I
+thank you heartily for the good-will with which you have placed them at
+a stranger's disposal; but my business at Court is done and ended, and
+I intend to leave London and, indeed, the island, for foreign travel
+and military service. I may add, that the suddenness of my departure
+occasions my having little time at my disposal."
+
+Master Heriot did not take the hint, but sat fast, with an embarrassed
+countenance however, like one who had something to say that he knew not
+exactly how to make effectual. At length he said, with a dubious smile,
+"You are fortunate, my lord, in having so soon dispatched your business
+at Court. Your talking landlady informs me you have been but a fortnight
+in this city. It is usually months and years ere the Court and a suitor
+shake hands and part."
+
+"My business," said Lord Nigel, with a brevity which was intended to
+stop further discussion, "was summarily dispatched."
+
+Still Master Heriot remained seated, and there was a cordial good-humour
+added to the reverence of his appearance, which rendered it impossible
+for Lord Nigel to be more explicit in requesting his absence.
+
+"Your lordship has not yet had time," said the citizen, still attempting
+to sustain the conversation, "to visit the places of amusement,--the
+playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your
+lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote:
+Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask
+what play?"
+
+"Oh! a well-known piece," said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down
+the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in
+his hand,--"an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old
+Debts._"
+
+Master Heriot stooped down, saying, "Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip
+Massinger;" but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked
+at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, "I trust your lordship does not
+think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your
+claims?"
+
+"I should scarce have thought so myself," said the young nobleman; "but
+so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been
+pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful
+Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for
+the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies."
+
+"It is impossible!" said the citizen--"it is absolutely impossible!--If
+the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still
+he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so
+flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead
+in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people."
+
+"I should have been of your opinion," answered Lord Nigel, in the same
+tone as before; "but there is no fighting with facts."
+
+"What was the tenor of this Supplication?" said Heriot; "or by whom was
+it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or
+else--"
+
+"You may see my original draught," said the young lord, taking it out
+of a small travelling strong-box; "the technical part is by my lawyer in
+Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope,
+with due deference and modesty."
+
+Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. "Nothing," he said,
+"can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can
+have treated this petition with contempt?"
+
+"He threw it down on the pavement," said the Lord of Glenvarloch, "and
+sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the
+paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes
+of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with
+heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England
+himself."
+
+"But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord?" said Heriot;
+"for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to
+the message."
+
+"By my servant," said the Lord Nigel; "by the man you saw, and, I think,
+were kind to."
+
+"By your servant, my lord?" said the citizen; "he seems a shrewd fellow,
+and doubtless a faithful; but surely--"
+
+"You would say," said Lord Nigel, "he is no fit messenger to a king's
+presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had
+made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions
+got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow
+pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the
+king's presence,--and so--"
+
+"I understand," said Heriot; "but, my lord, why should you not, in
+right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an
+audience, which could not have been denied to you?"
+
+The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very
+plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having
+seen service.
+
+"I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth," he said,
+after a momentary hesitation,--"I had no dress suitable for appearing
+at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge;
+and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door,
+in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very
+deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms."
+
+"That had been, indeed, unseemly," said the citizen; "but yet, my lord,
+my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak
+with your domestic?"
+
+"I see little good it can do," answered the young lord, "but the
+interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore----"
+He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies
+appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread,
+and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been
+employed.--"Will your lordship grant permission," said Heriot, "that I
+ask your groom a few questions?"
+
+"His lordship's page, Master George," answered Moniplies, with a nod of
+acknowledgment, "if you are minded to speak according to the letter."
+
+"Hold your saucy tongue," said his master, "and reply distinctly to the
+questions you are to be asked."
+
+"And _truly,_ if it like your pageship," said the citizen, "for you may
+remember I have a gift to discover falset."
+
+"Weel, weel, weel," replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite
+of his effrontery--"though I think that the sort of truth that serves my
+master, may weel serve ony ane else."
+
+"Pages lie to their masters by right of custom," said the citizen; "and
+you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest
+of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not
+have it end in the whipping-post."
+
+"And that's e'en a bad resting-place," said the well-grown page; "so
+come away with your questions, Master George."
+
+"Well, then," demanded the citizen, "I am given to understand that you
+yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition,
+from this honourable lord, your master."
+
+"Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir," replied Moniplies; "there
+were enow to see it besides me."
+
+"And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt?" said
+the citizen. "Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you
+were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than
+tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned."
+
+"There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter," answered
+Moniplies, firmly; "his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had
+dirtied his fingers."
+
+"You hear, sir," said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot.
+
+"Hush!" said the sagacious citizen; "this fellow is not ill named--he
+has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow," for Moniplies,
+muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to
+shamble towards the door, "answer me this farther question--When you
+gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it?"
+
+"Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George?"
+
+"That is what I desire and insist to know," replied his interrogator.
+
+"Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip
+into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my
+lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider
+them baith at ance."
+
+"A supplication of your own, you varlet!" said his master.
+
+"Ou dear, ay, my lord," said Richie--"puir bodies hae their bits of
+sifflications as weel as their betters."
+
+"And pray, what might your worshipful petition import?" said Master
+Heriot.--"Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we
+shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah,
+and I will stand your friend with my lord."
+
+"It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an
+auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist
+gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings
+and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to
+my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his
+Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the
+saam."
+
+"What string of impertinence is this?" said his master.
+
+"Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke," said Richie; "here's the
+bit double of the Sifflication."
+
+Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said,
+muttering betwixt his teeth--"'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's
+maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of
+fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for
+jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for
+the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I
+think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this
+petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took
+care to present your own Supplication before your master's?"
+
+"Troth did I not," answered Moniplies. "I thought to have given my
+lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the
+gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an'
+the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I
+crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was
+bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright
+and a' the risk--"
+
+"And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave," said Nigel; "am I to
+be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending
+your base concerns with mine?"
+
+"Nay, nay, nay, my lord," said the good-humoured citizen, interposing,
+"I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow
+me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You
+have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of
+conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of
+him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll
+make your peace."
+
+"Na, na," said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, "if he likes to
+strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has
+been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just
+let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would
+rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his
+baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us."
+
+"Go, then," said his master, "and get out of my sight."
+
+"Aweel I wot that is sune done," said Moniplies, retiring slowly; "I did
+not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an
+hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer
+his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir."
+
+And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who
+has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong.
+
+"There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The
+fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me,
+too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his
+own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to
+become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is
+sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and
+in no degree with himself."
+
+"Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless," said the citizen;
+"for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer
+qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust
+him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for
+you see yourself how it may chance to fall."
+
+"It is but too evident, Master Heriot," said the young nobleman; "and I
+am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I
+am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my
+Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the
+rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp,
+and die in the battle-front like my ancestors."
+
+"It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father,
+my lord," replied Master George. "Nay, nay, never look down or shake
+your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not
+seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to
+his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth
+in this hold bias with his duty."
+
+"I were well pleased to think so, and yet----" said Nigel Olifaunt,--"I
+speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are
+unredressed."
+
+"My lord," said Master Heriot, "I speak of my royal master, not only
+with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a
+favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal
+Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of
+justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without
+detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale.
+You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it."
+
+"I am surprised, Master Heriot," said the young lord, "to hear you, upon
+so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with
+my affairs."
+
+"My lord," replied the goldsmith, "the nature of my employment affords
+me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no
+meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet
+endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the
+contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have
+not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the
+Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion,
+and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek
+such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I
+have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was
+last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been
+able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information
+respecting the impediments to your suit."
+
+"Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited,"
+answered Nigel, still with some reserve; "yet I hardly know how I have
+deserved this interest."
+
+"First let me satisfy you that it is real," said the citizen; "I blame
+you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger
+in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship
+from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted
+you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your
+father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly
+to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at
+Campvere."
+
+"I know nothing of a mortgage," said the young lord; "but there is
+a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the
+forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth
+of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's
+government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be
+able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor."
+
+"A wadset in Scotland," said Heriot, "is the same with a mortgage
+on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real
+creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less
+a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover
+of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to
+gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer
+his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the
+transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch
+will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under
+cover of a sale, or some similar device."
+
+"Can this be possible?" said Lord Nigel; "the Chancellor wept when I
+took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with
+letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused
+himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses
+of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would
+carry deceit so far."
+
+"I am not, it is true, of noble blood," said the citizen; "but once more
+I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in
+dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest,
+save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had
+any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters?"
+
+"None," said Nigel Olifaunt, "except cold deeds and fair words. I have
+thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one
+yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order
+that I might not want the means of exiling myself."
+
+"Right," said Heriot; "rather than you fled not, they would themselves
+furnish wings for you to fly withal."
+
+"I will to him this instant," said the incensed youth, "and tell him my
+mind of his baseness."
+
+"Under your favour," said Heriot, detaining him, "you shall not do so.
+By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though
+I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you
+would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to
+you."
+
+The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who
+replied hastily--"Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur
+damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of
+serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting!"
+
+"Leave me alone for that," said the citizen: "you have now erred as far
+on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it
+suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one)
+for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your
+follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the
+matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I
+will not give up the good cause."
+
+"Sir," said the young nobleman, "your speech is so friendly, and my own
+state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even
+while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger."
+
+"We are, I trust, no longer such," said the goldsmith; "and for my
+guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are
+re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George
+Heriot."
+
+"You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot," said Lord Nigel.
+
+"I do not fear that," replied the goldsmith; "and I am glad to see you
+smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old
+lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small
+request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge
+hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white
+broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld
+Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was
+barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company,
+one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find
+out a bonny Scots lass or so."
+
+"I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot," said Nigel, "but I hear
+the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to
+let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said
+the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for
+the present."
+
+"My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther," said Master George.
+"I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at
+me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for
+I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting,
+that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to
+Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live
+by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an
+hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are
+settled."
+
+"And if they are never favourably settled?" said Nigel.
+
+"Then, my lord," returned the citizen, "the miscarriage of such a sum
+will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of
+regret."
+
+"Master Heriot," said the Lord Nigel, "your favour is generously
+offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your
+way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be
+grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts
+which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your
+money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you
+punctually."
+
+"I will convince you, my lord," said the goldsmith, "that I mean to deal
+with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you
+shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these
+monies, and an obligation to content and repay me."
+
+He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few
+lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from
+a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an
+hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically
+upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was
+an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the
+word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's
+forms of transacting business.
+
+"Bear with me," he said, "my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and
+thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within
+the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment,
+without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and,
+body of me," he said, looking out at the window, "yonder come my boys
+with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord;
+it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in
+the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent
+good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held
+thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift
+son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of
+a city-fortune."
+
+"I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot," said the
+Lord Nigel.
+
+"I hope it will, my lord," said the old man, with a smile; "but," to use
+honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,'
+"it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one
+adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient
+and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want
+inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you
+good-morrow, my lord."
+
+"One orphan has cause to thank you already," said Nigel, as he attended
+him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old
+citizen made his escape.
+
+As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood
+becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course
+regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle
+with a Dutch ship-master.
+
+"Our way of business, sir," she said, "takes him much from home, and my
+husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound
+of oakum."
+
+"All business must be minded, dame," said the goldsmith. "Make my
+remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your
+goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time
+and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing.
+Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there
+be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so
+that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is,
+and whether he wants aught."
+
+"And so he _is_ a real lord after all?" said the good dame. "I am sure I
+always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament,
+then?"
+
+"He will, dame," answered Heriot, "to the Parliament of Scotland, which
+is his own country."
+
+"Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then," said the good dame; "and that's the
+thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say."
+
+"Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame," replied the citizen.
+
+"Who, I, sir?" answered she; "no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot
+or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather
+than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as
+far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too."
+
+"Let your husband come to me, good dame," said the goldsmith, who,
+with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and
+disciplinarian. "The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and
+let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is
+more seemly. God give ye good-morrow."
+
+"Good-morrow to your worship," said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so
+soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter,
+in contempt of his council, "Marry quep of your advice, for an old
+Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as
+old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he
+is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride
+upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after
+him, as well as they do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There
+are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening,
+Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling;
+Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by
+whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious
+sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._
+
+It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was
+mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been
+informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame
+Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy
+which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to
+maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to
+Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King
+James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to
+purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule,
+that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and
+crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm
+the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an
+eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the
+metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the
+sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset,
+usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure
+themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which
+was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to
+those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with
+a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe
+subjects of plunder by the street-robber.
+
+As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant
+attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the
+ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to
+adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master;
+in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his
+den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening
+here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the
+intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for
+a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and
+heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress
+Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with
+a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer.
+
+"I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee," muttered Heriot to
+himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,--"I pray you,
+neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion
+wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and
+that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have
+had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put
+you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand."
+
+There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory
+dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can
+resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie,
+and answered in a pettish tone, "Wow, George, man, what needs aw this
+din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims
+on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious
+Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye
+may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an
+unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine."
+
+Heriot laughed, and replied, "Well, David, I see a demand of money is
+like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world
+at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you
+will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret,
+my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the
+Lord of Glenvarloch?"
+
+"The young Lord of Glenvarloch!" said the old mechanist; "wi' aw my
+heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these
+forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a
+sweet youth."
+
+"That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard
+Dot-and-carry-one that you are," answered the goldsmith. "A sweet youth
+he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is
+his son, the Lord Nigel."
+
+"His son!" said Ramsay; "maybe he will want something of a chronometer,
+or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days."
+
+"He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for
+what I know," said his friend; "but, David, remember your bond, and
+use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the
+cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon."
+
+"She had the more credit by her cookery," answered David, now fully
+awake; "a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our
+saying."
+
+"Well," answered Master George, "but as there will be no sheep's-head
+to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb
+cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide
+tryste, Davie."
+
+"That will I--I will be true as a chronometer," said Ramsay.
+
+"I will not trust you, though," replied Heriot.--"Hear you, Jenkin boy,
+tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she
+must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow,
+and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a
+brave young Scots lord."
+
+Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are
+either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to
+which they must not enter a dissent.
+
+"Umph!" repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was
+something of a martinet in domestic discipline--"what does _umph_ mean?
+Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah?"
+
+"Sure, Master George Heriot," said the apprentice, touching his cap,
+"I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an
+invitation."
+
+"Why, no," said Master George; "she is a dutiful girl to her god-father,
+though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and
+your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her
+safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the
+porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my
+knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are
+broken out worse and lighter than ever."
+
+"We can keep their steel in order with good handbats," said Jenkin; "and
+never trouble your servants for the matter."
+
+"Or, if need be," said Tunstall, "we have swords as well as the
+Templars."
+
+"Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man," said the citizen;--"An apprentice
+with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat
+and feather."
+
+"Well, sir," said Jenkin--"we will find arms fitting to our station, and
+will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very
+stones of the pavement."
+
+"There spoke a London 'prentice bold," said the citizen; "and, for your
+comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the
+Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving
+lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow
+at noon." And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and
+crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became
+his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no
+inconvenience to keep up with him.
+
+At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into
+one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A
+young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then
+cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched
+hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered
+with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of,
+"How goes business, Andrew?"--"Aw the better for your worship's kind
+countenance and maintenance."
+
+"Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb,
+and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife
+course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never
+come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with
+one quill." [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the
+author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred
+printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of
+manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at
+the end of the volume--
+
+    "With one good pen I wrote this book,
+       Made of a grey goose quill;
+     A pen it was when it I took,
+       And a pen I leave it still."]
+
+"Ah! sir," said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though
+instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and
+acquiescence, "how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the
+world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship!"
+
+"My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise.
+Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and
+worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal
+hand. I will wait by you till it is done."
+
+The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from
+his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction.
+The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on
+his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his
+mule, and rode on westward along the Strand.
+
+It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which
+Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present
+day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of
+alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also,
+along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although
+it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be
+considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various
+houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them
+down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience
+of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly
+owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The
+north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which,
+as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly
+arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense
+of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular
+buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid
+increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a
+regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the
+shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which
+should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a
+connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the
+city of London.
+
+He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary
+village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to
+Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to
+use Johnson's expression "pours the full tide of London population." The
+buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint
+idea of its present appearance.
+
+At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of
+the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated
+brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the
+West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of
+Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was
+just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in
+constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass
+in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in
+removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and
+Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo
+Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now
+engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained
+his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings,
+and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which
+formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed.
+
+The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true,
+oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as
+yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to
+receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving
+his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked
+at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the
+most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece
+of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an
+ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but
+untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and
+nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and
+draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes.
+A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied
+by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of
+recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered.
+
+No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first
+to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which
+seemed to say, as plain as a look could, "Lies your business that way?"
+The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with
+as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to
+the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The
+broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,--"Admit him
+instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not
+learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome?"
+
+The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was
+presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign.
+
+The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad
+picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much
+that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments;
+but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost
+half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which
+they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios,
+amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes
+of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled
+miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled
+himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification
+of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies
+against canine madness.
+
+The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be
+dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly
+protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure
+an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured
+nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His
+high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled
+by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap,
+in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been
+struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight,
+in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather.
+
+But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward
+types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a
+subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a
+problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing
+useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having
+real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it,
+yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most
+unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet
+one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations,
+in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where
+conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was
+perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public
+labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though
+a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant
+and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there
+were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the
+spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler
+where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet
+too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet
+gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious
+respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet
+inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see.
+In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular
+cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and
+comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves
+as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed
+on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom.
+
+That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his
+character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded
+peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors
+had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly,
+although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that
+lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's
+disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of
+dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their
+harvest in a bloody and universal civil war.
+
+Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling
+Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all
+those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new
+clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native
+Prince out of his siller.
+
+"God forbid, my liege," said the citizen, "that I should have any such
+disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most
+gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship,
+I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your
+Majesty's pleasure anent it."
+
+"Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's
+service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word
+as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you,
+Geordie, keep yours."
+
+"Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate," said the goldsmith, "your
+Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and--"
+
+"What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and
+bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair
+sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain
+gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they
+didna."
+
+George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to
+vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and
+James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of
+conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of
+plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell
+to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen
+whence he had procured it.
+
+"From Italy, may it please your Majesty," replied Heriot.
+
+"It has naething in it tending to papistrie?" said the king, looking
+graver than his wont.
+
+"Surely not, please your Majesty," said Heriot; "I were not wise to
+bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast."
+
+"You would be the mair beast yourself to do so," said the king; "it is
+weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the
+groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time
+called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes
+Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius."
+
+Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver,
+for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable
+for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture.
+
+"Saul of my body, man," said the king, "it is a curious piece, and, as
+I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master
+George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of
+Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to
+walk with emulation."
+
+"But whose footsteps," said Maxwell, "only one of them--if a subject may
+say so much--hath ever overtaken."
+
+"Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon!" said the king, but with
+a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. "Look
+at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And
+whase handiwork may it be, Geordie?"
+
+"It was wrought, sir," replied the goldsmith, "by the famous Florentine,
+Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I
+hope it will find a fitter master."
+
+"Francis of France!" said the king; "send Solomon, King of the Jews, to
+Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad,
+had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he
+was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at
+Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent
+him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune
+him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than
+Francis of France."
+
+"I trust that such will be his good fortune," said Heriot.
+
+"It is a curious and very artificial sculpture," said the king, in
+continuation; "but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there,
+is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within
+reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught
+him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the
+smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back."
+
+George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the
+king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in
+appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed
+for.
+
+"Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man," said the king; "there
+canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in
+luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in
+his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to
+ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But
+a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man?"
+
+The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property,
+but that of a distressed countryman.
+
+"Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth,
+I warrant?" answered the king. "I ken the tricks of you burrows-town
+merchants, man."
+
+"I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity," said Heriot; "the
+piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds
+sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment."
+
+"A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to
+raise them!" said the irritated Monarch. "My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye
+are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to
+tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many
+merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of
+my mouth, are sax months in arrear!"
+
+The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what
+he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked
+the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled.
+It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot,
+would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure,
+and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters;
+the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage.
+
+"By my honour," said James, "and that is speaking like an honest and
+reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and
+that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it,
+and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they
+return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend
+Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the
+haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to
+the Southland here."
+
+George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that "the wise naturally
+follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader."
+
+"Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest," said James;
+"for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou
+thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned
+as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those
+we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae
+mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en."
+
+"I am sorry to hear this, my liege," said Heriot. "May it please your
+Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character?"
+
+"They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed," answered the king.
+"I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the
+heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane,
+just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough
+Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was
+bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have
+served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our
+hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our
+gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end,
+and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to
+excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise
+you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway."
+
+"Your Majesty," said Heriot, "is their common father, and therefore they
+are the bolder to press into your gracious presence."
+
+"I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough," said James; "but one would
+think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide
+the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can
+deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty."
+
+"I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so,"
+said Heriot, "were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better
+fashions."
+
+"By my halidome," said the king, "ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie,
+and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first,
+see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing
+your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of
+the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely
+manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the
+hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel
+enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards
+our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having
+a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your
+pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our
+open palm." The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all
+the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's
+no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord
+of Glenvarloch. "What means this, ye fause loon?" said he, reddening and
+sputtering; "hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld
+present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as
+lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae
+ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain
+pleasure."
+
+"I trust your Majesty," said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, "will
+forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the
+behalf of a friend?"
+
+"Of a friend!" said the king; "so much the waur--so much the waur, I
+tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would
+have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have
+come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and
+petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other."
+
+"Your Majesty, I trust," said Heriot, "will judge me by former
+experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption."
+
+"I kenna," said the placable monarch; "the world goes daft, I
+think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful
+servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof,
+man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so
+dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but
+himself.--Maxwell," (for the usher had re-entered after having carried
+off the plate,) "get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In
+conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld
+fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic
+poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged
+my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers,
+and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were
+of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the
+dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were
+fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's
+dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made
+against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as
+sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder?"
+
+"It was the better for Jock," said Heriot; "for, if I remember weel, it
+saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved
+for other misdeeds."
+
+"Ay, man, mind ye that?" said the king; "but he had other virtues, for
+he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow
+to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale
+end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through
+him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my
+conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in
+those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger.
+_Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for."
+
+"And if your Majesty please to remember," said the goldsmith, "the awful
+task we had to gather silver-vessail and gold-work enough to make some
+show before the Spanish Ambassador."
+
+"Vera true," said the king, now in a full tide of gossip, "and I mind
+not the name of the right leal lord that helped us with every unce he
+had in his house, that his native Prince might have some credit in the
+eyes of them that had the Indies at their beck."
+
+"I think, if your Majesty," said the citizen, "will cast your eye on the
+paper in your hand, you will recollect his name."
+
+"Ay!" said the king, "say ye sae, man?--Lord Glenvarloch, that was his
+name indeed--_Justus et tenax propositi_--A just man, but as obstinate
+as a baited bull. He stood whiles against us, that Lord Randal Olifaunt
+of Glenvarloch, but he was a loving and a leal subject in the main. But
+this supplicator maun be his son--Randal has been long gone where king
+and lord must go, Geordie, as weel as the like of you--and what does his
+son want with us?"
+
+"The settlement," answered the citizen, "of a large debt due by your
+Majesty's treasury, for money advanced to your Majesty in great State
+emergency, about the time of the Raid of Ruthven."
+
+"I mind the thing weel," said King James--"Od's death, man, I was just
+out of the clutches of the Master of Glamis and his complices, and there
+was never siller mair welcome to a born prince,--the mair the shame and
+pity that crowned king should need sic a petty sum. But what need he dun
+us for it, man, like a baxter at the breaking? We aught him the siller,
+and will pay him wi' our convenience, or make it otherwise up to him,
+whilk is enow between prince and subject--We are not _in meditatione
+fugae,_ man, to be arrested thus peremptorily."
+
+"Alas! an it please your Majesty," said the goldsmith, shaking his head,
+"it is the poor young nobleman's extreme necessity, and not his will,
+that makes him importunate; for he must have money, and that briefly,
+to discharge a debt due to Peregrine Peterson, Conservator of the
+Privileges at Campvere, or his haill hereditary barony and estate of
+Glenvarloch will be evicted in virtue of an unredeemed wadset."
+
+"How say ye, man--how say ye?" exclaimed the king, impatiently; "the
+carle of a Conservator, the son of a Low-Dutch skipper, evict the auld
+estate and lordship of the house of Olifaunt?--God's bread, man,
+that maun not be--we maun suspend the diligence by writ of favour, or
+otherwise."
+
+"I doubt that may hardly be," answered the citizen, "if it please your
+Majesty; your learned counsel in the law of Scotland advise, that there
+is no remeid but in paying the money."
+
+"Ud's fish," said the king, "let him keep haud by the strong hand
+against the carle, until we can take some order about his affairs."
+
+"Alas!" insisted the goldsmith, "if it like your Majesty, your own
+pacific government, and your doing of equal justice to all men, has made
+main force a kittle line to walk by, unless just within the bounds of
+the Highlands."
+
+"Well--weel--weel, man," said the perplexed monarch, whose ideas of
+justice, expedience, and convenience, became on such occasions strangely
+embroiled; "just it is we should pay our debts, that the young man may
+pay his; and he must be paid, and _in verbo regis_ he shall be paid--but
+how to come by the siller, man, is a difficult chapter--ye maun try the
+city, Geordie."
+
+"To say the truth," answered Heriot, "please your gracious Majesty,
+what betwixt loans and benevolences, and subsidies, the city is at this
+present----"
+
+"Donna tell me of what the city is," said King James; "our Exchequer is
+as dry as Dean Giles's discourses on the penitentiary psalms--_Ex nihilo
+nihil fit_--It's ill taking the breeks aff a wild Highlandman--they that
+come to me for siller, should tell me how to come by it--the city ye
+maun try, Heriot; and donna think to be called Jingling Geordie for
+nothing--and _in verbo regis_ I will pay the lad if you get me the
+loan--I wonnot haggle on the terms; and, between you and me, Geordie, we
+will redeem the brave auld estate of Glenvarloch.--But wherefore comes
+not the young lord to Court, Heriot--is he comely--is he presentable in
+the presence?"
+
+"No one can be more so," said George Heriot; "but----"
+
+"Ay, I understand ye," said his Majesty--"I understand ye--_Res angusta
+domi_--puir lad-puir lad!--and his father a right true leal Scots heart,
+though stiff in some opinions. Hark ye, Heriot, let the lad have twa
+hundred pounds to fit him out. And, here--here"--(taking the carcanet
+of rubies from his old hat)--"ye have had these in pledge before for a
+larger sum, ye auld Levite that ye are. Keep them in gage, till I gie ye
+back the siller out of the next subsidy."
+
+"If it please your Majesty to give me such directions in writing," said
+the cautious citizen.
+
+"The deil is in your nicety, George," said the king; "ye are as preceese
+as a Puritan in form, and a mere Nullifidian in the marrow of the
+matter. May not a king's word serve ye for advancing your pitiful twa
+hundred pounds?"
+
+"But not for detaining the crown jewels," said George Heriot.
+
+And the king, who from long experience was inured to dealing
+with suspicious creditors, wrote an order upon George Heriot, his
+well-beloved goldsmith and jeweller, for the sum of two hundred pounds,
+to be paid presently to Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of Glenvarloch, to be
+imputed as so much debts due to him by the crown; and authorizing
+the retention of a carcanet of balas rubies, with a great diamond,
+as described in a Catalogue of his Majesty's Jewels, to remain in
+possession of the said George Heriot, advancer of the said sum, and
+so forth, until he was lawfully contented and paid thereof. By another
+rescript, his Majesty gave the said George Heriot directions to deal
+with some of the monied men, upon equitable terms, for a sum of money
+for his Majesty's present use, not to be under 50,000 merks, but as much
+more as could conveniently be procured.
+
+"And has he ony lair, this Lord Nigel of ours?" said the king.
+
+George Heriot could not exactly answer this question; but believed "the
+young lord had studied abroad."
+
+"He shall have our own advice," said the king, "how to carry on his
+studies to maist advantage; and it may be we will have him come to
+Court, and study with Steenie and Babie Charles. And, now we think on't,
+away--away, George--for the bairns will be coming hame presently, and we
+would not as yet they kend of this matter we have been treating anent.
+_Propera fedem,_ O Geordie. Clap your mule between your boughs, and
+god-den with you."
+
+Thus ended the conference betwixt the gentle King Jamie and his
+benevolent jeweller and goldsmith.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+  O I do know him--tis the mouldy lemon
+  Which our court wits will wet their lips withal,
+  When they would sauce their honied conversation
+  With somewhat sharper flavour--Marry sir,
+  That virtue's wellnigh left him--all the juice
+  That was so sharp and poignant, is squeezed out,
+  While the poor rind, although as sour as ever,
+  Must season soon the draff we give our grunters,
+  For two legg'd things are weary on't.
+                     _The Chamberlain--A Comedy_
+
+The good company invited by the hospitable citizen assembled at his
+house in Lombard Street at the "hollow and hungry hour" of noon, to
+partake of that meal which divides the day, being about the time when
+modern persons of fashion, turning themselves upon their pillow, begin
+to think, not without a great many doubts and much hesitation, that
+they will by and by commence it. Thither came the young Nigel, arrayed
+plainly, but in a dress, nevertheless, more suitable to his age and
+quality than he had formerly worn, accompanied by his servant Moniplies,
+whose outside also was considerably improved. His solemn and stern
+features glared forth from under a blue velvet bonnet, fantastically
+placed sideways on his head--he had a sound and tough coat of English
+blue broad-cloth, which, unlike his former vestment, would have
+stood the tug of all the apprentices in Fleet Street. The buckler and
+broadsword he wore as the arms of his condition, and a neat silver
+badge, bearing his lord's arms, announced that he was an appendage of
+aristocracy. He sat down in the good citizen's buttery, not a little
+pleased to find his attendance upon the table in the hall was likely to
+be rewarded with his share of a meal such as he had seldom partaken of.
+
+Mr. David Ramsay, that profound and ingenious mechanic, was safely
+conducted to Lombard Street, according to promise, well washed, brushed,
+and cleaned, from the soot of the furnace and the forge. His daughter,
+who came with him, was about twenty years old, very pretty, very
+demure, yet with lively black eyes, that ever and anon contradicted the
+expression of sobriety, to which silence, reserve, a plain velvet hood,
+and a cambric ruff, had condemned Mistress Marget, as the daughter of a
+quiet citizen.
+
+There were also two citizens and merchants of London, men ample in
+cloak, and many-linked golden chain, well to pass in the world, and
+experienced in their craft of merchandise, but who require no particular
+description. There was an elderly clergyman also, in his gown and
+cassock, a decent venerable man, partaking in his manners of the
+plainness of the citizens amongst whom he had his cure.
+
+These may be dismissed with brief notice; but not so Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther, of Girnigo Castle, who claims a little more attention, as
+an original character of the time in which he flourished.
+
+That good knight knocked at Master Heriot's door just as the clock began
+to strike twelve, and was seated in his chair ere the last stroke
+had chimed. This gave the knight an excellent opportunity of making
+sarcastic observations on all who came later than himself, not to
+mention a few rubs at the expense of those who had been so superfluous
+as to appear earlier.
+
+Having little or no property save his bare designation, Sir Mungo had
+been early attached to Court in the capacity of whipping-boy, as the
+office was then called, to King James the Sixth, and, with his Majesty,
+trained to all polite learning by his celebrated preceptor, George
+Buchanan. The office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate occupant to
+undergo all the corporeal punishment which the Lord's Anointed, whose
+proper person was of course sacred, might chance to incur, in the course
+of travelling through his grammar and prosody. Under the stern rule,
+indeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve of the vicarious mode
+of punishment, James bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo
+Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James's other pedagogue, Master
+Patrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and appalled the very
+soul of the youthful king by the floggings which he bestowed on the
+whipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably performed. And be
+it told to Sir Mungo's praise, that there were points about him in the
+highest respect suited to his official situation. He had even in youth a
+naturally irregular and grotesque set of features, which, when distorted
+by fear, pain, and anger, looked like one of the whimsical faces which
+present themselves in a Gothic cornice. His voice also was high-pitched
+and querulous, so that, when smarting under Master Peter Young's
+unsparing inflictions, the expression of his grotesque physiognomy, and
+the superhuman yells which he uttered, were well suited to produce all
+the effects on the Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be
+produced by seeing another and an innocent individual suffering for his
+delict.
+
+Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for such he became, thus got an early footing
+at Court, which another would have improved and maintained. But, when he
+grew too big to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering himself
+acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a malicious wit,
+and an envy of others more prosperous than the possessor of such amiable
+qualities, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a courtier's
+rise; but then they must be amalgamated with a degree of selfish cunning
+and prudence, of which Sir Mungo had no share. His satire ran riot, his
+envy could not conceal itself, and it was not long after his majority
+till he had as many quarrels upon his hands as would have required a
+cat's nine lives to answer. In one of these rencontres he received,
+perhaps we should say fortunately, a wound, which served him as an
+excuse for answering no invitations of the kind in future. Sir Rullion
+Rattray, of Ranagullion, cut off, in mortal combat, three of the fingers
+of his right hand, so that Sir Mungo never could hold sword again. At
+a later period, having written some satirical verses upon the Lady
+Cockpen, he received so severe a chastisement from some persons employed
+for the purpose, that he was found half dead on the spot where they had
+thus dealt with him, and one of his thighs having been broken, and ill
+set, gave him a hitch in his gait, with which he hobbled to his grave.
+The lameness of his leg and hand, besides that they added considerably
+to the grotesque appearance of this original, procured him in future
+a personal immunity from the more dangerous consequences of his own
+humour; and he gradually grew old in the service of the Court, in safety
+of life and limb, though without either making friends or attaining
+preferment. Sometimes, indeed, the king was amused with his caustic
+sallies, but he had never art enough to improve the favourable
+opportunity; and his enemies (who were, for that matter, the whole
+Court) always found means to throw him out of favour again. The
+celebrated Archie Armstrong offered Sir Mungo, in his generosity, a
+skirt of his own fool's coat, proposing thereby to communicate to him
+the privileges and immunities of a professed jester--"For," said the man
+of motley, "Sir Mungo, as he goes on just now, gets no more for a good
+jest than just the king's pardon for having made it."
+
+Even in London, the golden shower which fell around him did not moisten
+the blighted fortunes of Sir Mungo Malagrowther. He grew old, deaf,
+and peevish--lost even the spirit which had formerly animated his
+strictures--and was barely endured by James, who, though himself nearly
+as far stricken in years, retained, to an unusual and even an absurd
+degree, the desire to be surrounded by young people.
+
+Sir Mungo, thus fallen into the yellow leaf of years and fortune, showed
+his emaciated form and faded embroidery at Court as seldom as his duty
+permitted; and spent his time in indulging his food for satire in the
+public walks, and in the aisles of Saint Paul's, which were then the
+general resort of newsmongers and characters of all descriptions,
+associating himself chiefly with such of his countrymen as he accounted
+of inferior birth and rank to himself. In this manner, hating and
+contemning commerce, and those who pursued it, he nevertheless lived a
+good deal among the Scottish artists and merchants, who had followed
+the Court to London. To these he could show his cynicism without much
+offence; for some submitted to his jeers and ill-humour in deference
+to his birth and knighthood, which in those days conferred high
+privileges--and others, of more sense, pitied and endured the old man,
+unhappy alike in his fortunes and his temper.
+
+Amongst the latter was George Heriot, who, though his habits and
+education induced him to carry aristocratical feelings to a degree which
+would now be thought extravagant, had too much spirit and good sense to
+permit himself to be intruded upon to an unauthorized excess, or used
+with the slightest improper freedom, by such a person as Sir Mungo, to
+whom he was, nevertheless, not only respectfully civil, but essentially
+kind, and even generous.
+
+Accordingly, this appeared from the manner in which Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther conducted himself upon entering the apartment. He paid
+his respects to Master Heriot, and a decent, elderly, somewhat
+severe-looking female, in a coif, who, by the name of Aunt Judith, did
+the honours of his house and table, with little or no portion of the
+supercilious acidity, which his singular physiognomy assumed when he
+made his bow successively to David Ramsay and the two sober citizens.
+He thrust himself into the conversation of the latter, to observe he
+had heard in Paul's, that the bankrupt concern of Pindivide, a great
+merchant,--who, as he expressed it, had given the crows a pudding, and
+on whom he knew, from the same authority, each of the honest citizens
+has some unsettled claim,--was like to prove a total loss--"stock and
+block, ship and cargo, keel and rigging, all lost, now and for ever."
+
+The two citizens grinned at each other; but, too prudent to make their
+private affairs the subject of public discussion, drew their heads
+together, and evaded farther conversation by speaking in a whisper.
+
+The old Scots knight next attacked the watchmaker with the same
+disrespectful familiarity.--"Davie," he said,--"Davie, ye donnard auld
+idiot, have ye no gane mad yet, with applying your mathematical science,
+as ye call it, to the book of Apocalypse? I expected to have heard ye
+make out the sign of the beast, as clear as a tout on a bawbee whistle."
+
+"Why, Sir Mungo," said the mechanist, after making an effort to recall
+to his recollection what had been said to him, and by whom, "it may be,
+that ye are nearer the mark than ye are yoursell aware of; for, taking
+the ten horns o' the beast, ye may easily estimate by your digitals--"
+
+"My digits! you d--d auld, rusty, good-for-nothing time-piece!"
+exclaimed Sir Mungo, while, betwixt jest and earnest, he laid on his
+hilt his hand, or rather his claw, (for Sir Rullion's broadsword
+has abridged it into that form,)--"D'ye mean to upbraid me with my
+mutilation?"
+
+Master Heriot interfered. "I cannot persuade our friend David," he said,
+"that scriptural prophecies are intended to remain in obscurity, until
+their unexpected accomplishment shall make, as in former days, that
+fulfilled which was written. But you must not exert your knightly valour
+on him for all that."
+
+"By my saul, and it would be throwing it away," said Sir Mungo,
+laughing. "I would as soon set out, with hound and horn, to hunt
+a sturdied sheep; for he is in a doze again, and up to the chin in
+numerals, quotients, and dividends.--Mistress Margaret, my pretty
+honey," for the beauty of the young citizen made even Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther's grim features relax themselves a little, "is your father
+always as entertaining as he seems just now?"
+
+Mistress Margaret simpered, bridled, looked to either side, then
+straight before her; and, having assumed all the airs of bashful
+embarrassment and timidity which were necessary, as she thought, to
+cover a certain shrewd readiness which really belonged to her character,
+at length replied: "That indeed her father was very thoughtful, but she
+had heard that he took the habit of mind from her grandfather."
+
+"Your grandfather!" said Sir Mungo,--after doubting if he had heard her
+aright,--"Said she her grandfather! The lassie is distraught!--I ken
+nae wench on this side of Temple Bar that is derived from so distant a
+relation."
+
+"She has got a godfather, however, Sir Mungo," said George Heriot, again
+interfering; "and I hope you will allow him interest enough with you, to
+request you will not put his pretty godchild to so deep a blush."
+
+"The better--the better," said Sir Mungo. "It is a credit to her, that,
+bred and born within the sound of Bow-bell, she can blush for any thing;
+and, by my saul, Master George," he continued, chucking the irritated
+and reluctant damsel under the chin, "she is bonny enough to make amends
+for her lack of ancestry--at least, in such a region as Cheapside,
+where, d'ye mind me, the kettle cannot call the porridge-pot--"
+
+The damsel blushed, but not so angrily as before. Master George Heriot
+hastened to interrupt the conclusion of Sir Mungo's homely proverb, by
+introducing him personally to Lord Nigel.
+
+Sir Mungo could not at first understand what his host said,--"Bread of
+Heaven, wha say ye, man?"
+
+Upon the name of Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, being again hollowed
+into his ear, he drew up, and, regarding his entertainer with some
+austerity, rebuked him for not making persons of quality acquainted with
+each other, that they might exchange courtesies before they mingled with
+other folks. He then made as handsome and courtly a congee to his new
+acquaintance as a man maimed in foot and hand could do; and, observing
+he had known my lord, his father, bid him welcome to London, and hoped
+he should see him at Court.
+
+Nigel in an instant comprehended, as well from Sir Mungo's manner, as
+from a strict compression of their entertainer's lips, which intimated
+the suppression of a desire to laugh, that he was dealing with an
+original of no ordinary description, and accordingly, returned his
+courtesy with suitable punctiliousness. Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile,
+gazed on him with much earnestness; and, as the contemplation of natural
+advantages was as odious to him as that of wealth, or other adventitious
+benefits, he had no sooner completely perused the handsome form and good
+features of the young lord, than like one of the comforters of the man
+of Uz, he drew close up to him, to enlarge on the former grandeur of the
+Lords of Glenvarloch, and the regret with which he had heard, that their
+representative was not likely to possess the domains of his ancestry.
+Anon, he enlarged upon the beauties of the principal mansion of
+Glenvarloch--the commanding site of the old castle--the noble expanse
+of the lake, stocked with wildfowl for hawking--the commanding screen of
+forest, terminating in a mountain-ridge abounding with deer--and all the
+other advantages of that fine and ancient barony, till Nigel, in spite
+of every effort to the contrary, was unwillingly obliged to sigh.
+
+Sir Mungo, skilful in discerning when the withers of those he conversed
+with were wrung, observed that his new acquaintance winced, and would
+willingly have pressed the discussion; but the cook's impatient knock
+upon the dresser with the haft of his dudgeon-knife, now gave a signal
+loud enough to be heard from the top of the house to the bottom,
+summoning, at the same time, the serving-men to place the dinner upon
+the table, and the guests to partake of it.
+
+Sir Mungo, who was an admirer of good cheer,--a taste which, by the
+way, might have some weight in reconciling his dignity to these city
+visits,--was tolled off by the sound, and left Nigel and the other
+guests in peace, until his anxiety to arrange himself in his due place
+of pre-eminence at the genial board was duly gratified. Here, seated on
+the left hand of Aunt Judith, he beheld Nigel occupy the station of yet
+higher honour on the right, dividing that matron from pretty Mistress
+Margaret; but he saw this with the more patience, that there stood
+betwixt him and the young lord a superb larded capon.
+
+The dinner proceeded according to the form of the times. All was
+excellent of the kind; and, besides the Scottish cheer promised, the
+board displayed beef and pudding, the statutory dainties of Old England.
+A small cupboard of plate, very choicely and beautifully wrought, did
+not escape the compliments of some of the company, and an oblique
+sneer from Sir Mungo, as intimating the owner's excellence in his own
+mechanical craft.
+
+"I am not ashamed of the workmanship, Sir Mungo," said the honest
+citizen. "They say, a good cook knows how to lick his own fingers; and,
+methinks, it were unseemly that I, who have furnished half the cupboards
+in broad Britain, should have my own covered with paltry pewter."
+
+The blessing of the clergyman now left the guests at liberty to attack
+what was placed before them; and the meal went forward with great
+decorum, until Aunt Judith, in farther recommendation of the capon,
+assured her company that it was of a celebrated breed of poultry, which
+she had herself brought from Scotland.
+
+"Then, like some of his countrymen, madam," said the pitiless Sir Mungo,
+not without a glance towards his landlord, "he has been well larded in
+England."
+
+"There are some others of his countrymen," answered Master Heriot,
+"to whom all the lard in England has not been able to render that good
+office."
+
+Sir Mungo sneered and reddened, the rest of the company laughed; and the
+satirist, who had his reasons for not coming to extremity with Master
+George, was silent for the rest of the dinner.
+
+The dishes were exchanged for confections, and wine of the highest
+quality and flavour; and Nigel saw the entertainments of the wealthiest
+burgomasters, which he had witnessed abroad, fairly outshone by the
+hospitality of a London citizen. Yet there was nothing ostentatious, or
+which seemed inconsistent with the degree of an opulent burgher.
+
+While the collation proceeded, Nigel, according to the good-breeding of
+the time, addressed his discourse principally to Mrs. Judith, whom he
+found to be a woman of a strong Scottish understanding, more inclined
+towards the Puritans than was her brother George, (for in that relation
+she stood to him, though he always called her aunt,) attached to him in
+the strongest degree, and sedulously attentive to all his comforts. As
+the conversation of this good dame was neither lively nor fascinating,
+the young lord naturally addressed himself next to the old horologer's
+very pretty daughter, who sat upon his left hand. From her, however,
+there was no extracting any reply beyond the measure of a monosyllable;
+and when the young gallant had said the best and most complaisant things
+which his courtesy supplied, the smile that mantled upon her pretty
+mouth was so slight and evanescent, as scarce to be discernible.
+
+Nigel was beginning to tire of his company, for the old citizens were
+speaking with his host of commercial matters in language to him totally
+unintelligible, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther suddenly summoned their
+attention.
+
+That amiable personage had for some time withdrawn from the company into
+the recess of a projecting window, so formed and placed as to command
+a view of the door of the house, and of the street. This situation was
+probably preferred by Sir Mungo on account of the number of objects
+which the streets of a metropolis usually offer, of a kind congenial
+to the thoughts of a splenetic man. What he had hitherto seen passing
+there, was probably of little consequence; but now a trampling of horse
+was heard without, and the knight suddenly exclaimed,--"By my faith,
+Master George, you had better go look to shop; for here comes Knighton,
+the Duke of Buckingham's groom, and two fellows after him, as if he were
+my Lord Duke himself."
+
+"My cash-keeper is below," said Heriot, without disturbing himself,
+"and he will let me know if his Grace's commands require my immediate
+attention."
+
+"Umph!--cash-keeper?" muttered Sir Mungo to himself; "he would have had
+an easy office when I first kend ye.--But," said he, speaking aloud,
+"will you not come to the window, at least? for Knighton has trundled a
+piece of silver-plate into your house--ha! ha! ha!--trundled it upon its
+edge, as a callan' would drive a hoop. I cannot help laughing--ha! ha!
+ha!--at the fellow's impudence."
+
+"I believe you could not help laughing," said George Heriot, rising up
+and leaving the room, "if your best friend lay dying."
+
+"Bitter that, my lord--ha?" said Sir Mungo, addressing Nigel. "Our
+friend is not a goldsmith for nothing--he hath no leaden wit. But I will
+go down, and see what comes on't."
+
+Heriot, as he descended the stairs, met his cash-keeper coming up, with
+some concern in his face.--"Why, how now, Roberts," said the goldsmith,
+"what means all this, man?"
+
+"It is Knighton, Master Heriot, from the Court--Knighton, the Duke's
+man. He brought back the salver you carried to Whitehall, flung it into
+the entrance as if it had been an old pewter platter, and bade me tell
+you the king would have none of your trumpery."
+
+"Ay, indeed," said George Heriot--"None of my trumpery!--Come hither
+into the compting-room, Roberts.--Sir Mungo," he added, bowing to the
+knight, who had joined, and was preparing to follow them, "I pray your
+forgiveness for an instant."
+
+In virtue of this prohibition, Sir Mungo, who, as well as the rest of
+the company, had overheard what passed betwixt George Heriot and his
+cash-keeper, saw himself condemned to wait in the outer business-room,
+where he would have endeavoured to slake his eager curiosity by
+questioning Knighton; but that emissary of greatness, after having added
+to the uncivil message of his master some rudeness of his own, had again
+scampered westward, with his satellites at his heels.
+
+In the meanwhile, the name of the Duke of Buckingham, the omnipotent
+favourite both of the king and the Prince of Wales, had struck some
+anxiety into the party which remained in the great parlour. He was more
+feared than beloved, and, if not absolutely of a tyrannical disposition,
+was accounted haughty, violent, and vindictive. It pressed on Nigel's
+heart, that he himself, though he could not conceive how, nor why,
+might be the original cause of the resentment of the Duke against his
+benefactor. The others made their comments in whispers, until the sounds
+reached Ramsay, who had not heard a word of what had previously passed,
+but, plunged in those studies with which he connected every other
+incident and event, took up only the catchword, and replied,--"The
+Duke--the Duke of Buckingham--George Villiers--ay--I have spoke with
+Lambe about him."
+
+"Our Lord and our Lady! Now, how can you say so, father?" said his
+daughter, who had shrewdness enough to see that her father was touching
+upon dangerous ground.
+
+"Why, ay, child," answered Ramsay; "the stars do but incline, they
+cannot compel. But well you wot, it is commonly said of his Grace, by
+those who have the skill to cast nativities, that there was a notable
+conjunction of Mars and Saturn--the apparent or true time of which,
+reducing the calculations of Eichstadius made for the latitude of
+Oranienburgh, to that of London, gives seven hours, fifty-five minutes,
+and forty-one seconds----"
+
+"Hold your peace, old soothsayer," said Heriot, who at that instant
+entered the room with a calm and steady countenance; "your calculations
+are true and undeniable when they regard brass and wire, and mechanical
+force; but future events are at the pleasure of Him who bears the hearts
+of kings in his hands."
+
+"Ay, but, George," answered the watchmaker, "there was a concurrence
+of signs at this gentleman's birth, which showed his course would be
+a strange one. Long has it been said of him, he was born at the very
+meeting of night and day, and under crossing and contending influences
+that may affect both us and him.
+
+    'Full moon and high sea,
+     Great man shalt thou be;
+     Red dawning, stormy sky,
+     Bloody death shalt thou die.'"
+
+"It is not good to speak of such things," said Heriot, "especially of
+the great; stone walls have ears, and a bird of the air shall carry the
+matter."
+
+Several of the guests seemed to be of their host's opinion. The two
+merchants took brief leave, as if under consciousness that something
+was wrong. Mistress Margaret, her body-guard of 'prentices being in
+readiness, plucked her father by the sleeve, and, rescuing him from a
+brown study, (whether referring to the wheels of Time, or to that of
+Fortune, is uncertain,) wished good-night to her friend Mrs. Judith, and
+received her godfather's blessing, who, at the same time, put upon
+her slender finger a ring of much taste and some value; for he seldom
+suffered her to leave him without some token of his affection. Thus
+honourably dismissed, and accompanied by her escort, she set forth on
+her return to Fleet Street.
+
+Sir Mungo had bid adieu to Master Heriot as he came out from the back
+compting-room, but such was the interest which he took in the affairs
+of his friend, that, when Master George went upstairs, he could not
+help walking into that sanctum sanctorum, to see how Master Roberts was
+employed. The knight found the cash-keeper busy in making extracts from
+those huge brass-clasped leathern-bound manuscript folios, which are
+the pride and trust of dealers, and the dread of customers whose year of
+grace is out. The good knight leant his elbows on the desk, and said to
+the functionary in a condoling tone of voice,--"What! you have lost a
+good customer, I fear, Master Roberts, and are busied in making out his
+bill of charges?"
+
+Now, it chanced that Roberts, like Sir Mungo himself, was a little deaf,
+and, like Sir Mungo, knew also how to make the most of it; so that he
+answered at cross purposes,--"I humbly crave your pardon, Sir Mungo, for
+not having sent in your bill of charge sooner, but my master bade me not
+disturb you. I will bring the items together in a moment." So saying, he
+began to turn over the leaves of his book of fate, murmuring, "Repairing
+ane silver seal-new clasp to his chain of office--ane over-gilt brooch
+to his hat, being a Saint Andrew's cross, with thistles--a copper gilt
+pair of spurs,--this to Daniel Driver, we not dealing in the article."
+
+He would have proceeded; but Sir Mungo, not prepared to endure the
+recital of the catalogue of his own petty debts, and still less
+willing to satisfy them on the spot, wished the bookkeeper, cavalierly,
+good-night, and left the house without farther ceremony. The clerk
+looked after him with a civil city sneer, and immediately resumed the
+more serious labours which Sir Mungo's intrusion had interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+  Things needful we have thought on; but the thing
+  Of all most needful--that which Scripture terms,
+  As if alone it merited regard,
+  The ONE thing needful--that's yet unconsider'd.
+                       _The Chamberlain._
+
+When the rest of the company had taken their departure from Master
+Heriot's house, the young Lord of Glenvarloch also offered to take
+leave; but his host detained him for a few minutes, until all were gone
+excepting the clergyman.
+
+"My lord," then said the worthy citizen, "we have had our permitted hour
+of honest and hospitable pastime, and now I would fain delay you for
+another and graver purpose, as it is our custom, when we have the
+benefit of good Mr. Windsor's company, that he reads the prayers of the
+church for the evening before we separate. Your excellent father, my
+lord, would not have departed before family worship--I hope the same
+from your lordship."
+
+"With pleasure, sir," answered Nigel; "and you add in the invitation an
+additional obligation to those with which you have loaded me. When young
+men forget what is their duty, they owe deep thanks to the friend who
+will remind them of it."
+
+While they talked together in this manner, the serving-men had removed
+the folding-tables, brought forward a portable reading-desk, and placed
+chairs and hassocks for their master, their mistress, and the noble
+stranger. Another low chair, or rather a sort of stool, was placed close
+beside that of Master Heriot; and though the circumstance was trivial,
+Nigel was induced to notice it, because, when about to occupy that
+seat, he was prevented by a sign from the old gentleman, and motioned
+to another of somewhat more elevation. The clergyman took his station
+behind the reading-desk. The domestics, a numerous family both of clerks
+and servants, including Moniplies, attended, with great gravity, and
+were accommodated with benches.
+
+The household were all seated, and, externally at least, composed
+to devout attention, when a low knock was heard at the door of the
+apartment; Mrs. Judith looked anxiously at her brother, as if desiring
+to know his pleasure. He nodded his head gravely, and looked to the
+door. Mrs. Judith immediately crossed the chamber, opened the door, and
+led into the apartment a beautiful creature, whose sudden and singular
+appearance might have made her almost pass for an apparition. She
+was deadly pale-there was not the least shade of vital red to enliven
+features, which were exquisitely formed, and might, but for that
+circumstance, have been termed transcendently beautiful. Her long black
+hair fell down over her shoulders and down her back, combed smoothly and
+regularly, but without the least appearance of decoration or ornament,
+which looked very singular at a period when head-gear, as it was called,
+of one sort or other, was generally used by all ranks. Her dress was of
+white, of the simplest fashion, and hiding all her person excepting
+the throat, face, and hands. Her form was rather beneath than above the
+middle size, but so justly proportioned and elegantly made, that
+the spectator's attention was entirely withdrawn from her size. In
+contradiction of the extreme plainness of all the rest of her attire,
+she wore a necklace which a duchess might have envied, so large and
+lustrous were the brilliants of which it was composed; and around her
+waist a zone of rubies of scarce inferior value.
+
+When this singular figure entered the apartment, she cast her eyes on
+Nigel, and paused, as if uncertain whether to advance or retreat. The
+glance which she took of him seemed to be one rather of uncertainty and
+hesitation, than of bashfulness or timidity. Aunt Judith took her by the
+hand, and led her slowly forward--her dark eyes, however, continued to
+be fixed on Nigel, with an expression of melancholy by which he felt
+strangely affected. Even when she was seated on the vacant stool, which
+was placed there probably for her accommodation, she again looked on him
+more than once with the same pensive, lingering, and anxious expression,
+but without either shyness or embarrassment, not even so much as to call
+the slightest degree of complexion into her cheek.
+
+So soon as this singular female had taken up the prayer-book, which
+was laid upon her cushion, she seemed immersed in devotional duty; and
+although Nigel's attention to the service was so much disturbed by this
+extraordinary apparition, that he looked towards her repeatedly in
+the course of the service, he could never observe that her eyes or her
+thoughts strayed so much as a single moment from the task in which she
+was engaged. Nigel himself was less attentive, for the appearance of
+this lady seemed so extraordinary, that, strictly as he had been bred up
+by his father to pay the most reverential attention during performance
+of divine service, his thoughts in spite of himself were disturbed by
+her presence, and he earnestly wished the prayers were ended, that
+his curiosity might obtain some gratification. When the service was
+concluded, and each had remained, according to the decent and edifying
+practice of the church, concentrated in mental devotion for a short
+space, the mysterious visitant arose ere any other person stirred; and
+Nigel remarked that none of the domestics left their places, oreven
+moved, until she had first kneeled on one knee to Heriot, who seemed to
+bless her with his hand laid on her head, and a melancholy solemnity of
+look and action. She then bended her body, but without kneeling, to Mrs.
+Judith, and having performed these two acts of reverence, she left the
+room; yet just in the act of her departure, she once more turned her
+penetrating eyes on Nigel with a fixed look, which compelled him to turn
+his own aside. When he looked towards her again, he saw only the skirt
+of her white mantle as she left the apartment.
+
+The domestics then rose and dispersed themselves--wine, and fruit, and
+spices, were offered to Lord Nigel and to the clergyman, and the latter
+took his leave. The young lord would fain have accompanied him, in hope
+to get some explanation of the apparition which he had beheld, but
+he was stopped by his host, who requested to speak with him in his
+compting-room.
+
+"I hope, my lord," said the citizen, "that your preparations for
+attending Court are in such forwardness that you can go thither the day
+after to-morrow. It is, perhaps, the last day, for some time, that his
+Majesty will hold open Court for all who have pretensions by birth,
+rank, or office to attend upon him. On the subsequent day he goes
+to Theobald's, where he is so much occupied with hunting and other
+pleasures, that he cares not to be intruded on."
+
+"I shall be in all outward readiness to pay my duty," said the young
+nobleman, "yet I have little heart to do it. The friends from whom I
+ought to have found encouragement and protection, have proved cold and
+false--I certainly will not trouble _them_ for their countenance on
+this occasion--and yet I must confess my childish unwillingness to enter
+quite alone upon so new a scene."
+
+"It is bold of a mechanic like me to make such an offer to a nobleman,"
+said Heriot; "but I must attend at Court to-morrow. I can accompany
+you as far as the presence-chamber, from my privilege as being of the
+household. I can facilitate your entrance, should you find difficulty,
+and I can point out the proper manner and time of approaching the king.
+But I do not know," he added, smiling, "whether these little advantages
+will not be overbalanced by the incongruity of a nobleman receiving them
+from the hands of an old smith."
+
+"From the hands rather of the only friend I have found in London," said
+Nigel, offering his hand.
+
+"Nay, if you think of the matter in that way," replied the honest
+citizen, "there is no more to be said--I will come for you to-morrow,
+with a barge proper to the occasion.--But remember, my good young lord,
+that I do not, like some men of my degree, wish to take opportunity to
+step beyond it, and associate with my superiors in rank, and therefore
+do not fear to mortify my presumption, by suffering me to keep my
+distance in the presence, and where it is fitting for both of us to
+separate; and for what remains, most truly happy shall I be in proving
+of service to the son of my ancient patron."
+
+The style of conversation led so far from the point which had interested
+the young nobleman's curiosity, that there was no returning to it that
+night. He therefore exchanged thanks and greetings with George Heriot,
+and took his leave, promising to be equipped and in readiness to embark
+with him on the second successive morning at ten o'clock.
+
+The generation of linkboys, celebrated by Count Anthony Hamilton, as
+peculiar to London, had already, in the reign of James I., begun their
+functions, and the service of one of them with his smoky torch, had
+been secured to light the young Scottish lord and his follower to their
+lodgings, which, though better acquainted than formerly with the city,
+they might in the dark have run some danger of missing. This gave the
+ingenious Mr. Moniplies an opportunity of gathering close up to his
+master, after he had gone through the form of slipping his left arm into
+the handles of his buckler, and loosening his broadsword in the sheath,
+that he might be ready for whatever should befall.
+
+"If it were not for the wine and the good cheer which we have had in
+yonder old man's house, my lord," said this sapient follower, "and that
+I ken him by report to be a just living man in many respects, and a real
+Edinburgh gutterblood, I should have been well pleased to have seen how
+his feet were shaped, and whether he had not a cloven cloot under the
+braw roses and cordovan shoon of his."
+
+"Why, you rascal," answered Nigel, "you have been too kindly treated,
+and now that you have filled your ravenous stomach, you are railing on
+the good gentleman that relieved you."
+
+"Under favour, no, my lord," said Moniplies,--"I would only like to see
+something mair about him. I have eaten his meat, it is true--more shame
+that the like of him should have meat to give, when your lordship and
+me could scarce have gotten, on our own account, brose and a bear
+bannock--I have drunk his wine, too."
+
+"I see you have," replied his master, "a great deal more than you should
+have done."
+
+"Under your patience, my lord," said Moniplies, "you are pleased to say
+that, because I crushed a quart with that jolly boy Jenkin, as they
+call the 'prentice boy, and that was out of mere acknowledgment for his
+former kindness--I own that I, moreover, sung the good old song of Elsie
+Marley, so as they never heard it chanted in their lives----"
+
+And withal (as John Bunyan says) as they went on their way, he sung--
+
+    "O, do ye ken Elsie Marley, honey--
+     The wife that sells the barley, honey?
+     For Elsie Marley's grown sae fine,
+     She winna get up to feed the swine.--
+         O, do ye ken----"
+
+Here in mid career was the songster interrupted by the stern gripe
+of his master, who threatened to baton him to death if he brought the
+city-watch upon them by his ill-timed melody.
+
+"I crave pardon, my lord--I humbly crave pardon--only when I think of
+that Jen Win, as they call him, I can hardly help humming--'O, do ye
+ken'--But I crave your honour's pardon, and will be totally dumb, if you
+command me so."
+
+"No, sirrah!" said Nigel, "talk on, for I well know you would say and
+suffer more under pretence of holding your peace, than when you get an
+unbridled license. How is it, then? What have you to say against Master
+Heriot?"
+
+It seems more than probable, that in permitting this license, the young
+lord hoped his attendant would stumble upon the subject of the young
+lady who had appeared at prayers in a manner so mysterious. But whether
+this was the case, or whether he merely desired that Moniplies should
+utter, in a subdued and under tone of voice, those spirits which might
+otherwise have vented themselves in obstreperous song, it is certain he
+permitted his attendant to proceed with his story in his own way.
+
+"And therefore," said the orator, availing himself of his immunity, "I
+would like to ken what sort of carle this Maister Heriot is. He hath
+supplied your lordship with wealth of gold, as I can understand; and if
+he has, I make it for certain he hath had his ain end in it, according
+to the fashion of the world. Now, had your lordship your own good
+lands at your guiding, doubtless this person, with most of his
+craft--goldsmiths they call themselves--I say usurers--wad be glad to
+exchange so many pounds of African dust, by whilk I understand gold,
+against so many fair acres, and hundreds of acres, of broad Scottish
+land."
+
+"But you know I have no land," said the young lord, "at least none that
+can be affected by any debt which I can at present become obliged for--I
+think you need not have reminded me of that."
+
+"True, my lord, most true; and, as your lordship says, open to the
+meanest capacity, without any unnecessary expositions. Now, therefore,
+my lord, unless Maister George Heriot has something mair to allege as
+a motive for his liberality, vera different from the possession of your
+estate--and moreover, as he could gain little by the capture of your
+body, wherefore should it not be your soul that he is in pursuit of?"
+
+"My soul, you rascal!" said the young lord; "what good should my soul do
+him?"
+
+"What do I ken about that?" said Moniplies; "they go about roaring and
+seeking whom they may devour--doubtless, they like the food that they
+rage so much about--and, my lord, they say," added Moniplies, drawing up
+still closer to his master's side, "they say that Master Heriot has one
+spirit in his house already."
+
+"How, or what do you mean?" said Nigel; "I will break your head, you
+drunken knave, if you palter with me any longer."
+
+"Drunken?" answered his trusty adherent, "and is this the story?--why,
+how could I but drink your lordship's health on my bare knees, when
+Master Jenkin began it to me?--hang them that would not--I would have
+cut the impudent knave's hams with my broadsword, that should make
+scruple of it, and so have made him kneel when he should have found it
+difficult to rise again. But touching the spirit," he proceeded, finding
+that his master made no answer to his valorous tirade, "your lordship
+has seen her with your own eyes."
+
+"I saw no spirit," said Glenvarloch, but yet breathing thick as one who
+expects some singular disclosure, "what mean you by a spirit?"
+
+"You saw a young lady come in to prayers, that spoke not a word to
+any one, only made becks and bows to the old gentleman and lady of the
+house--ken ye wha she is?"
+
+"No, indeed," answered Nigel; "some relation of the family, I suppose."
+
+"Deil a bit--deil a bit," answered Moniplies, hastily, "not a
+blood-drop's kin to them, if she had a drop of blood in her body--I tell
+you but what all human beings allege to be truth, that swell within hue
+and cry of Lombard Street--that lady, or quean, or whatever you choose
+to call her, has been dead in the body these many a year, though she
+haunts them, as we have seen, even at their very devotions."
+
+"You will allow her to be a good spirit at least," said Nigel Olifaunt,
+"since she chooses such a time to visit her friends?"
+
+"For that I kenna, my lord," answered the superstitious follower; "I ken
+no spirit that would have faced the right down hammer-blow of Mess John
+Knox, whom my father stood by in his very warst days, bating a chance
+time when the Court, which my father supplied with butcher-meat, was
+against him. But yon divine has another airt from powerful
+Master Rollock, and Mess David Black, of North Leith, and sic
+like.--Alack-a-day! wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether
+sic prayers as the Southron read out of their auld blethering black
+mess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right
+red-het prayer warm fraw the heart, may be powerful to drive them away,
+even as the Evil Spirit was driven by he smell of the fish's liver from
+the bridal-chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel? As to whilk story,
+nevertheless, I make scruple to say whether it be truth or not, better
+men than I am having doubted on that matter."
+
+"Well, well, well," said his master, impatiently, "we are now near home,
+and I have permitted you to speak of this matter for once, that we may
+have an end to your prying folly, and your idiotical superstitions, for
+ever. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or informers, take this
+lady?"
+
+"I can sae naething preceesely as to that," answered Moniplies;
+"certain it is her body died and was laid in the grave many a day since,
+notwithstanding she still wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst Maister
+Heriot's family, though she hath been seen in other places by them that
+well knew her. But who she is, I will not warrant to say, or how she
+becomes attached, like a Highland Brownie, to some peculiar family.
+They say she has a row of apartments of her own, ante-room, parlour, and
+bedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own coffin, and the walls,
+doors, and windows are so chinked up, as to prevent the least blink of
+daylight from entering; and then she dwells by torchlight--"
+
+"To what purpose, if she be a spirit?" said Nigel Olifaunt.
+
+"How can I tell your lordship?" answered his attendant. "I thank God I
+know nothing of her likings, or mislikings--only her coffin is there;
+and I leave your lordship to guess what a live person has to do with a
+coffin. As little as a ghost with a lantern, I trow."
+
+"What reason," repeated Nigel, "can a creature, so young and so
+beautiful, have already habitually to contemplate her bed of last-long
+rest?"
+
+"In troth, I kenna, my lord," answered Moniplies; "but there is the
+coffin, as they told me who have seen it: it is made of heben-wood, with
+silver nails, and lined all through with three-piled damask, might serve
+a princess to rest in."
+
+"Singular," said Nigel, whose brain, like that of most active young
+spirits, was easily caught by the singular and the romantic; "does she
+not eat with the family?"
+
+"Who!--she!"--exclaimed Moniplies, as if surprised at the question;
+"they would need a lang spoon would sup with her, I trow. Always there
+is something put for her into the Tower, as they call it, whilk is a
+whigmaleery of a whirling-box, that turns round half on the tae side o'
+the wa', half on the tother."
+
+"I have seen the contrivance in foreign nunneries," said the Lord of
+Glenvarloch. "And is it thus she receives her food?"
+
+"They tell me something is put in ilka day, for fashion's sake," replied
+the attendant; "but it's no to be supposed she would consume it, ony
+mair than the images of Bel and the Dragon consumed the dainty vivers
+that were placed before them. There are stout yeomen and chamber-queans
+in the house, enow to play the part of Lick-it-up-a', as well as the
+threescore and ten priests of Bel, besides their wives and children."
+
+"And she is never seen in the family but when the hour of prayer
+arrives?" said the master.
+
+"Never, that I hear of," replied the servant.
+
+"It is singular," said Nigel Olifaunt, musing. "Were it not for the
+ornaments which she wears, and still more for her attendance upon the
+service of the Protestant Church, I should know what to think, and
+should believe her either a Catholic votaress, who, for some cogent
+reason, was allowed to make her cell here in London, or some unhappy
+Popish devotee, who was in the course of undergoing a dreadful penance.
+As it is, I know not what to deem of it."
+
+His reverie was interrupted by the linkboy knocking at the door of
+honest John Christie, whose wife came forth with "quips, and becks, and
+wreathed smiles," to welcome her honoured guest on his return to his
+apartment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+  Ay! mark the matron well--and laugh not, Harry,
+  At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard--
+  I've call'd her like the ear of Dionysius;
+  I mean that ear-form'd vault, built o'er his dungeon,
+  To catch the groans and discontented murmurs
+  Of his poor bondsmen--Even so doth Martha
+  Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes,
+  Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city--
+  She can retail it too, if that her profit
+  Shall call on her to do so; and retail it
+  For your advantage, so that you can make
+  Your profit jump with hers.
+                            The Conspiracy.
+
+We must now introduce to the reader's acquaintance another character,
+busy and important far beyond her ostensible situation in society--in
+a word, Dame Ursula Suddlechop, wife of Benjamin Suddlechop, the most
+renowned barber in all Fleet Street. This dame had her own particular
+merits, the principal part of which was (if her own report could be
+trusted) an infinite desire to be of service to her fellow-creatures.
+Leaving to her thin half-starved partner the boast of having the most
+dexterous snap with his fingers of any shaver in London, and the care
+of a shop where starved apprentices flayed the faces of those who
+were boobies enough to trust them, the dame drove a separate and more
+lucrative trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, that it
+seemed in many respects to contradict itself.
+
+Its highest and most important duties were of a very secret and
+confidential nature, and Dame Ursula Suddlechop was never known to
+betray any transaction intrusted to her, unless she had either been
+indifferently paid for her service, or that some one found it convenient
+to give her a double douceur to make her disgorge the secret; and
+these contingencies happened in so few cases, that her character for
+trustiness remained as unimpeached as that for honesty and benevolence.
+
+In fact, she was a most admirable matron, and could be useful to the
+impassioned and the frail in the rise, progress, and consequences of
+their passion. She could contrive an interview for lovers who could show
+proper reasons for meeting privately; she could relieve the frail fair
+one of the burden of a guilty passion, and perhaps establish the hopeful
+offspring of unlicensed love as the heir of some family whose love was
+lawful, but where an heir had not followed the union. More than this she
+could do, and had been concerned in deeper and dearer secrets. She had
+been a pupil of Mrs. Turner, and learned from her the secret of making
+the yellow starch, and, it may be, two or three other secrets of more
+consequence, though perhaps none that went to the criminal extent of
+those whereof her mistress was accused. But all that was deep and dark
+in her real character was covered by the show of outward mirth and
+good-humour, the hearty laugh and buxom jest with which the dame knew
+well how to conciliate the elder part of her neighbours, and the many
+petty arts by which she could recommend herself to the younger, those
+especially of her own sex.
+
+Dame Ursula was, in appearance, scarce past forty, and her full, but
+not overgrown form, and still comely features, although her person was
+plumped out, and her face somewhat coloured by good cheer, had a joyous
+expression of gaiety and good-humour, which set off the remains of
+beauty in the wane. Marriages, births, and christenings were seldom
+thought to be performed with sufficient ceremony, for a considerable
+distance round her abode, unless Dame Ursley, as they called her, was
+present. She could contrive all sorts of pastimes, games, and jests,
+which might amuse the large companies which the hospitality of our
+ancestors assembled together on such occasions, so that her presence was
+literally considered as indispensable in the families of all citizens of
+ordinary rank, at such joyous periods. So much also was she supposed to
+know of life and its labyrinths, that she was the willing confidant
+of half the loving couples in the vicinity, most of whom used to
+communicate their secrets to, and receive their counsel from, Dame
+Ursley. The rich rewarded her services with rings, owches, or gold
+pieces, which she liked still better; and she very generously gave
+her assistance to the poor, on the same mixed principles as young
+practitioners in medicine assist them, partly from compassion, and
+partly to keep her hand in use.
+
+Dame Ursley's reputation in the city was the greater that her practice
+had extended beyond Temple Bar, and that she had acquaintances, nay,
+patrons and patronesses, among the quality, whose rank, as their members
+were much fewer, and the prospect of approaching the courtly sphere much
+more difficult, bore a degree of consequence unknown to the present day,
+when the toe of the citizen presses so close on the courtier's heel.
+Dame Ursley maintained her intercourse with this superior rank of
+customers, partly by driving a small trade in perfumes, essences,
+pomades, head-gears from France, dishes or ornaments from China, then
+already beginning to be fashionable; not to mention drugs of various
+descriptions, chiefly for the use of the ladies, and partly by other
+services, more or less connected with the esoteric branches of her
+profession heretofore alluded to.
+
+Possessing such and so many various modes of thriving, Dame Ursley
+was nevertheless so poor, that she might probably have mended her own
+circumstances, as well as her husband's, if she had renounced them all,
+and set herself quietly down to the care of her own household, and to
+assist Benjamin in the concerns of his trade. But Ursula was luxurious
+and genial in her habits, and could no more have endured the stinted
+economy of Benjamin's board, than she could have reconciled herself to
+the bald chat of his conversation.
+
+It was on the evening of the day on which Lord Nigel Olifaunt dined with
+the wealthy goldsmith, that we must introduce Ursula Suddlechop upon
+the stage. She had that morning made a long tour to Westminster, was
+fatigued, and had assumed a certain large elbow-chair, rendered smooth
+by frequent use, placed on one side of her chimney, in which there was
+lit a small but bright fire. Here she observed, betwixt sleeping and
+waking, the simmering of a pot of well-spiced ale, on the brown surface
+of which bobbed a small crab-apple, sufficiently roasted, while a little
+mulatto girl watched, still more attentively, the process of dressing
+a veal sweetbread, in a silver stewpan which occupied the other side
+of the chimney. With these viands, doubtless, Dame Ursula proposed
+concluding the well spent day, of which she reckoned the labour over,
+and the rest at her own command. She was deceived, however; for just
+as the ale, or, to speak technically, the lamb's-wool, was fitted for
+drinking, and the little dingy maiden intimated that the sweetbread was
+ready to be eaten, the thin cracked voice of Benjamin was heard from the
+bottom of the stairs.
+
+"Why, Dame Ursley--why, wife, I say--why, dame--why, love, you are
+wanted more than a strop for a blunt razor--why, dame--"
+
+"I would some one would draw a razor across thy windpipe, thou bawling
+ass!" said the dame to herself, in the first moment of irritation
+against her clamorous helpmate; and then called aloud,--"Why, what is
+the matter, Master Suddlechop? I am just going to slip into bed; I have
+been daggled to and fro the whole day."
+
+"Nay, sweetheart, it is not me," said the patient Benjamin, "but the
+Scots laundry-maid from neighbour Ramsay's, who must speak with you
+incontinent."
+
+At the word sweetheart, Dame Ursley cast a wistful look at the mess
+which was stewed to a second in the stewpan, and then replied, with
+a sigh,--"Bid Scots Jenny come up, Master Suddlechop. I shall be very
+happy to hear what she has to say;" then added in a lower tone, "and I
+hope she will go to the devil in the flame of a tar-barrel, like many a
+Scots witch before her!"
+
+The Scots laundress entered accordingly, and having heard nothing of the
+last kind wish of Dame Suddlechop, made her reverence with considerable
+respect, and said, her young mistress had returned home unwell, and
+wished to see her neighbour, Dame Ursley, directly.
+
+"And why will it not do to-morrow, Jenny, my good woman?" said Dame
+Ursley; "for I have been as far as Whitehall to-day already, and I am
+well-nigh worn off my feet, my good woman."
+
+"Aweel!" answered Jenny, with great composure, "and if that sae be sae,
+I maun take the langer tramp mysell, and maun gae down the waterside for
+auld Mother Redcap, at the Hungerford Stairs, that deals in comforting
+young creatures, e'en as you do yoursell, hinny; for ane o' ye the bairn
+maun see before she sleeps, and that's a' that I ken on't."
+
+So saying, the old emissary, without farther entreaty, turned on her
+heel, and was about to retreat, when Dame Ursley exclaimed,--"No, no--if
+the sweet child, your mistress, has any necessary occasion for good
+advice and kind tendance, you need not go to Mother Redcap, Janet. She
+may do very well for skippers' wives, chandlers' daughters, and such
+like; but nobody shall wait on pretty Mistress Margaret, the daughter of
+his most Sacred Majesty's horologer, excepting and saving myself. And
+so I will but take my chopins and my cloak, and put on my muffler,
+and cross the street to neighbour Ramsay's in an instant. But tell me
+yourself, good Jenny, are you not something tired of your young lady's
+frolics and change of mind twenty times a-day?"
+
+"In troth, not I," said the patient drudge, "unless it may be when she
+is a wee fashious about washing her laces; but I have been her
+keeper since she was a bairn, neighbour Suddlechop, and that makes a
+difference."
+
+"Ay," said Dame Ursley, still busied putting on additional defences
+against the night air; "and you know for certain that she has two
+hundred pounds a-year in good land, at her own free disposal?"
+
+"Left by her grandmother, heaven rest her soul!" said the Scotswoman;
+"and to a daintier lassie she could not have bequeathed it."
+
+"Very true, very true, mistress; for, with all her little whims, I have
+always said Mistress Margaret Ramsay was the prettiest girl in the ward;
+and, Jenny, I warrant the poor child has had no supper?"
+
+Jenny could not say but it was the case, for, her master being out, the
+twa 'prentice lads had gone out after shutting shop, to fetch them home,
+and she and the other maid had gone out to Sandy MacGivan's, to see a
+friend frae Scotland.
+
+"As was very natural, Mrs. Janet," said Dame Ursley, who found her
+interest in assenting to all sorts of propositions from all sorts of
+persons.
+
+"And so the fire went out, too,"--said Jenny.
+
+"Which was the most natural of the whole," said Dame Suddlechop; "and
+so, to cut the matter short, Jenny, I'll carry over the little bit of
+supper that I was going to eat. For dinner I have tasted none, and it
+may be my young pretty Mistress Marget will eat a morsel with me; for
+it is mere emptiness, Mistress Jenny, that often puts these fancies
+of illness into young folk's heads." So saying, she put the silver
+posset-cup with the ale into Jenny's hands and assuming her mantle with
+the alacrity of one determined to sacrifice inclination to duty, she
+hid the stewpan under its folds, and commanded Wilsa, the little mulatto
+girl, to light them across the street.
+
+"Whither away, so late?" said the barber, whom they passed seated with
+his starveling boys round a mess of stockfish and parsnips, in the shop
+below.
+
+"If I were to tell you, Gaffer," said the dame, with most contemptuous
+coolness, "I do not think you could do my errand, so I will e'en keep it
+to myself." Benjamin was too much accustomed to his wife's independent
+mode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther; nor did the dame tarry
+for farther question, but marched out at the door, telling the eldest of
+the boys "to sit up till her return, and look to the house the whilst."
+
+The night was dark and rainy, and although the distance betwixt the two
+shops was short, it allowed Dame Ursley leisure enough, while she strode
+along with high-tucked petticoats, to embitter it by the following
+grumbling reflections--"I wonder what I have done, that I must needs
+trudge at every old beldam's bidding, and every young minx's maggot!
+I have been marched from Temple Bar to Whitechapel, on the matter of a
+pinmaker's wife having pricked her fingers--marry, her husband that made
+the weapon might have salved the wound.--And here is this fantastic ape,
+pretty Mistress Marget, forsooth--such a beauty as I could make of a
+Dutch doll, and as fantastic, and humorous, and conceited, as if she
+were a duchess. I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a
+marmozet and as stubborn as a mule. I should like to know whether
+her little conceited noddle, or her father's old crazy calculating
+jolter-pate, breeds most whimsies. But then there's that two hundred
+pounds a-year in dirty land, and the father is held a close chuff,
+though a fanciful--he is our landlord besides, and she has begged a
+late day from him for our rent; so, God help me, I must be
+comfortable--besides, the little capricious devil is my only key to get
+at Master George Heriot's secret, and it concerns my character to find
+that out; and so, ANDIAMOS, as the lingua franca hath it."
+
+Thus pondering, she moved forward with hasty strides until she arrived
+at the watchmaker's habitation. The attendant admitted them by means of
+a pass-key. Onward glided Dame Ursula, now in glimmer and now in gloom,
+not like the lovely Lady Cristabelle through Gothic sculpture and
+ancient armour, but creeping and stumbling amongst relics of old
+machines, and models of new inventions in various branches of
+mechanics with which wrecks of useless ingenuity, either in a broken
+or half-finished shape, the apartment of the fanciful though ingenious
+mechanist was continually lumbered.
+
+At length they attained, by a very narrow staircase, pretty Mistress
+Margaret's apartment, where she, the cynosure of the eyes of every bold
+young bachelor in Fleet Street, sat in a posture which hovered between
+the discontented and the disconsolate. For her pretty back and shoulders
+were rounded into a curve, her round and dimpled chin reposed in the
+hollow of her little palm, while the fingers were folded over her mouth;
+her elbow rested on a table, and her eyes seemed fixed upon the dying
+charcoal, which was expiring in a small grate. She scarce turned her
+head when Dame Ursula entered, and when the presence of that estimable
+matron was more precisely announced in words by the old Scotswoman,
+Mistress Margaret, without changing her posture, muttered some sort of
+answer that was wholly unintelligible.
+
+"Go your ways down to the kitchen with Wilsa, good Mistress Jenny," said
+Dame Ursula, who was used to all sorts of freaks, on the part of her
+patients or clients, whichever they might be termed; "put the stewpan
+and the porringer by the fireside, and go down below--I must speak to my
+pretty love, Mistress Margaret, by myself--and there is not a bachelor
+betwixt this and Bow but will envy me the privilege."
+
+The attendants retired as directed, and Dame Ursula, having availed
+herself of the embers of charcoal, to place her stewpan to the best
+advantage, drew herself as close as she could to her patient, and began
+in a low, soothing, and confidential tone of voice, to inquire what
+ailed her pretty flower of neighbours.
+
+"Nothing, dame," said Margaret somewhat pettishly, and changing her
+posture so as rather to turn her back upon the kind inquirer.
+
+"Nothing, lady-bird!" answered Dame Suddlechop; "and do you use to send
+for your friends out of bed at this hour for nothing?"
+
+"It was not I who sent for you, dame," replied the malecontent maiden.
+
+"And who was it, then?" said Ursula; "for if I had not been sent for, I
+had not been here at this time of night, I promise you!"
+
+"It was the old Scotch fool Jenny, who did it out of her own head, I
+suppose," said Margaret; "for she has been stunning me these two hours
+about you and Mother Redcap."
+
+"Me and Mother Redcap!" said Dame Ursula, "an old fool indeed, that
+couples folk up so.--But come, come, my sweet little neighbour, Jenny
+is no such fool after all; she knows young folks want more and better
+advice than her own, and she knows, too, where to find it for them; so
+you must take heart of grace, my pretty maiden, and tell me what you are
+moping about, and then let Dame Ursula alone for finding out a cure."
+
+"Nay, an ye be so wise, Mother Ursula," replied the girl, "you may guess
+what I ail without my telling you."
+
+"Ay, ay, child," answered the complaisant matron, "no one can play
+better than I at the good old game of What is my thought like? Now I'll
+warrant that little head of yours is running on a new head-tire, a foot
+higher than those our city dames wear--or you are all for a trip
+to Islington or Ware, and your father is cross and will not
+consent--or----"
+
+"Or you are an old fool, Dame Suddlechop," said Margaret, peevishly,
+"and must needs trouble yourself about matters you know nothing of."
+
+"Fool as much as you will, mistress," said Dame Ursula, offended in her
+turn, "but not so very many years older than yourself, mistress."
+
+"Oh! we are angry, are we?" said the beauty; "and pray, Madam Ursula,
+how come you, that are not so many years older than me, to talk about
+such nonsense to me, who am so many years younger, and who yet have too
+much sense to care about head-gears and Islington?"
+
+"Well, well, young mistress," said the sage counsellor, rising, "I
+perceive I can be of no use here; and methinks, since you know your own
+matters so much better than other people do, you might dispense with
+disturbing folks at midnight to ask their advice."
+
+"Why, now you are angry, mother," said Margaret, detaining her; "this
+comes of your coming out at eventide without eating your supper--I
+never heard you utter a cross word after you had finished your little
+morsel.--Here, Janet, a trencher and salt for Dame Ursula;--and what
+have you in that porringer, dame?--Filthy clammy ale, as I would
+live--Let Janet fling it out of the window, or keep it for my father's
+morning draught; and she shall bring you the pottle of sack that was set
+ready for him--good man, he will never find out the difference, for ale
+will wash down his dusty calculations quite as well as wine."
+
+"Truly, sweetheart, I am of your opinion," said Dame Ursula, whose
+temporary displeasure vanished at once before these preparations for
+good cheer; and so, settling herself on the great easy-chair, with
+a three-legged table before her, she began to dispatch, with good
+appetite, the little delicate dish which she had prepared for herself.
+She did not, however, fail in the duties of civility, and earnestly, but
+in vain, pressed Mistress Margaret to partake her dainties. The damsel
+declined the invitation.
+
+"At least pledge me in a glass of sack," said Dame Ursula; "I have heard
+my grandame say, that before the gospellers came in, the old Catholic
+father confessors and their penitents always had a cup of sack together
+before confession; and you are my penitent."
+
+"I shall drink no sack, I am sure," said Margaret; "and I told you
+before, that if you cannot find out what ails me, I shall never have the
+heart to tell it."
+
+So saying, she turned away from Dame Ursula once more, and resumed her
+musing posture, with her hand on her elbow, and her back, at least one
+shoulder, turned towards her confidant.
+
+"Nay, then," said Dame Ursula, "I must exert my skill in good
+earnest.--You must give me this pretty hand, and I will tell you by
+palmistry, as well as any gipsy of them all, what foot it is you halt
+upon."
+
+"As if I halted on any foot at all," said Margaret, something
+scornfully, but yielding her left hand to Ursula, and continuing at the
+same time her averted position.
+
+"I see brave lines here," said Ursula, "and not ill to read
+neither--pleasure and wealth, and merry nights and late mornings to my
+Beauty, and such an equipage as shall shake Whitehall. O, have I touched
+you there?--and smile you now, my pretty one?--for why should not he be
+Lord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, as others have done
+before him?"
+
+"Lord Mayor? pshaw!" replied Margaret.
+
+"And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or perhaps you pshaw at my
+prophecy; but there is a cross in every one's line of life as well as
+in yours, darling. And what though I see a 'prentice's flat cap in this
+pretty palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath not its
+match in the Ward of Farringdon-Without."
+
+"Whom do you mean, dame?" said Margaret coldly.
+
+"Whom should I mean," said Dame Ursula, "but the prince of 'prentices,
+and king of good company, Jenkin Vincent?"
+
+"Out, woman--Jenkin Vincent?--a clown--a Cockney!" exclaimed the
+indignant damsel.
+
+"Ay, sets the wind in that quarter, Beauty!" quoth the dame; "why, it
+has changed something since we spoke together last, for then I would
+have sworn it blew fairer for poor Jin Vin; and the poor lad dotes on
+you too, and would rather see your eyes than the first glimpse of the
+sun on the great holiday on May-day."
+
+"I would my eyes had the power of the sun to blind his, then," said
+Margaret, "to teach the drudge his place."
+
+"Nay," said Dame Ursula, "there be some who say that Frank Tunstall
+is as proper a lad as Jin Vin, and of surety he is third cousin to
+a knighthood, and come of a good house; and so mayhap you may be for
+northward ho!"
+
+"Maybe I may"--answered Margaret, "but not with my father's 'prentice--I
+thank you, Dame Ursula."
+
+"Nay, then, the devil may guess your thoughts for me," said Dame Ursula;
+"this comes of trying to shoe a filly that is eternally wincing and
+shifting ground!"
+
+"Hear me, then," said Margaret, "and mind what I say.--This day I dined
+abroad--"
+
+"I can tell you where," answered her counsellor,--"with your godfather
+the rich goldsmith--ay, you see I know something--nay, I could tell you,
+as I would, with whom, too."
+
+"Indeed!" said Margaret, turning suddenly round with an accent of strong
+surprise, and colouring up to the eyes.
+
+"With old Sir Mungo Malagrowther," said the oracular dame,--"he was
+trimmed in my Benjamin's shop in his way to the city."
+
+"Pshaw! the frightful old mouldy skeleton!" said the damsel.
+
+"Indeed you say true, my dear," replied the confidant,--"it is a shame
+to him to be out of Saint Pancras's charnel-house, for I know no
+other place he is fit for, the foul-mouthed old railer. He said to my
+husband--"
+
+"Somewhat which signifies nothing to our purpose, I dare say,"
+interrupted Margaret. "I must speak, then.--There dined with us a
+nobleman--"
+
+"A nobleman! the maiden's mad!" said Dame Ursula.
+
+"There dined with us, I say," continued Margaret, without regarding the
+interruption, "a nobleman--a Scottish nobleman."
+
+"Now Our Lady keep her!" said the confidant, "she is quite
+frantic!--heard ever any one of a watchmaker's daughter falling in love
+with a nobleman--and a Scots nobleman, to make the matter complete,
+who are all as proud as Lucifer, and as poor as Job?--A Scots nobleman,
+quotha? I had lief you told me of a Jew pedlar. I would have you think
+how all this is to end, pretty one, before you jump in the dark."
+
+"That is nothing to you, Ursula--it is your assistance," said Mistress
+Margaret, "and not your advice, that I am desirous to have, and you know
+I can make it worth your while."
+
+"O, it is not for the sake of lucre, Mistress Margaret," answered
+the obliging dame; "but truly I would have you listen to some
+advice--bethink you of your own condition."
+
+"My father's calling is mechanical," said Margaret, "but our blood is
+not so. I have heard my father say that we are descended, at a distance
+indeed, from the great Earls of Dalwolsey." [Footnote: The head of the
+ancient and distinguished house of Ramsay, and to whom, as their chief,
+the individuals of that name look as their origin and source of gentry.
+Allan Ramsay, the pastoral poet, in the same manner, makes
+
+    "Dalhousie of an auld descent,
+     My chief, my stoup, my ornament."]
+
+"Ay, ay," said Dame Ursula; "even so--I never knew a Scot of you but was
+descended, as ye call it, from some great house or other; and a piteous
+descent it often is--and as for the distance you speak of, it is so
+great as to put you out of sight of each other. Yet do not toss your
+pretty head so scornfully, but tell me the name of this lordly northern
+gallant, and we will try what can be done in the matter."
+
+"It is Lord Glenvarloch, whom they call Lord Nigel Olifaunt," said
+Margaret in a low voice, and turning away to hide her blushes.
+
+"Marry, Heaven forefend!" exclaimed Dame Suddlechop; "this is the very
+devil, and something worse!"
+
+"How mean you?" said the damsel, surprised at the vivacity of her
+exclamation.
+
+"Why, know ye not," said the dame, "what powerful enemies he has at
+Court? know ye not--But blisters on my tongue, it runs too fast for my
+wit--enough to say, that you had better make your bridal-bed under a
+falling house, than think of young Glenvarloch."
+
+"He IS unfortunate then?" said Margaret; "I knew it--I divined it--there
+was sorrow in his voice when he said even what was gay--there was a
+touch of misfortune in his melancholy smile--he had not thus clung to my
+thoughts had I seen him in all the mid-day glare of prosperity."
+
+"Romances have cracked her brain!" said Dame Ursula; "she is a castaway
+girl--utterly distraught--loves a Scots lord--and likes him the better
+for being unfortunate! Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I
+cannot aid you in--it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair
+above my condition, and beyond my management;--but I will keep your
+counsel."
+
+"You will not be so base as to desert me, after having drawn my secret
+from me?" said Margaret, indignantly; "if you do, I know how to have my
+revenge; and if you do not, I will reward you well. Remember the house
+your husband dwells in is my father's property."
+
+"I remember it but too well, Mistress Margaret," said Ursula, after
+a moment's reflection, "and I would serve you in any thing in my
+condition; but to meddle with such high matters--I shall never forget
+poor Mistress Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her!--she had
+the ill-luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset and Overbury, and so
+the great earl and his lady slipt their necks out of the collar, and
+left her and some half-dozen others to suffer in their stead. I shall
+never forget the sight of her standing on the scaffold with the ruff
+round her pretty neck, all done up with the yellow starch which I had so
+often helped her to make, and that was so soon to give place to a rough
+hempen cord. Such a sight, sweetheart, will make one loath to meddle
+with matters that are too hot or heavy for their handling."
+
+"Out, you fool!" answered Mistress Margaret; "am I one to speak to you
+about such criminal practices as that wretch died for? All I desire of
+you is, to get me precise knowledge of what affair brings this young
+nobleman to Court."
+
+"And when you have his secret," said Ursula, "what will it avail you,
+sweetheart?--and yet I would do your errand, if you could do as much for
+me."
+
+"And what is it you would have of me?" said Mistress Margaret.
+
+"What you have been angry with me for asking before," answered Dame
+Ursula. "I want to have some light about the story of your godfather's
+ghost, that is only seen at prayers."
+
+"Not for the world," said Mistress Margaret, "will I be a spy on my kind
+godfather's secrets--No, Ursula--that I will never pry into, which he
+desires to keep hidden. But thou knowest that I have a fortune, of my
+own, which must at no distant day come under my own management--think of
+some other recompense."
+
+"Ay, that I well know," said the counsellor--"it is that two hundred
+per year, with your father's indulgence, that makes you so wilful,
+sweetheart."
+
+"It may be so,"--said Margaret Ramsay; "meanwhile, do you serve me
+truly, and here is a ring of value in pledge, that when my fortune is in
+my own hand, I will redeem the token with fifty broad pieces of gold."
+
+"Fifty broad pieces of gold!" repeated the dame; "and this ring,
+which is a right fair one, in token you fail not of your word!--Well,
+sweetheart, if I must put my throat in peril, I am sure I cannot risk it
+for a friend more generous than you; and I would not think of more than
+the pleasure of serving you, only Benjamin gets more idle every day, and
+our family----"
+
+"Say no more of it," said Margaret; "we understand each other. And now,
+tell me what you know of this young man's affairs, which made you so
+unwilling to meddle with them?"
+
+"Of that I can say no great matter as yet," answered Dame Ursula; "only
+I know, the most powerful among his own countrymen are against him, and
+also the most powerful at the Court here. But I will learn more of it;
+for it will be a dim print that I will not read for your sake, pretty
+Mistress Margaret. Know you where this gallant dwells?"
+
+"I heard by accident," said Margaret, as if ashamed of the minute
+particularity of her memory upon such an occasion,--"he lodges,
+I think--at one Christie's--if I mistake not--at Paul's Wharf--a
+ship-chandler's."
+
+"A proper lodging for a young baron!--Well, but cheer you up, Mistress
+Margaret--If he has come up a caterpillar, like some of his countrymen,
+he may cast his slough like them, and come out a butterfly.--So I drink
+good-night, and sweet dreams to you, in another parting cup of sack;
+and you shall hear tidings of me within four-and-twenty hours. And, once
+more, I commend you to your pillow, my pearl of pearls, and Marguerite
+of Marguerites!"
+
+So saying, she kissed the reluctant cheek of her young friend, or
+patroness, and took her departure with the light and stealthy pace of
+one accustomed to accommodate her footsteps to the purposes of dispatch
+and secrecy.
+
+Margaret Ramsay looked after her for some time, in anxious silence. "I
+did ill," she at length murmured, "to let her wring this out of me; but
+she is artful, bold and serviceable--and I think faithful--or, if not,
+she will be true at least to her interest, and that I can command. I
+would I had not spoken, however--I have begun a hopeless work. For what
+has he said to me, to warrant my meddling in his fortunes?--Nothing but
+words of the most ordinary import--mere table-talk, and terms of course.
+Yet who knows"--she said, and then broke off, looking at the glass the
+while, which, as it reflected back a face of great beauty, probably
+suggested to her mind a more favourable conclusion of the sentence than
+she cared to trust her tongue withal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+  So pitiful a thing is suitor's state!
+  Most miserable man, whom wicked fate
+  Hath brought to Court to sue, for _had I wist_,
+  That few have found, and many a one hath miss'd!
+  Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
+  What hell it is, in sueing long to bide:
+  To lose good days that might be better spent;
+  To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
+  To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
+  To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
+  To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peers';
+  To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
+  To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares--
+  To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs.
+  To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+  To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
+                          _Mother Hubbard's Tale._
+
+On the morning of the day on which George Heriot had prepared to escort
+the young Lord of Glenvarloch to the Court at Whitehall, it may be
+reasonably supposed, that the young man, whose fortunes were likely to
+depend on this cast, felt himself more than usually anxious. He rose
+early, made his toilette with uncommon care, and, being enabled, by the
+generosity of his more plebeian countryman, to set out a very handsome
+person to the best advantage, he obtained a momentary approbation from
+himself as he glanced at the mirror, and a loud and distinct plaudit
+from his landlady, who declared at once, that, in her judgment, he would
+take the wind out of the sail of every gallant in the presence--so much
+had she been able to enrich her discourse with the metaphors of those
+with whom her husband dealt.
+
+At the appointed hour, the barge of Master George Heriot arrived,
+handsomely manned and appointed, having a tilt, with his own cipher, and
+the arms of his company, painted thereupon.
+
+The young Lord of Glenvarloch received the friend, who had evinced such
+disinterested attachment, with the kind courtesy which well became him.
+
+Master Heriot then made him acquainted with the bounty of his sovereign;
+which he paid over to his young friend, declining what he had himself
+formerly advanced to him. Nigel felt all the gratitude which the
+citizen's disinterested friendship had deserved, and was not wanting in
+expressing it suitably.
+
+Yet, as the young and high-born nobleman embarked to go to the
+presence of his prince, under the patronage of one whose best, or most
+distinguished qualification, was his being an eminent member of the
+Goldsmiths' Incorporation, he felt a little surprised, if not abashed,
+at his own situation; and Richie Moniplies, as he stepped over
+the gangway to take his place forward in the boat, could not help
+muttering,--"It was a changed day betwixt Master Heriot and his honest
+father in the Kraemes;--but, doubtless, there was a difference between
+clinking on gold and silver, and clattering upon pewter."
+
+On they glided, by the assistance of the oars of four stout watermen,
+along the Thames, which then served for the principal high-road betwixt
+London and Westminster; for few ventured on horseback through the narrow
+and crowded streets of the city, and coaches were then a luxury reserved
+only for the higher nobility, and to which no citizen, whatever was his
+wealth, presumed to aspire. The beauty of the banks, especially on the
+northern side, where the gardens of the nobility descended from their
+hotels, in many places, down to the water's edge, was pointed out to
+Nigel by his kind conductor, and was pointed out in vain. The mind of
+the young Lord of Glenvarloch was filled with anticipations, not the
+most pleasant, concerning the manner in which he was likely to be
+received by that monarch, in whose behalf his family had been nearly
+reduced to ruin; and he was, with the usual mental anxiety of those
+in such a situation, framing imaginary questions from the king, and
+over-toiling his spirit in devising answers to them.
+
+His conductor saw the labour of Nigel's mind, and avoided increasing it
+by farther conversation; so that, when he had explained to him briefly
+the ceremonies observed at Court on such occasions of presentation, the
+rest of their voyage was performed in silence.
+
+They landed at Whitehall Stairs, and entered the Palace after announcing
+their names,--the guards paying to Lord Glenvarloch the respect and
+honours due to his rank.
+
+The young man's heart beat high and thick within him as he came into the
+royal apartments. His education abroad, conducted, as it had been, on
+a narrow and limited scale, had given him but imperfect ideas of the
+grandeur of a Court; and the philosophical reflections which taught him
+to set ceremonial and exterior splendour at defiance, proved, like other
+maxims of mere philosophy, ineffectual, at the moment they were weighed
+against the impression naturally made on the mind of an inexperienced
+youth, by the unusual magnificence of the scene. The splendid apartments
+through which they passed, the rich apparel of the grooms, guards, and
+ apartments, had something in it, trifling and commonplace as it might
+appear to practised courtiers, embarrassing, and even alarming, to one,
+who went through these forms for the first time, and who was doubtful
+what sort of reception was to accompany his first appearance before his
+sovereign.
+
+Heriot, in anxious attention to save his young friend from any momentary
+awkwardness, had taken care to give the necessary password to the
+warders, grooms of the chambers, ushers, or by whatever name they were
+designated; so they passed on without interruption.
+
+In this manner they passed several ante-rooms, filled chiefly with
+guards, attendants of the Court, and their acquaintances, male and
+female, who, dressed in their best apparel, and with eyes rounded by
+eager curiosity to make the most of their opportunity, stood, with
+beseeming modesty, ranked against the wall, in a manner which indicated
+that they were spectators, not performers, in the courtly exhibition.
+
+Through these exterior apartments Lord Glenvarloch and his city friend
+advanced into a large and splendid withdrawing-room, communicating with
+the presence-chamber, into which ante-room were admitted those only who,
+from birth, their posts in the state or household, or by the particular
+grant of the kings, had right to attend the Court, as men entitled to
+pay their respects to their sovereign.
+
+Amid this favoured and selected company, Nigel observed Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther, who, avoided and discountenanced by those who knew how
+low he stood in Court interest and favour, was but too happy in the
+opportunity of hooking himself upon a person of Lord Glenvarloch's rank,
+who was, as yet, so inexperienced as to feel it difficult to shake off
+an intruder.
+
+The knight forthwith framed his grim features to a ghastly smile, and,
+after a preliminary and patronising nod to George Heriot, accompanied
+with an aristocratic wave of the hand, which intimated at once
+superiority and protection, he laid aside altogether the honest citizen,
+to whom he owed many a dinner, to attach himself exclusively to the
+young lord, although he suspected he might be occasionally in the
+predicament of needing one as much as himself. And even the notice
+of this original, singular and unamiable as he was, was not entirely
+indifferent to Lord Glenvarloch, since the absolute and somewhat
+constrained silence of his good friend Heriot, which left him at liberty
+to retire painfully to his own agitating reflections, was now relieved;
+while, on the other hand, he could not help feeling interest in the
+sharp and sarcastic information poured upon him by an observant, though
+discontented courtier, to whom a patient auditor, and he a man of
+title and rank, was as much a prize, as his acute and communicative
+disposition rendered him an entertaining companion to Nigel Olifaunt.
+Heriot, in the meantime, neglected by Sir Mungo, and avoiding every
+attempt by which the grateful politeness of Lord Glenvarloch strove to
+bring him into the conversation, stood by, with a kind of half smile on
+his countenance; but whether excited by Sir Mungo's wit, or arising at
+his expense, did not exactly appear.
+
+In the meantime, the trio occupied a nook of the ante-room, next to
+the door of the presence-chamber, which was not yet thrown open, when
+Maxwell, with his rod of office, came bustling into the apartment, where
+most men, excepting those of high rank, made way for him. He stopped
+beside the party in which we are interested, looked for a moment at
+the young Scots nobleman, then made a slight obeisance to Heriot, and
+lastly, addressing Sir Mungo Malagrowther, began a hurried complaint
+to him of the misbehaviour of the gentlemen-pensioners and warders, who
+suffered all sort of citizens, suitors, and scriveners, to sneak into
+the outer apartments, without either respect or decency.--"The English,"
+he said, "were scandalised, for such a thing durst not be attempted in
+the queen's days. In her time, there was then the court-yard for the
+mobility, and the apartments for the nobility; and it reflects on your
+place, Sir Mungo," he added, "belonging to the household as you do, that
+such things should not be better ordered."
+
+Here Sir Mungo, afflicted, as was frequently the case on such occasions,
+with one of his usual fits of deafness, answered, "It was no wonder
+the mobility used freedoms, when those whom they saw in office were so
+little better in blood and havings than themselves."
+
+"You are right, sir--quite right," said Maxwell, putting his hand on the
+tarnished embroidery on the old knight's sleeve,--"when such fellows see
+men in office dressed in cast-off suits, like paltry stage-players, it
+is no wonder the Court is thronged with intruders."
+
+"Were you lauding the taste of my embroidery, Maister Maxwell?" answered
+the knight, who apparently interpreted the deputy-chamberlain's meaning
+rather from his action than his words;--"it is of an ancient and liberal
+pattern, having been made by your mother's father, auld James Stitchell,
+a master-fashioner of honest repute, in Merlin's Wynd, whom I made
+a point to employ, as I am now happy to remember, seeing your father
+thought fit to intermarry with sic a person's daughter."
+
+Maxwell looked stern; but, conscious there was nothing to be got of Sir
+Mungo in the way of amends, and that prosecuting the quarrel with
+such an adversary would only render him ridiculous, and make public
+a mis-alliance of which he had no reason to be proud, he covered his
+resentment with a sneer; and, expressing his regret that Sir Mungo was
+become too deaf to understand or attend to what was said to him,
+walked on, and planted himself beside the folding-doors of
+the presence-chamber, at which he was to perform the duty of
+deputy-chamberlain, or usher, so soon as they should be opened.
+
+"The door of the presence is about to open," said the goldsmith, in a
+whisper, to his young friend; "my condition permits me to go no farther
+with you. Fail not to present yourself boldly, according to your birth,
+and offer your Supplication; which the king will not refuse to accept,
+and, as I hope, to consider favourably."
+
+As he spoke, the door of the presence-chamber opened accordingly, and,
+as is usual on such occasions, the courtiers began to advance towards
+it, and to enter in a slow, but continuous and uninterrupted stream.
+
+As Nigel presented himself in his turn at the entrance, and mentioned
+his name and title, Maxwell seemed to hesitate. "You are not known
+to any one," he said. "It is my duty to suffer no one to pass to the
+presence, my lord, whose face is unknown to me, unless upon the word of
+a responsible person."
+
+"I came with Master George Heriot," said Nigel, in some embarrassment at
+this unexpected interruption.
+
+"Master Heriot's name will pass current for much gold and silver, my
+lord," replied Maxwell, with a civil sneer, "but not for birth and
+rank. I am compelled by my office to be peremptory.--The entrance is
+impeded--I am much concerned to say it--your lordship must stand back."
+
+"What is the matter?" said an old Scottish nobleman, who had been
+speaking with George Heriot, after he had separated from Nigel, and
+who now came forward, observing the altercation betwixt the latter and
+Maxwell.
+
+"It is only Master Deputy-Chamberlain Maxwell," said Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther, "expressing his joy to see Lord Glenvarloch at Court,
+whose father gave him his office--at least I think he is speaking to
+that purport--for your lordship kens my imperfection." A subdued laugh,
+such as the situation permitted, passed round amongst those who heard
+this specimen of Sir Mungo's sarcastic temper. But the old nobleman
+stepped still more forward, saying,--"What!--the son of my gallant
+old opponent, Ochtred Olifaunt--I will introduce him to the presence
+myself."
+
+So saying, he took Nigel by the arm, without farther ceremony, and was
+about to lead him forward, when Maxwell, still keeping his rod across
+the door, said, but with hesitation and embarrassment--"My lord, this
+gentleman is not known, and I have orders to be scrupulous."
+
+"Tutti--taiti, man," said the old lord, "I will be answerable he is his
+father's son, from the cut of his eyebrow--and thou, Maxwell, knewest
+his father well enough to have spared thy scruples. Let us pass, man."
+So saying, he put aside the deputy-chamberlain's rod, and entered the
+presence-room, still holding the young nobleman by the arm.
+
+"Why, I must know you, man," he said; "I must know you. I knew your
+father well, man, and I have broke a lance and crossed a blade with him;
+and it is to my credit that I am living to brag of it. He was king's-man
+and I was queen's-man during the Douglas wars--young fellows both,
+that feared neither fire nor steel; and we had some old feudal quarrels
+besides, that had come down from father to son, with our seal-rings,
+two-harided broad-swords, and plate-coats, and the crests on our
+burgonets."
+
+"Too loud, my Lord of Huntinglen," whispered a gentleman of the
+chamber,--"The King!--the King!"
+
+The old earl (for such he proved) took the hint, and was silent;
+and James, advancing from a side-door, received in succession the
+compliments of strangers, while a little group of favourite courtiers,
+or officers of the household, stood around him, to whom he addressed
+himself from time to time. Some more pains had been bestowed on his
+toilette than upon the occasion when we first presented the monarch to
+our readers; but there was a natural awkwardness about his figure which
+prevented his clothes from sitting handsomely, and the prudence or
+timidity of his disposition had made him adopt the custom already
+noticed, of wearing a dress so thickly quilted as might withstand the
+stroke of a dagger, which added an ungainly stiffness to his whole
+appearance, contrasting oddly with the frivolous, ungraceful, and
+fidgeting motions with which he accompanied his conversation. And yet,
+though the king's deportment was very undignified, he had a manner so
+kind, familiar, and good-humoured, was so little apt to veil over or
+conceal his own foibles, and had so much indulgence and sympathy for
+those of others, that his address, joined to his learning, and a
+certain proportion of shrewd mother-wit, failed not to make a favourable
+impression on those who approached his person.
+
+When the Earl of Huntinglen had presented Nigel to his sovereign, a
+ceremony which the good peer took upon himself, the king received the
+young lord very graciously, and observed to his introducer, that he
+"was fain to see them twa stand side by side; for I trow, my Lord
+Huntinglen," continued he, "your ancestors, ay, and e'en your lordship's
+self and this lad's father, have stood front to front at the sword's
+point, and that is a worse posture."
+
+"Until your Majesty," said Lord Huntinglen, "made Lord Ochtred and me
+cross palms, upon the memorable day when your Majesty feasted all the
+nobles that were at feud together, and made them join hands in your
+presence--"
+
+"I mind it weel," said the king; "I mind it weel--it was a blessed day,
+being the nineteen of September, of all days in the year--and it was a
+blithe sport to see how some of the carles girned as they clapped loofs
+together. By my saul, I thought some of them, mair special the Hieland
+chiels, wad have broken out in our own presence; but we caused them to
+march hand in hand to the Cross, ourselves leading the way, and there
+drink a blithe cup of kindness with ilk other, to the stanching of feud,
+and perpetuation of amity. Auld John Anderson was Provost that year--the
+carle grat for joy, and the bailies and councillors danced bare-headed
+in our presence like five-year-auld colts, for very triumph."
+
+"It was indeed a happy day," said Lord Huntinglen, "and will not be
+forgotten in the history of your Majesty's reign."
+
+"I would not that it were, my lord," replied the monarch--"I would not
+that it were pretermitted in our annals. Ay, ay--BEATI PACIFICI. My
+English lieges here may weel make much of me, for I would have them
+to know, they have gotten the only peaceable man that ever came of my
+family. If James with the Fiery Face had come amongst you," he said,
+looking round him, "or my great grandsire, of Flodden memory!"
+
+"We should have sent him back to the north again," whispered one English
+nobleman.
+
+"At least," said another, in the same inaudible tone, "we should have
+had a MAN to our sovereign, though he were but a Scotsman."
+
+"And now, my young springald," said the king to Lord Glenvarloch, "where
+have you been spending your calf-time?"
+
+"At Leyden, of late, may it please your Majesty," answered Lord Nigel.
+
+"Aha! a scholar," said the king; "and, by my saul, a modest and
+ingenuous youth, that hath not forgotten how to blush, like most of our
+travelled Monsieurs. We will treat him conformably."
+
+Then drawing himself up, coughing slightly, and looking around him with
+the conscious importance of superior learning, while all the courtiers
+who understood, or understood not, Latin, pressed eagerly forward to
+listen, the sapient monarch prosecuted his inquiries as follows:--
+
+"Hem! hem! _salve bis, quaterque salve, glenvarlochides noster!
+Nuperumne ab lugduno batavorum britanniam rediisti?_"
+
+The young nobleman replied, bowing low--
+
+"_Imo, rex augustissime--biennium fere apud lugdunenses Moratus sum._"
+
+James proceeded--
+
+"_Biennium dicis? Bene, bene, optume factum est--non uno Die, quod
+dicunt,--intelligisti, domine glenvarlochiensis?_ Aha!"
+
+Nigel replied by a reverent bow, and the king, turning to those behind
+him, said--
+
+"_Adolescens quidem ingenui vultus ingenuique pudoris._" Then resumed
+his learned queries. "_Et quid hodie lugdunenses loquuntur--vossius
+vester nihilne novi scripsit?--nihil certe, quod doleo, typis recenter
+editit_."
+
+"_Valet quidem vossius, rex benevole._" replied Nigel, "_ast senex
+veneratissimus annum agit, ni fallor, septuagesimum._"
+
+"_Virum, mehercle, vix tam grandaevum crediderim_," replied the
+monarch. "_et vorstius iste?--arminii improbi successor aeque ac
+sectator--herosne adhuc, ut cum homero loquar_, [ZOOS ESTI KAI EPI THONI
+DERKOV]?" text in Greek
+
+Nigel, by good fortune, remembered that Vorstius, the divine last
+mentioned in his Majesty's queries about the state of Dutch literature,
+had been engaged in a personal controversy with James, in which the
+king had taken so deep an interest, as at length to hint in his public
+correspondence with the United States, that they would do well to apply
+the secular arm to stop the progress of heresy by violent measures
+against the Professor's person--a demand which their Mighty
+Mightinesses' principles of universal toleration induced them to elude,
+though with some difficulty. Knowing all this, Lord Glenvarloch, though
+a courtier of only five minutes' standing, had address enough to reply--
+
+"_Vivum quidem, haud diu est, hominem videbam--vigere autem quis dicat
+qui sub fulminibus eloquentiae tuae, rex magne, jamdudum pronus jacet,
+et prostratus?_"
+
+[Footnote: Lest any lady or gentleman should suspect there is aught of
+mystery concealed under the sentences printed in Italics, they will be
+pleased to understand that they contain only a few commonplace Latin
+phrases, relating to the state of letters in Holland, which neither
+deserve, nor would endure, a literal translation.]
+
+This last tribute to his polemical powers completed James's happiness,
+which the triumph of exhibiting his erudition had already raised to a
+considerable height.
+
+He rubbed his hands, snapped his fingers, fidgeted, chuckled,
+exclaimed--"_Euge! Belle! Optime!_" and turning to the Bishops of Exeter
+and Oxford, who stood behind him, he said.--"Ye see, my lords, no bad
+specimen of our Scottish Latinity, with which language we would all our
+subjects of England were as well embued as this, and other youths of
+honourable birth, in our auld kingdom; also, we keep the genuine and
+Roman pronunciation, like other learned nations on the continent, sae
+that we hold communing with any scholar in the universe, who can but
+speak the Latin tongue; whereas ye, our learned subjects of England,
+have introduced into your universities, otherwise most learned, a
+fashion of pronouncing like unto the 'nippit foot and clippit foot' of
+the bride in the fairy tale, whilk manner of speech, (take it not amiss
+that I be round with you) can be understood by no nation on earth saving
+yourselves; whereby Latin, _quoad anglos_, ceaseth to be _communis
+lingua_, the general dragoman, or interpreter, between all the wise men
+of the earth."
+
+The Bishop of Exeter bowed, as in acquiescence to the royal censure;
+but he of Oxford stood upright, as mindful over what subjects his see
+extended, and as being equally willing to become food for fagots in
+defence of the Latinity of the university, as for any article of his
+religious creed.
+
+The king, without awaiting an answer from either prelate, proceeded to
+question Lord Nigel, but in the vernacular tongue,--"Weel, my likely
+Alumnus of the Muses, and what make you so far from the north?"
+
+"To pay my homage to your Majesty," said the young nobleman, kneeling on
+one knee, "and to lay before you," he added, "this my humble and dutiful
+Supplication."
+
+The presenting of a pistol would certainly have startled King James
+more, but could (setting apart the fright) hardly have been more
+unpleasing to his indolent disposition.
+
+"And is it even so, man?" said he; "and can no single man, were it but
+for the rarity of the case, ever come up frae Scotland, excepting EX
+PROPOSITO--on set purpose, to see what he can make out of his loving
+sovereign? It is but three days syne that we had weel nigh lost our
+life, and put three kingdoms into dule-weeds, from the over haste of a
+clumsy-handed peasant, to thrust a packet into our hand, and now we are
+beset by the like impediment in our very Court. To our Secretary with
+that gear, my lord--to our Secretary with that gear."
+
+"I have already offered my humble Supplication to your Majesty's
+Secretary of State," said Lord Glenvarloch--"but it seems----"
+
+"That he would not receive it, I warrant?" said the king, interrupting
+him; "bu my saul, our Secretary kens that point of king-craft, called
+refusing, better than we do, and will look at nothing but what he
+likes himsell--I think I wad make a better Secretary to him than he to
+me.--Weel, my lord, you are welcome to London; and, as ye seem an acute
+and learned youth, I advise ye to turn your neb northward as soon as ye
+like, and settle yoursell for a while at Saint Andrews, and we will be
+right glad to hear that you prosper in your studies.--_Incumbite Remis
+Fortiter._"
+
+While the king spoke thus, he held the petition of the young lord
+carelessly, like one who only delayed till the supplicant's back was
+turned, to throw it away, or at least lay it aside to be no more looked
+at. The petitioner, who read this in his cold and indifferent looks, and
+in the manner in which he twisted and crumpled together the paper,
+arose with a bitter sense of anger and disappointment, made a profound
+obeisance, and was about to retire hastily. But Lord Huntinglen, who
+stood by him, checked his intention by an almost imperceptible touch
+upon the skirt of his cloak, and Nigel, taking the hint, retreated
+only a few steps from the royal presence, and then made a pause. In
+the meantime, Lord Huntinglen kneeled before James, in his turn, and
+said--"May it please your Majesty to remember, that upon one certain
+occasion you did promise to grant me a boon every year of your sacred
+life?"
+
+"I mind it weel, man," answered James, "I mind it weel, and good reason
+why--it was when you unclasped the fause traitor Ruthven's fangs
+from about our royal throat, and drove your dirk into him like a true
+subject. We did then, as you remind us, (whilk was unnecessary,) being
+partly beside ourselves with joy at our liberation, promise we would
+grant you a free boon every year; whilk promise, on our coming
+to menseful possession of our royal faculties, we did confirm,
+_restrictive_ always and _conditionaliter_, that your lordship's demand
+should be such as we, in our royal discretion, should think reasonable."
+
+"Even so, gracious sovereign," said the old earl, "and may I yet
+farther crave to know if I have ever exceeded the bounds of your royal
+benevolence?"
+
+"By my word, man, no!'" said the king; "I cannot remember you have asked
+much for yourself, if it be not a dog or a hawk, or a buck out of our
+park at Theobald's, or such like. But to what serves this preface?"
+
+"To the boon to which I am now to ask of your Grace," said Lord
+Huntinglen; "which is, that your Majesty would be pleased, on the
+instant, to look at the placet of Lord Glenvarloch, and do upon it
+what your own just and royal nature shall think meet and just, without
+reference to your Secretary or any other of your Council."
+
+"By my saul, my lord, this is strange," said the king; "ye are pleading
+for the son of your enemy!"
+
+"Of one who WAS my enemy till your Majesty made him my friend," answered
+Lord Huntinglen.
+
+"Weel spoken, my lord!" said the king; "and with, a true Christian
+spirit. And, respecting the Supplication of this young man, I partly
+guess where the matter lies; and in plain troth I had promised to George
+Heriot to be good to the lad--But then, here the shoe pinches. Steenie
+and Babie Charles cannot abide him--neither can your own son, my lord;
+and so, methinks, he had better go down to Scotland before he comes
+toill luck by them."
+
+"My son, an it please your Majesty, so far as he is concerned, shall not
+direct my doings," said the earl, "nor any wild-headed young man of them
+all."
+
+"Why, neither shall they mine," replied the monarch; "by my father's
+saul, none of them all shall play Rex with me--I will do what I will,
+and what I ought, like a free king."
+
+"Your Majesty will then grant me my boon?" said the Lord Huntinglen.
+
+"Ay, marry will I--marry will I," said the king; "but follow me this
+way, man, where we may be more private."
+
+He led Lord Huntinglen with rather a hurried step through the courtiers,
+all of whom gazed earnestly on this unwonted scene, as is the fashion of
+all Courts on similar occasions. The king passed into a little cabinet,
+and bade, in the first moment, Lord Huntinglen lock or bar the door; but
+countermanded his direction in the next, saying,--"No, no, no--bread o'
+life, man, I am a free king--will do what I will and what I should--I am
+_justus et tenax propositi_, man--nevertheless, keep by the door, Lord
+Huntinglen, in case Steenie should come in with his mad humour."
+
+"O my poor master!" groaned the Earl of Huntinglen. "When you were in
+your own cold country, you had warmer blood in your veins."
+
+The king hastily looked over the petition or memorial, every now and
+then glancing his eye towards the door, and then sinking it hastily
+on the paper, ashamed that Lord Huntinglen, whom he respected, should
+suspect him of timidity.
+
+"To grant the truth," he said, after he had finished his hasty perusal,
+"this is a hard case; and harder than it was represented to me, though I
+had some inkling of it before. And so the lad only wants payment of the
+siller due from us, in order to reclaim his paternal estate? But then,
+Huntinglen, the lad will have other debts--and why burden himsell with
+sae mony acres of barren woodland? let the land gang, man, let the land
+gang; Steenie has the promise of it from our Scottish Chancellor--it is
+the best hunting-ground in Scotland--and Babie Charles and Steenie want
+to kill a buck there this next year--they maun hae the land--they maun
+hae the land; and our debt shall be paid to the young man plack and
+bawbee, and he may have the spending of it at our Court; or if he has
+such an eard hunger, wouns! man, we'll stuff his stomach with English
+land, which is worth twice as much, ay, ten times as much, as these
+accursed hills and heughs, and mosses and muirs, that he is sae keen
+after."
+
+All this while the poor king ambled up and down the apartment in a
+piteous state of uncertainty, which was made more ridiculous by his
+shambling circular mode of managing his legs, and his ungainly fashion
+on such occasions of fiddling with the bunches of ribbons which fastened
+the lower part of his dress.
+
+Lord Huntinglen listened with great composure, and answered, "An it
+please your Majesty, there was an answer yielded by Naboth when
+Ahab coveted his vineyard--' The Lord forbid that I should give the
+inheritance of my fathers unto thee.'"
+
+"Ey, my lord--ey, my lord!" ejaculated James, while all the colour
+mounted both to his cheek and nose; "I hope ye mean not to teach me
+divinity? Ye need not fear, my lord, that I will shun to do justice to
+every man; and, since your lordship will give me no help to take up
+this in a more peaceful manner--whilk, methinks, would be better for the
+young man, as I said before,--why--since it maun be so--'sdeath, I am
+a free king, man, and he shall have his money and redeem his land, and
+make a kirk and a miln of it, an he will." So saying, he hastily wrote
+an order on the Scottish Exchequer for the sum in question, and then
+added, "How they are to pay it, I see not; but I warrant he will find
+money on the order among the goldsmiths, who can find it for every one
+but me.--And now you see, my Lord of Huntinglen, that I am neither an
+untrue man, to deny you the boon whilk I became bound for, nor an Ahab,
+to covet Naboth's vineyard; nor a mere nose-of-wax, to be twisted this
+way and that, by favourites and counsellors at their pleasure. I think
+you will grant now that I am none of those?"
+
+"You are my own native and noble prince," said Huntinglen, as he knelt
+to kiss the royal hand--"just and generous, whenever you listen to the
+workings of your own heart."
+
+"Ay, ay," said the king, laughing good-naturedly, as he raised his
+faithful servant from the ground, "that is what ye all say when I do any
+thing to please ye. There--there, take the sign-manual, and away with
+you and this young fellow. I wonder Steenie and Babie Charles have not
+broken in on us before now."
+
+Lord Huntinglen hastened from the cabinet, foreseeing a scene at which
+he was unwilling to be present, but which sometimes occurred when James
+roused himself so far as to exert his own free will, of which he boasted
+so much, in spite of that of his imperious favourite Steenie, as he
+called the Duke of Buckingham, from a supposed resemblance betwixt
+his very handsome countenance, and that with which the Italian artists
+represented the protomartyr Stephen. In fact, the haughty favourite,
+who had the unusual good fortune to stand as high in the opinion of the
+heir-apparent as of the existing monarch, had considerably diminished in
+his respect towards the latter; and it was apparent, to the more
+shrewd courtiers, that James endured his domination rather from habit,
+timidity, and a dread of encountering his stormy passions, than from any
+heartfelt continuation of regard towards him, whose greatness had been
+the work of his own hands. To save himself the pain of seeing what was
+likely to take place on the duke's return, and to preserve the king from
+the additional humiliation which the presence of such a witness must
+have occasioned, the earl left the cabinet as speedily as possible,
+having first carefully pocketed the important sign-manual.
+
+No sooner had he entered the presence-room, than he hastily sought Lord
+Glenvarloch, who had withdrawn into the embrasure of one of the windows,
+from the general gaze of men who seemed disposed only to afford him the
+notice which arises from surprise and curiosity, and, taking him by
+the arm, without speaking, led him out of the presence-chamber into the
+first ante-room. Here they found the worthy goldsmith, who approached
+them with looks of curiosity, which were checked by the old lord, who
+said hastily, "All is well.--Is your barge in waiting?" Heriot answered
+in the affirmative. "Then," said Lord Huntinglen, "you shall give me a
+cast in it, as the watermen say; and I, in requital, will give you both
+your dinner; for we must have some conversation together."
+
+They both followed the earl without speaking, and were in the second
+ante-room when the important annunciation of the ushers, and the hasty
+murmur with which all made ample way as the company repeated to each
+other,--"The Duke--the Duke!" made them aware of the approach of the
+omnipotent favourite.
+
+He entered, that unhappy minion of Court favour, sumptuously dressed
+in the picturesque attire which will live for ever on the canvas of
+Vandyke, and which marks so well the proud age, when aristocracy, though
+undermined and nodding to its fall, still, by external show and profuse
+expense, endeavoured to assert its paramount superiority over the
+inferior orders. The handsome and commanding countenance, stately form,
+and graceful action and manners of the Duke of Buckingham, made him
+become that picturesque dress beyond any man of his time. At present,
+however, his countenance seemed discomposed, his dress a little
+more disordered than became the place, his step hasty, and his voice
+imperative.
+
+All marked the angry spot upon his brow, and bore back so suddenly
+to make way for him, that the Earl of Huntinglen, who affected no
+extraordinary haste on the occasion, with his companions, who could not,
+if they would, have decently left him, remained as it were by themselves
+in the middle of the room, and in the very path of the angry favourite.
+He touched his cap sternly as he looked on Huntinglen, but unbonneted
+to Heriot, and sunk his beaver, with its shadowy plume, as low as the
+floor, with a profound air of mock respect. In returning his greeting,
+which he did simply and unaffectedly, the citizen only said,--"Too much
+courtesy, my lord duke, is often the reverse of kindness."
+
+"I grieve you should think so, Master Heriot," answered the duke; "I
+only meant, by my homage, to claim your protection, sir--your patronage.
+You are become, I understand, a solicitor of suits--a promoter--an
+undertaker--a fautor of court suitors of merit and quality, who chance
+to be pennyless. I trust your bags will bear you out in your new boast."
+
+"They will bear me the farther, my lord duke," answered the goldsmith,
+"that my boast is but small."
+
+"O, you do yourself less than justice, my good Master Heriot,"
+continued the duke, in the same tone of irony; "you have a marvellous
+court-faction, to be the son of an Edinburgh tinker. Have the goodness
+to prefer me to the knowledge of the high-born nobleman who is honoured
+and advantaged by your patronage."
+
+"That shall be my task," said Lord Huntinglen, with emphasis. "My
+lord duke, I desire you to know Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch,
+representative of one of the most ancient and powerful baronial houses
+in Scotland.--Lord Glenvarloch, I present you to his Grace the Duke of
+Buckingham, representative of Sir George Villiers, Knight of Brookesby,
+in the county of Leicester."
+
+The duke coloured still more high as he bowed to Lord Glenvarloch
+scornfully, a courtesy which the other returned haughtily, and with
+restrained indignation. "We know each other, then," said the duke, after
+a moment's pause; and as if he had seen something in the young nobleman
+which merited more serious notice than the bitter raillery with which he
+had commenced--"we know each other--and you know me, my lord, for your
+enemy."
+
+"I thank you for your plainness, my lord duke," replied Nigel; "an open
+enemy is better than a hollow friend."
+
+"For you, my Lord Huntinglen," said the duke, "methinks you have but now
+overstepped the limits of the indulgence permitted to you, as the father
+of the prince's friend, and my own."
+
+"By my word, my lord duke," replied the earl, "it is easy for any one
+to outstep boundaries, of the existence of which he was not aware. It is
+neither to secure my protection nor approbation, that my son keeps such
+exalted company."
+
+"O, my lord, we know you, and indulge you," said the duke; "you are one
+of those who presume for a life-long upon the merit of one good action."
+
+"In faith, my lord, and if it be so," said the old earl, "I have at
+least the advantage of such as presume more than I do, without having
+done any action of merit whatever. But I mean not to quarrel with you,
+my lord--we can neither be friends nor enemies--you have your path, and
+I have mine."
+
+Buckingham only replied by throwing on his bonnet, and shaking its lofty
+plume with a careless and scornful toss of the head. They parted thus;
+the duke walking onwards through the apartments, and the others leaving
+the Palace and repairing to Whitehall Stairs, where they embarked on
+board the barge of the citizen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+  Bid not thy fortune troll upon the wheels
+  Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone;
+  And drown it not, like Egypt's royal harlot,
+  Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm'd wine-cup.
+  These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres
+  Into brief yards--bring sterling pounds to farthings,
+  Credit to infamy; and the poor gull,
+  Who might have lived an honour'd, easy life,
+  To ruin, and an unregarded grave.
+              _The Changes._
+
+When they were fairly embarked on the Thames, the earl took from his
+pocket the Supplication, and, pointing out to George Heriot the royal
+warrant indorsed thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular form?
+The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand as if to
+congratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then checked himself, pulled out
+his barnacles, (a present from old David Ramsay,) and again perused
+the warrant with the most business-like and critical attention. "It
+is strictly correct and formal," he said, looking to the Earl of
+Huntinglen; "and I sincerely rejoice at it."
+
+"I doubt nothing of its formality," said the earl; "the king understands
+business well, and, if he does not practise it often, it is only because
+indolence obscures parts which are naturally well qualified for the
+discharge of affairs. But what is next to be done for our young friend,
+Master Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living at
+the English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless a sum can be
+presently raised on this warrant, matters standing as you hastily
+hinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or whatever it is called, will be
+foreclosed."
+
+"It is true," said Heriot, in some embarrassment; "there is a large sum
+wanted in redemption--yet, if it is not raised, there will be an expiry
+of the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted."
+
+"My noble--my worthy friends, who have taken up my cause so
+undeservedly, so unexpectedly," said Nigel, "do not let me be a burden
+on your kindness. You have already done too much where nothing was
+merited."
+
+"Peace, man, peace," said Lord Huntinglen, "and let old Heriot and I
+puzzle this scent out. He is about to open--hark to him!"
+
+"My lord," said the citizen, "the Duke of Buckingham sneers at our city
+money-bags; yet they can sometimes open, to prop a falling and a noble
+house."
+
+"We know they can," said Lord Huntinglen--"mind not Buckingham, he is a
+Peg-a-Ramsay--and now for the remedy."
+
+"I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already," said Heriot, "that the
+redemption money might be advanced upon such a warrant as the present,
+and I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure
+the lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom he
+advances payment."
+
+"Come in his shoes!" replied the earl; "why, what have boots or shoes to
+do with this matter, my good friend?"
+
+"It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few of
+them," said Heriot.
+
+"Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George," replied Lord
+Huntinglen; "but what means it?"
+
+"Simply this," resumed the citizen; "that the lender of this money will
+transact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the estate of
+Glenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his right as
+shall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant upon
+the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. I fear, in this
+uncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter security,
+it will be very difficult to find so large a sum."
+
+"Ho la!" said the Earl of Huntinglen, "halt there! a thought
+strikes me.--What if the new creditor should admire the estate as a
+hunting-field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and
+should wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to
+me, that on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as well
+entitled to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the present
+holder of the mortgage."
+
+The citizen laughed. "I will engage," he said, "that the keenest
+sportsman to whom I may apply on this occasion, shall not have a
+thought beyond the Lord Mayor's Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But your
+lordship's caution is reasonable. The creditor must be bound to allow
+Lord Glenvarloch sufficient time to redeem his estate by means of
+the royal warrant, and must wave in his favour the right of instant
+foreclosure, which may be, I should think, the more easily managed, as
+the right of redemption must be exercised in his own name."
+
+"But where shall we find a person in London fit to draw the necessary
+writings?" said the earl. "If my old friend Sir John Skene of Halyards
+had lived, we should have had his advice; but time presses, and--"
+
+"I know," said Heriot, "an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dwells by
+Temple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the English and Scottish
+fashion, and I have trusted him often in matters of weight and of
+importance. I will send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutual
+deeds may be executed in your lordship's presence; for, as things stand,
+there should be no delay." His lordship readily assented; and, as they
+now landed upon the private stairs leading down to the river from the
+gardens of the handsome hotel which he inhabited, the messenger was
+dispatched without loss of time.
+
+Nigel, who had sat almost stupefied while these zealous friends
+volunteered for him in arranging the measures by which his fortune was
+to be disembarrassed, now made another eager attempt to force upon
+them his broken expressions of thanks and gratitude. But he was again
+silenced by Lord Huntinglen, who declared he would not hear a word on
+that topic, and proposed instead, that they should take a turn in the
+pleached alley, or sit upon the stone bench which overlooked the Thames,
+until his son's arrival should give the signal for dinner.
+
+"I desire to introduce Dalgarno and Lord Glenvarloch to each other," he
+said, "as two who will be near neighbours, and I trust will be more kind
+ones than their fathers were formerly. There is but three Scots miles
+betwixt the castles, and the turrets of the one are visible from the
+battlements of the other."
+
+The old earl was silent for a moment, and appeared to muse upon the
+recollections which the vicinity of the castles had summoned up.
+
+"Does Lord Dalgarno follow the Court to Newmarket next week?" said
+Heriot, by way of removing the conversation.
+
+"He proposes so, I think," answered Lord Huntinglen, relapsed into
+his reverie for a minute or two, and then addressed Nigel somewhat
+abruptly--
+
+"My young friend, when you attain possession of your inheritance, as I
+hope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers
+of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your
+ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor
+against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with
+fewer lights and with less means than we have."
+
+"And yet the advice to keep the country," said Heriot, "comes from an
+ancient and constant ornament of the Court."
+
+"From an old courtier, indeed," said the earl, "and the first of my
+family that could so write himself--my grey beard falls on a cambric
+ruff and a silken doublet--my father's descended upon a buff coat and
+a breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I
+should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once
+more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone-arched
+hall return the hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the bicker
+and the quaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I should like to see
+the broad Tay once more before I die--not even the Thames can match it,
+in my mind."
+
+"Surely, my lord," said the citizen, "all this might be easily done--it
+costs but a moment's resolution, and the journey of some brief days, and
+you will be where you desire to be--what is there to prevent you?"
+
+"Habits, Master George, habits," replied the earl, "which to young men
+are like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken; but
+which hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves of
+iron. To go to Scotland for a brief space were but labour in vain; and
+when I think of abiding there, I cannot bring myself to leave my old
+master, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful, and whose weal and
+woe I have shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scottish
+noble."
+
+"Has he visited the North?" said Heriot.
+
+"He was there last year and made such a report of the country, that the
+prince has expressed a longing to see it."
+
+"Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his Highness and the Duke of
+Buckingham?" observed the goldsmith.
+
+"He is so," answered the earl,--"I pray it may be for the advantage of
+them all. The prince is just and equitable in his sentiments, though
+cold and stately in his manners, and very obstinate in his most trifling
+purposes; and the duke, noble and gallant, and generous and open, is
+fiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno has none of these faults,
+and such as he may have of his own, may perchance be corrected by the
+society in which he moves.--See, here he comes."
+
+Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley to
+the bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that Nigel
+had full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was dressed
+point-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of the
+time, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty,
+with a noble form and fine countenance, in which last could easily be
+traced the manly features of his father, but softened by a more
+habitual air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had ever
+condescended to assume towards the world in general. In other respects,
+his address was gallant, free, and unencumbered either by pride or
+ceremony--far remote certainly from the charge either of haughty
+coldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly freed
+him from the marked faults which he ascribed to the manners of the
+prince and his favourite Buckingham.
+
+While the old earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch to
+his son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked the
+countenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aught
+of that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his broken
+expostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clashing of
+interests betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothing
+of this was visible; on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his new
+acquaintance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes conquest
+at once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous young man.
+
+It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equally
+ready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months, and
+while a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained by
+circumstances from the conversation of his equals. When, on his father's
+sudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had found
+himself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with the details
+of the law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of the
+patrimony which should support his hereditary rank. His term of sincere
+mourning, joined to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart under
+unexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty
+attending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young Lord of
+Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reserved
+manner. How he had passed his time in London, the reader is acquainted
+with. But this melancholy and secluded course of life was neither
+agreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was genial and sociable.
+He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the approaches which a
+young man of his own age and rank made towards him; and when he had
+exchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by which,
+as surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognise a mutual
+wish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two noblemen had
+been acquainted for some time.
+
+Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of Lord
+Huntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards a
+man dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed,
+considering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, he
+kept his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that he
+came in sight of the company to which he was about to be presented.
+
+"Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old lord, who had retained
+the keen appetite and impatience of a Scottish baron even during a long
+alienation from his native country; "and why does John Cook, with a
+murrain to him, keep back dinner?"
+
+"I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion,"
+said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.--Look
+up, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of
+beating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram."
+
+The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action of an automaton
+which suddenly obeys the impulse of a pressed spring. But, strange to
+tell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron's mandate,
+a business, as Master Heriot's message expressed, of weight and
+importance--nay not even the state of depression in which, out of sheer
+humility, doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from the
+moment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had called
+any colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow from haste
+and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before;
+nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hung
+down on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was
+when we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet and
+humble desk.
+
+Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous and
+puritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to the
+company, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch's ear--
+
+     "The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,
+      Where got'st thou that goose-look?"
+
+Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage to understand a
+quotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London.
+Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, "That
+fellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most hypocritical
+rogue--and such is my excellent opinion of human nature, that I always
+suspect the worst. But they seem deep in business. Will you take a
+turn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member of the
+serious conclave?"
+
+"With you, my lord, most willingly," said Nigel; and they were turning
+away accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belonging
+to his station, observed, that, "as their business concerned Lord
+Glenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, and
+witness to it."
+
+"My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, my best friend,
+Master Heriot," said the young nobleman, "I shall understand nothing
+the better for cumbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and can
+only say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare not take
+the helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already guided
+my course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven. Whatever you
+recommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the import of the
+deeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation from Master Heriot, if
+he will bestow so much trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learned
+words and law terms from this person of skill."
+
+"He is right," said Lord Huntinglen; "our young friend is right, in
+confiding these matters to you and me, Master George Heriot--he has not
+misplaced his confidence."
+
+Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two young noblemen, who
+had now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, "He hath
+not, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and truly
+says--but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it behoves
+every man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon as he hath
+any that are worth attending to."
+
+When he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with the
+scrivener, to look into various papers, and to direct in what manner
+writings should be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient security
+to those who were to advance the money, and at the same time preserve
+the right of the young nobleman to redeem the family estate, provided he
+should obtain the means of doing so, by the expected reimbursement from
+the Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is needless to enter into those
+details. But it is not unimportant to mention, as an illustration of
+character, that Heriot went into the most minute legal details with a
+precision which showed that experience had made him master even of the
+intricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the Earl of Huntinglen,
+though far less acquainted with technical detail, suffered no step of
+the business to pass over, until he had attained a general but distinct
+idea of its import and its propriety.
+
+They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevolent intentions
+towards the young Lord Glenvarloch, by the skill and eager zeal of the
+scrivener, whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of business, the
+most important which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and the
+particulars of which were moreover agitated in his presence between an
+actual earl, and one whose wealth and character might entitle him to be
+an alderman of his ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn.
+
+While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earl
+even forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, in
+his anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions, and
+that all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him to
+engross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on the
+terrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which Lord
+Dalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most likely to
+interest his new friend.
+
+These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and Lord
+Dalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel proposed an
+instant return to Scotland.
+
+"You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings--it is needless
+to mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit--against the
+highest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall.
+Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you--ask each other,
+who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so far in a single day?
+They augur, in whispers to each other, how high and how far you may push
+your fortune--and all that you design to make of it, is, to return to
+Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your hand
+shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin,
+though your relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale,
+eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon a
+galloway, and be called my right honourable and maist worthy lord!"
+
+"There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said
+Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should
+succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet
+I trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me, and to
+teach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personal
+sacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity the
+situation in which they are placed by Providence."
+
+Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter during
+this speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty and
+so resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel
+along with him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to join
+in a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but almost
+impertinent.
+
+He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a tone qualified to
+allay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth: "This is all well, my lord; but how
+am I to understand your merriment?" Lord Dalgarno only answered him with
+redoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord Glenvarloch's
+cloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground, in the extremity
+of his convulsion.
+
+At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half angry, at becoming thus
+the subject of his new acquaintance's ridicule, and was only restrained
+from expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense of the
+obligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno recovered himself, and
+spoke in a half-broken voice, his eyes still running with tears: "I
+crave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch--ten thousand times do I
+crave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, accompanied
+by your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what would have made
+any court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon once
+from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame me. Why, my liefest
+and dearest lord, you, a young and handsome fellow, with high birth, a
+title, and the name of an estate, so well received by the king at your
+first starting, as makes your further progress scarce matter of doubt,
+if you know how to improve it--for the king has already said you are a
+'braw lad, and well studied in the more humane letters'--you, too, whom
+all the women, and the very marked beauties of the Court, desire to see,
+because you came from Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a
+hard-contested suit in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince,
+an eye of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on
+the table when the game is in your very hand, running back to the
+frozen north, and marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed,
+fair-skinned bony wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort
+of Lot's wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut
+yourself up in your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall never
+survive the idea!"
+
+It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere
+strength of character and principle, to support itself against the force
+of ridicule. Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half ashamed
+of his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and flattered
+himself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a rigid moral patriot,
+in presence of a young man whose current fluency of language, as well as
+his experience in the highest circles of society, gave him, in spite of
+Nigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary ascendency over him. He
+sought, therefore, to compromise the matter, and avoid farther debate,
+by frankly owning, that, if to return to his own country were not his
+choice, it was at least a matter of necessity. "His affairs," he said,
+"were unsettled, his income precarious."
+
+"And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose income is less than
+precarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?" said Lord
+Dalgarno; "all are either losing or winning. Those who have wealth, come
+hither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who, like you and I,
+dear Glenvarloch, have little or none, have every chance to be sharers
+in their spoils."
+
+"I have no ambition of that sort," said Nigel, "and if I had, I must
+tell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so. I can
+scarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot blush
+to say so, to the friendship of yonder good man."
+
+"I will not laugh again, if I can help it," said Lord Dalgarno.
+"But, Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for your
+habit--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor,
+who should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the
+little word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and then
+your goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have
+equipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have bought
+you thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."
+
+"I do not understand these fashions, my lord," said Nigel, his
+displeasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of my
+sovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting or
+borrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires."
+
+"Which my rank requires!" said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last words;
+"that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it. I fancy you
+would love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of
+old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and
+broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong waters,
+can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms, to
+show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard of
+plate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with the
+flavour of onions and genievre--pah!"
+
+"The poor knaves!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "they have served your father,
+it may be, in the wars. What would become of them were he to turn them
+off?"
+
+"Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, "or to the
+bridge-end, to sell switches. The king is a better man than my father,
+and you see those who have served in HIS wars do so every day; or, when
+their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows.
+Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared
+not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more
+service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such
+a lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old
+memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged by
+the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name from
+the figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of Morton.
+Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.] where they
+cut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Scots
+on the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make amends, they will
+eat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if their bellies were
+puncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound--hark, it is clearing
+its rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That is another clamorous
+relic of antiquity, that, were I master, should soon be at the bottom
+of the Thames. How the foul fiend can it interest the peasants and
+mechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting
+down to dinner? But my father looks our way--we must not be late for the
+grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble which
+would have made his Majesty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and,
+having been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should
+witness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis,
+as large as Highland hills and lochs; but you shall see better cheer
+to-morrow. Where lodge you? I will call for you. I must be your guide
+through the peopled desert, to certain enchanted lands, which you will
+scarce discover without chart and pilot. Where lodge you?"
+
+"I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good deal embarrassed, "at
+any hour you please to name."
+
+"O, you would be private," said the young lord; "nay, fear not me--I
+will be no intruder. But we have attained this huge larder of flesh,
+fowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it."
+
+They had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the mansion, where the
+table was superabundantly loaded, and where the number of attendants,
+to a certain extent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young nobleman.
+The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the party. The latter
+complimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had made at Court.
+"One would have thought ye had brought the apple of discord in your
+pouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of whilk Althea was
+delivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of gunpowder, for the
+king, and the prince, and the duke, have been by the lugs about ye, and
+so have many more, that kendna before this blessed day that there was
+such a man living on the face of the earth."
+
+"Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo," said the earl; "they get cold while
+you talk."
+
+"Troth, and that needsna, my lord," said the knight; "your lordship's
+dinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are turning auld, like
+oursells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen and the ha'."
+
+With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo remained satisfied,
+until the dishes were removed, when, fixing his eyes on the brave new
+doublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his economy, pretending
+to recognise it as the same which his father had worn in Edinburgh in
+the Spanish ambassador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too much a man of the
+world to be moved by any thing from such a quarter, proceeded to crack
+some nuts with great deliberation, as he replied, that the doublet was
+in some sort his father's, as it was likely to cost him fifty pounds
+some day soon. Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in his own way to convey
+this agreeable intelligence to the earl, observing, that his son was a
+better maker of bargains than his lordship, for he had bought a doublet
+as rich as that his lordship wore when the Spanish ambassador was at
+Holyrood, and it had cost him but fifty pounds Scots;--"that was no
+fool's bargain, my lord."
+
+"Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo," answered the earl, calmly;
+"and a fool's bargain it is, in all the tenses. Dalgarno WAS a fool when
+he bought--I _will_ be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir Mungo, craving
+your pardon, _are_ a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking of what concerns
+you not."
+
+So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of the
+table and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the
+hilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until
+their joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener
+had engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed.
+
+George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legal
+documents were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if they
+had laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and received
+the respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such an
+ungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lordship's pleasure was
+performed.
+
+"Thou shalt eat before thou goest," said Lord Huntinglen; "and I will
+have thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some colour
+into these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household, thou
+shouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion as
+thou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof is
+concerned."
+
+Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. Lord
+Glenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and interchanged,
+and thus closed a transaction, of which the principal party concerned
+understood little, save that it was under the management of a zealous
+and faithful friend, who undertook that the money should be forthcoming,
+and the estate released from forfeiture, by payment of the stipulated
+sum for which it stood pledged, and that at the term of Lambmas, and at
+the hour of noon, and beside the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray,
+in the High Kirk of Saint Giles, at Edinburgh, being the day and place
+assigned for such redemption. [Footnote: As each covenant in those days
+of accuracy had a special place nominated for execution, the tomb of the
+Regent Earl of Murray in Saint Giles's Church was frequently assigned
+for the purpose.]
+
+When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have renewed
+his carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the deeds he
+had about him, and the business he had to transact betimes the next
+morning, not only refused to return to table, but carried with him to
+his barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been otherwise
+found more tractable.
+
+When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on the
+river, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they had
+left--"There live," he said, "the old fashion and the new. The father
+is like a noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect and
+inactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt,
+and fashioned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince if
+the metal be as good as the show. God grant it prove so, says an old
+friend to the family."
+
+Nothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch,
+landing at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, and
+retired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a little
+elevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality of Lord
+Huntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of them to
+the buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at length was
+shining upon what Richie called "the right side of the hedge."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+  You are not for the manner nor the times,
+  They have their vices now most like to virtues;
+  You cannot know them apait by any difference,
+  They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat--
+  Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride in those coaches,
+  Or very like four horses in a coach,
+  As the best men and women.
+                            _Ben Jonson_
+
+On the following morning, while Nigel, his breakfast finished, was
+thinking how he should employ the day, there was a little bustle upon
+the stairs which attracted his attention, and presently entered Dame
+Nelly, blushing like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out--"A young
+nobleman, sir--no one less," she added, drawing her hand slightly over
+her lips, "would be so saucy--a young nobleman, sir, to wait on you!"
+
+And she was followed into the little cabin by Lord Dalgarno, gay,
+easy, disembarrassed, and apparently as much pleased to rejoin his
+new acquaintance as if he had found him in the apartments of a palace.
+Nigel, on the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circumstances,)
+was discountenanced and mortified at being surprised by so splendid a
+gallant in a chamber which, at the moment the elegant and high-dressed
+cavalier appeared in it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower, narrower,
+darker, and meaner than it had ever shown before. He would have made
+some apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno cut him short--
+
+"Not a word of it," he said, "not a single word--I know why you ride at
+anchor here--but I can keep counsel--so pretty a hostess would recommend
+worse quarters."
+
+"On my word--on my honour," said Lord Glenvarloch--
+
+"Nay, nay, make no words of the matter," said Lord Dalgarno; "I am no
+tell-tale, nor shall I cross your walk; there is game enough in the
+forest, thank Heaven, and I can strike a doe for myself."
+
+All this he said in so significant a manner, and the explanation
+which he had adopted seemed to put Lord Glenvarloch's gallantry on so
+respectable a footing, that Nigel ceased to try to undeceive him; and
+less ashamed, perhaps, (for such is human weakness,) of supposed vice
+than of real poverty, changed the discourse to something else, and
+left poor Dame Nelly's reputation and his own at the mercy of the young
+courtier's misconstruction.
+
+He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord Dalgarno had long
+since breakfasted, but had just come from playing a set of tennis, he
+said, and would willingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess's single
+beer. This was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, as the
+hostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord Dalgarno profited by
+the opportunity to take a second and more attentive view of her, and
+then gravely drank to her husband's health, with an almost imperceptible
+nod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much honoured, smoothed her
+apron down with her hands, and said
+
+"Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their lordships--he was a
+kind painstaking man for his family, as was in the alley, or indeed, as
+far north as Paul's Chain."
+
+She would have proceeded probably to state the difference betwixt their
+ages, as the only alloy to their nuptial happiness; but her lodger, who
+had no mind to be farther exposed to his gay friend's raillery, gave
+her, contrary to his wont, a signal to leave the room.
+
+Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at Glenvarloch, shook
+his head, and repeated the well-known lines--
+
+"'My lord, beware of jealousy--It is the green-eyed monster which doth
+make the meat it feeds on.'
+
+"But come," he said, changing his tone, "I know not why I should worry
+you thus--I who have so many follies of my own, when I should rather
+make excuse for being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came."
+
+So saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for Lord Glenvarloch,
+in spite of his anxious haste to anticipate this act of courtesy, he
+proceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity:--
+
+"We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other.
+Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish
+neighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemies--must either
+walk hand-in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose the
+hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer."
+
+"How were it possible, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch, "to refuse what
+is offered so frankly, even if your father had not been a second father
+to me?"--And, as he took Lord Dalgarno's hand, he added--"I have, I
+think, lost no time, since, during one day's attendance at Court, I have
+made a kind friend and a powerful enemy."
+
+"The friend thanks you," replied Lord Dalgarno, "for your just opinion;
+but, my dear Glenvarloch--or rather, for titles are too formal between
+us of the better file--what is your Christian name?"
+
+"Nigel," replied Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other," said his visitor,
+"and my lord to the plebeian world around us. But I was about to ask you
+whom you suppose your enemy?"
+
+"No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Duke of Buckingham."
+
+"You dream! What could possess you with such an opinion?" said Dalgarno.
+
+"He told me so himself," replied Glenvarloch; "and, in so doing, dealt
+frankly and honourably with me."
+
+"O, you know him not yet," said his companion; "the duke is moulded of
+an hundred noble and fiery qualities, that prompt him, like a generous
+horse, to spring aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his
+forward course. But he means not what he says in such passing heats--I
+can do more with him, I thank Heaven, than most who are around him; you
+shall go visit him with me, and you will see how you shall be received."
+
+"I told you, my lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some
+haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence,
+declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall
+retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the
+slightest advance towards him."
+
+"You would act becomingly in every other case," said Lord Dalgarno,
+"but here you are wrong. In the Court horizon Buckingham is Lord of
+the Ascendant, and as he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises the
+fortune of a suitor. The king would bid you remember your Phaedrus,
+
+     'Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas--'
+
+and so forth. You are the vase of earth; beware of knocking yourself
+against the vase of iron."
+
+"The vase of earth," said Glenvarloch, "will avoid the encounter, by
+getting ashore out of the current--I mean to go no more to Court."
+
+"O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find your Scottish suit
+move ill without it, for there is both patronage and favour necessary
+to enforce the sign-manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak more
+hereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, whether you did
+not wonder to see me here so early?"
+
+"I am surprised that you could find me out in this obscure corner," said
+Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discovery," replied
+Lord Dalgarno; "I have but to say, 'Goblin, I would know where he or she
+dwells,' and he guides me thither as if by art magic."
+
+"I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord," said Nigel; "I will
+send my servant to seek him."
+
+"Do not concern yourself--he is by this time," said Lord Dalgarno,
+"playing at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing with the most blackguard imps
+upon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs."
+
+"Are you not afraid," said Lord Glenvarloch, "that in such company his
+morals may become depraved?"
+
+"Let his company look to their own," answered Lord Dalgarno, cooly; "for
+it will be a company of real fiends in which Lutin cannot teach more
+mischief than he can learn: he is, I thank the gods, most thoroughly
+versed in evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of looking after
+his moralities, for nothing can make them either better or worse."
+
+"I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord," said Nigel.
+
+"I wonder where I should find his parents," replied his companion, "to
+render an account to them."
+
+"He may be an orphan," said Lord Nigel; "but surely, being a page in
+your lordship's family, his parents must be of rank."
+
+"Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them to," replied Lord
+Dalgarno, with the same indifference; "they were both hanged, I
+believe--at least the gipsies, from whom I bought him five years ago,
+intimated as much to me.--You are surprised at this, now. But is it not
+better that, instead of a lazy, conceited, whey-faced slip of gentility,
+to whom, in your old-world idea of the matter, I was bound to stand Sir
+Pedagogue, and see that he washed his hands and face, said his prayers,
+learned his acddens, spoke no naughty words, brushed his hat, and
+wore his best doublet only on Sunday,--that, instead of such a Jacky
+Goodchild, I should have something like this?"
+
+He whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of darted into the
+room, almost with the effect of an actual apparition. From his height he
+seemed but fifteen, but, from his face, might be two or even three years
+older, very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin bronzed visage,
+which marked his gipsy descent, and a pair of sparkling black eyes,
+which seemed almost to pierce through those whom he looked at.
+
+"There he is," said Lord Dalgarno, "fit for every element--prompt to
+execute every command, good, bad, or indifferent--unmatched in his
+tribe, as rogue, thief, and liar."
+
+"All which qualities," said the undaunted page, "have each in turn stood
+your lordship in stead."
+
+"Out, you imp of Satan!" said his master; "vanish-begone-or my conjuring
+rod goes about your ears." The boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly
+as he had entered. "You see," said Lord Dalgarno, "that, in choosing my
+household, the best regard I can pay to gentle blood is to exclude it
+from my service--that very gallows--bird were enough to corrupt a
+whole antechamber of pages, though they were descended from kings and
+kaisers."
+
+"I can scarce think that a nobleman should need the offices of such
+an attendant as your goblin," said Nigel; "you are but jesting with my
+inexperience."
+
+"Time will show whether I jest or not, my dear Nigel," replied Dalgarno;
+"in the meantime, I have to propose to you to take the advantage of the
+flood-tide, to run up the river for pastime; and at noon I trust you
+will dine with me."
+
+Nigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much amusement; and his new
+friend and he, attended by Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly resembled,
+when thus associated, the conjunction of a bear and a monkey, took
+possession of Lord Dalgarno's wherry, which, with its badged watermen,
+bearing his lordship's crest on their arms, lay in readiness to receive
+them. The air was delightful upon the river; and the lively conversation
+of Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures of the little voyage.
+He could not only give an account of the various public buildings and
+noblemen's houses which they passed in ascending the Thames, but knew
+how to season his information with abundance of anecdote, political
+innuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very much wit, he was at
+least completely master of the fashionable tone, which in that time, as
+in ours, more than amply supplies any deficiency of the kind.
+
+It was a style of conversation entirely new to his companion, as was the
+world which Lord Dalgarno opened to his observation; and it is no wonder
+that Nigel, notwithstanding his natural good sense and high spirit,
+admitted, more readily than seemed consistent with either, the tone
+of authoritative instruction which his new friend assumed towards him.
+There would, indeed, have been some difficulty in making a stand. To
+attempt a high and stubborn tone of morality, in answer to the light
+strain of Lord Dalgarno's conversation, which kept on the frontiers
+between jest and earnest, would have seemed pedantic and ridiculous; and
+every attempt which Nigel made to combat his companion's propositions,
+by reasoning as jocose as his own, only showed his inferiority in
+that gay species of controversy. And it must be owned, besides, though
+internally disapproving much of what he heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young
+as he was in society, became less alarmed by the language and manners of
+his new associate, than in prudence he ought to have been.
+
+Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, by insisting
+upon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or
+principles; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously,
+that it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in
+his propositions, or how far they flowed from a wild and extravagant
+spirit of raillery. And, ever and anon, those flashes of spirit and
+honour crossed his conversation, which seemed to intimate, that, when
+stirred to action by some adequate motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove
+something very different from the court-haunting and ease-loving
+voluptuary, which he was pleased to represent as his chosen character.
+
+As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch remarked, that the
+boat passed the mansion of Lord Huntinglen, and noticed the circumstance
+to Lord Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to have dined
+there. "Surely no," said the young nobleman, "I have more mercy on you
+than to gorge you a second time with raw beef and canary wine. I propose
+something better for you, I promise you, than such a second Scythian
+festivity. And as for my father, he proposes to dine to-day with my
+grave, ancient Earl of Northampton, whilome that celebrated putter-down
+of pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard."
+
+"And do you not go with him?" said his companion.
+
+"To what purpose?" said Lord Dalgarno. "To hear his wise lordship speak
+musty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses, that he
+may give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of correcting his
+slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!"
+
+"Nay," said Lord Nigel, "but out of respect, to wait on my lord your
+father."
+
+"My lord my father," replied Lord Dalgarno, "has blue-bottles enough to
+wait on him, and can well dispense with such a butterfly as myself. He
+can lift the cup of sack to his head without my assistance; and, should
+the said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men enough to
+guide his right honourable lordship to his lordship's right honourable
+couch.--Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words were to sink the
+boat with us. I love my father--I love him dearly--and I respect him,
+too, though I respect not many things; a trustier old Trojan never
+belted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what then? He belongs to
+the old world, I to the new. He has his follies, I have mine; and the
+less either of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the greater will be
+the honour and respect--that, I think, is the proper phrase--I say the
+_respect_ in which we shall hold each other. Being apart, each of us is
+himself, such as nature and circumstances have made him; but, couple us
+up too closely together, you will be sure to have in your leash either
+an old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps both the one and t'other."
+
+As he spoke thus, the boat put into the landing-place at Blackfriars.
+Lord Dalgarno sprung ashore, and, flinging his cloak and rapier to his
+page, recommended to his companion to do the like. "We are coming among
+a press of gallants," he said; "and, if we walked thus muffled, we shall
+look like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps him close in his cloak, to
+conceal the defects of his doublet."
+
+"I have known many an honest man do that, if it please your lordship,"
+said Richie Moniplies, who had been watching for an opportunity to
+intrude himself on the conversation, and probably remembered what had
+been his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a very
+recent period.
+
+Lord Dalgarno stared at him, as if surprised at his assurance; but
+immediately answered, "You may have known many things, friend; but, in
+the meanwhile, you do not know what principally concerns your master,
+namely, how to carry his cloak, so as to show to advantage the
+gold-laced seams, and the lining of sables. See how Lutin holds the
+sword, with his cloak cast partly over it, yet so as to set off the
+embossed hilt, and the silver work of the mounting.--Give your familiar
+your sword, Nigel," he continued, addressing Lord Glenvarloch, "that he
+may practise a lesson in an art so necessary."
+
+"Is it altogether prudent," said Nigel, unclasping his weapon, and
+giving it to Richie, "to walk entirely unarmed?"
+
+"And wherefore not?" said his companion. "You are thinking now of Auld
+Reekie, as my father fondly calls your good Scottish capital, where
+there is such bandying of private feuds and public factions, that a man
+of any note shall not cross your High Street twice, without endangering
+his life thrice. Here, sir, no brawling in the street is permitted. Your
+bull-headed citizen takes up the case so soon as the sword is drawn, and
+clubs is the word."
+
+"And a hard word it is," said Richie, "as my brain-pan kens at this
+blessed moment."
+
+"Were I your master, sirrah," said Lord Dalgarno, "I would make your
+brain-pan, as you call it, boil over, were you to speak a word in my
+presence before you were spoken to."
+
+Richie murmured some indistinct answer, but took the hint, and ranked
+himself behind his master along with Lutin, who failed not to expose his
+new companion to the ridicule of the passers-by, by mimicking, as often
+as he could do so unobserved by Richie, his stiff and upright stalking
+gait and discontented physiognomy.
+
+"And tell me now, my dear Malcolm," said Nigel, "where we are bending
+our course, and whether we shall dine at an apartment of yours?"
+
+"An apartment of mine--yes, surely," answered Lord Dalgarno, "you shall
+dine at an apartment of mine, and an apartment of yours, and of twenty
+gallants besides; and where the board shall present better cheer, better
+wine, and better attendance, than if our whole united exhibitions went
+to maintain it. We are going to the most noted ordinary of London."
+
+"That is, in common language, an inn, or a tavern," said Nigel.
+
+"An inn, or a tavern, my most green and simple friend!" exclaimed Lord
+Dalgarno. "No, no--these are places where greasy citizens take pipe
+and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most
+unhappy victims--where Templars crack jests as empty as their nuts, and
+where small gentry imbibe such thin potations, that they get dropsies
+instead of getting drunk. An ordinary is a late-invented institution,
+sacred to Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble gallants of the
+time meet with the first and most ethereal wits of the age,--where the
+wine is the very soul of the choicest grape, refined as the genius of
+the poet, and ancient and generous as the blood of the nobles. And then
+the fare is something beyond your ordinary gross terrestrial food! Sea
+and land are ransacked to supply it; and the invention of six ingenious
+cooks kept eternally upon the rack to make their art hold pace with, and
+if possible enhance, the exquisite quality of the materials."
+
+"By all which rhapsody," said Lord Glenvarloch, "I can only understand,
+as I did before, that we are going to a choice tavern, where we shall be
+handsomely entertained, on paying probably as handsome a reckoning."
+
+"Reckoning!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno in the same tone as before,
+"perish the peasantly phrase! What profanation! Monsieur le Chevalier de
+Beaujeu, pink of Paris and flower of Gascony--he who can tell the age of
+his wine by the bare smell, who distils his sauces in an alembic by the
+aid of Lully's philosophy--who carves with such exquisite precision,
+that he gives to noble, knight and squire, the portion of the pheasant
+which exactly accords with his rank--nay, he who shall divide a becafico
+into twelve parts with such scrupulous exactness, that of twelve guests
+not one shall have the advantage of the other in a hair's breadth, or
+the twentieth part of a drachm, yet you talk of him and of a reckoning
+in the same breath! Why, man, he is the well-known and general referee
+in all matters affecting the mysteries of Passage, Hazard, In and
+In, Penneeck, and Verquire, and what not--why, Beaujeu is King of
+the Card-pack, and Duke of the Dice-box--HE call a reckoning like a
+green-aproned, red-nosed son of the vulgar spigot! O, my dearest Nigel,
+what a word you have spoken, and of what a person! That you know him
+not, is your only apology for such blasphemy; and yet I scarce hold it
+adequate, for to have been a day in London and not to know Beaujeu, is a
+crime of its own kind. But you _shall_ know him this blessed moment,
+and shall learn to hold yourself in horror for the enormities you have
+uttered."
+
+"Well, but mark you," said Nigel, "this worthy chevalier keeps not all
+this good cheer at his own cost, does he?"
+
+"No, no," answered Lord Dalgarno; "there is a sort of ceremony which my
+chevalier's friends and intimates understand, but with which you have no
+business at present. There is, as majesty might say, a _symbolum_ to be
+disbursed--in other words, a mutual exchange of courtesies take place
+betwixt Beaujeu and his guests. He makes them a free present of the
+dinner and wine, as often as they choose to consult their own felicity
+by frequenting his house at the hour of noon, and they, in gratitude,
+make the chevalier a present of a Jacobus. Then you must know, that,
+besides Comus and Bacchus, that princess of sublunary affairs, the Diva
+Fortuna, is frequently worshipped at Beaujeu's, and he, as officiating
+high-priest, hath, as in reason he should, a considerable advantage from
+a share of the sacrifice."
+
+"In other words," said Lord Glenvarloch, "this man keeps a
+gaming-house."
+
+"A house in which you may certainly game," said Lord Dalgarno, "as you
+may in your own chamber if you have a mind; nay, I remember old Tom
+Tally played a hand at put for a wager with Quinze le Va, the Frenchman,
+during morning prayers in St. Paul's; the morning was misty, and the
+parson drowsy, and the whole audience consisted of themselves and a
+blind woman, and so they escaped detection."
+
+"For all this, Malcolm," said the young lord, gravely, "I cannot dine
+with you to-day, at this same ordinary."
+
+"And wherefore, in the name of heaven, should you draw back from your
+word?" said Lord Dalgarno.
+
+"I do not retract my word, Malcolm; but I am bound, by an early promise
+to my father, never to enter the doors of a gaming-house."
+
+"I tell you this is none," said Lord Dalgarno; "it is but, in plain
+terms, an eating-house, arranged on civiller terms, and frequented by
+better company, than others in this town; and if some of them do amuse
+themselves with cards and hazard, they are men of honour, and who play
+as such, and for no more than they can well afford to lose. It was not,
+and could not be, such houses that your father desired you to avoid.
+Besides, he might as well have made you swear you would never take
+accommodation of an inn, tavern, eating-house, or place of public
+reception of any kind; for there is no such place of public resort but
+where your eyes may be contaminated by the sight of a pack of pieces of
+painted pasteboard, and your ears profaned by the rattle of those little
+spotted cubes of ivory. The difference is, that where we go, we may
+happen to see persons of quality amusing themselves with a game; and in
+the ordinary houses you will meet bullies and sharpers, who will strive
+either to cheat or to swagger you out of your money."
+
+"I am sure you would not willingly lead me to do what is wrong," said
+Nigel; "but my father had a horror for games of chance, religious
+I believe, as well as prudential. He judged from I know not what
+circumstance, a fallacious one I should hope, that I should have a
+propensity to such courses, and I have told you the promise which he
+exacted from me."
+
+"Now, by my honour," said Dalgarno, "what you have said affords the
+strongest reason for my insisting that you go with me. A man who would
+shun any danger, should first become acquainted with its real bearing
+and extent, and that in the company of a confidential guide and guard.
+Do you think I myself game? Good faith, my father's oaks grow too far
+from London, and stand too fast rooted in the rocks of Perthshire, for
+me to troll them down with a die, though I have seen whole forests go
+down like nine-pins. No, no--these are sports for the wealthy Southron,
+not for the poor Scottish noble. The place is an eating-house, and as
+such you and I will use it. If others use it to game in, it is their
+fault, but neither that of the house nor ours."
+
+Unsatisfied with this reasoning, Nigel still insisted upon the promise
+he had given to his father, until his companion appeared rather
+displeased, and disposed to impute to him injurious and unhandsome
+suspicions. Lord Glenvarloch could not stand this change of tone. He
+recollected that much was due from him to Lord Dalgarno, on account
+of his father's ready and efficient friendship, and something also on
+account of the frank manner in which the young man himself had offered
+him his intimacy. He had no reason to doubt his assurances, that the
+house where they were about to dine did not fall under the description
+of places which his father's prohibition referred; and finally, he was
+strong in his own resolution to resist every temptation to join in
+games of chance. He therefore pacified Lord Dalgarno, by intimating
+his willingness to go along with him; and, the good-humour of the young
+courtier instantaneously returning, he again ran on in a grotesque and
+rodomontade account of the host, Monsieur de Beaujeu, which he did not
+conclude until they had reached the temple of hospitality over which
+that eminent professor presided.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+    ----This is the very barn-yard,
+    Where muster daily the prime cocks o' the game,
+    Ruffle their pinions, crow till they are hoarse,
+    And spar about a barleycorn. Here too chickens,
+    The callow, unfledged brood of forward folly,
+    Learn first to rear the crest, and aim the spur,
+    And tune their note like full-plumed Chanticleer.
+                                        _The Bear-Garden._
+
+The Ordinary, now an ignoble sound, was in the days of James, a
+new institution, as fashionable among the youth of that age as the
+first-rate modern club-houses are amongst those of the present day.
+It differed chiefly, in being open to all whom good clothes and good
+assurance combined to introduce there. The company usually dined
+together at an hour fixed, and the manager of the establishment presided
+as master of the ceremonies.
+
+Monsieur le Chevalier, (as he qualified himself,) Saint Priest de
+Beaujeu, was a sharp, thin Gascon, about sixty years old, banished from
+his own country, as he said, on account of an affair of honour, in which
+he had the misfortune to kill his antagonist, though the best swordsman
+in the south of France. His pretensions to quality were supported by
+a feathered hat, a long rapier, and a suit of embroidered taffeta, not
+much the worse for wear, in the extreme fashion of the Parisian court,
+and fluttering like a Maypole with many knots of ribbon, of which it
+was computed he bore at least five hundred yards about his person.
+But, notwithstanding this profusion of decoration, there were many who
+thought Monsieur le Chevalier so admirably calculated for his present
+situation, that nature could never have meant to place him an inch
+above it. It was, however, part of the amusement of the place, for Lord
+Dalgarno and other young men of quality to treat Monsieur de Beaujeu
+with a great deal of mock ceremony, which being observed by the herd of
+more ordinary and simple gulls, they paid him, in clumsy imitation, much
+real deference. The Gascon's natural forwardness being much enhanced by
+these circumstances, he was often guilty of presuming beyond the limits
+of his situation, and of course had sometimes the mortification to be
+disagreeably driven back into them.
+
+When Nigel entered the mansion of this eminent person, which had been
+but of late the residence of a great Baron of Queen Elizabeth's court,
+who had retired to his manors in the country on the death of that
+princess, he was surprised at the extent of the accommodation which it
+afforded, and the number of guests who were already assembled. Feathers
+waved, spurs jingled, lace and embroidery glanced everywhere; and at
+first sight, at least, it certainly made good Lord Dalgarno's encomium,
+who represented the company as composed almost entirely of youth of the
+first quality. A more close review was not quite so favourable. Several
+individuals might be discovered who were not exactly at their ease
+in the splendid dresses which they wore, and who, therefore, might be
+supposed not habitually familiar with such finery. Again, there were
+others, whose dress, though on a general view it did not seem inferior
+to that of the rest of the company, displayed, on being observed more
+closely, some of these petty expedients, by which vanity endeavours to
+disguise poverty.
+
+Nigel had very little time to make such observations, for the entrance
+of Lord Dalgarno created an immediate bustle and sensation among the
+company, as his name passed from one mouth to another. Some stood
+forward to gaze, others stood back to make way--those of his own rank
+hastened to welcome him--those of inferior degree endeavoured to catch
+some point of his gesture, or of his dress, to be worn and practised
+upon a future occasion, as the newest and most authentic fashion.
+
+The _genius loci_, the Chevalier himself, was not the last to welcome
+this prime stay and ornament of his establishment. He came shuffling
+forward with a hundred apish _conges_ and _chers milors_, to express his
+happiness at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.--"I hope you do bring back the
+sun with you, _Milor_--You did carry away the sun and moon from your
+pauvre Chevalier when you leave him for so long. Pardieu, I believe you
+take them away in your pockets."
+
+"That must have been because you left me nothing else in them,
+Chevalier," answered Lord Dalgarno; "but Monsieur le Chevalier, I pray
+you to know my countryman and friend, Lord Glenvarloch!"
+
+"Ah, ha! tres honore--Je m'en souviens,--oui. J'ai connu autrefois un
+Milor Kenfarloque en Ecosse. Yes, I have memory of him--le pere de milor
+apparemment-we were vera intimate when I was at Oly Root with Monsieur
+de la Motte--I did often play at tennis vit Milor Kenfarloque at
+L'Abbaie d'Oly Root--il etoit meme plus fort que moi--Ah le beaucoup
+de revers qu'il avoit!--I have memory, too that he was among the pretty
+girls--ah, un vrai diable dechaine--Aha! I have memory--"
+
+"Better have no more memory of the late Lord Glenvarloch," said Lord
+Dalgarno, interrupting the Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived
+that the encomium which he was about to pass on the deceased was likely
+to be as disagreeable to the son as it was totally undeserved by the
+father, who, far from being either a gamester or libertine, as the
+Chevalier's reminiscences falsely represented him, was, on the contrary,
+strict and severe in his course of life, almost to the extent of rigour.
+
+"You have the reason, milor," answered the Chevalier, "you have the
+right--Qu'est ce que nous avons a faire avec le temps passe?--the time
+passed did belong to our fathers--our ancetres--very well--the time
+present is to us--they have their pretty tombs with their memories and
+armorials, all in brass and marbre--we have the petits plats exquis, and
+the soupe-a-Chevalier, which I will cause to mount up immediately."
+
+So saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his attendants in
+motion to place dinner on the table. Dalgarno laughed, and, observing
+his young friend looked grave, said to him, in a tone of reproach--"Why,
+what!--you are not gull enough to be angry with such an ass as that?"
+
+"I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes," said Lord Glenvarloch;
+"but I confess I was moved to hear such a fellow mention my father's
+name--and you, too, who told me this was no gaming-house, talked to him
+of having left it with emptied pockets."
+
+"Pshaw, man!" said Lord Dalgarno, "I spoke but according to the trick of
+the time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he would
+be held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will
+see whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better than his
+conversation."
+
+Dinner was announced accordingly, and the two friends, being seated in
+the most honourable station at the board, were ceremoniously attended
+to by the Chevalier, who did the honours of his table to them and to the
+other guests, and seasoned the whole with his agreeable conversation.
+The dinner was really excellent, in that piquant style of cookery which
+the French had already introduced, and which the home-bred young men of
+England, when they aspired to the rank of connoisseurs and persons of
+taste, were under the necessity of admiring. The wine was also of the
+first quality, and circulated in great variety, and no less abundance.
+The conversation among so many young men was, of course, light, lively,
+and amusing; and Nigel, whose mind had been long depressed by anxiety
+and misfortune, naturally found himself at ease, and his spirits raised
+and animated.
+
+Some of the company had real wit, and could use it both politely and to
+advantage; others were coxcombs, and were laughed at without discovering
+it; and, again, others were originals, who seemed to have no objection
+that the company should be amused with their folly instead of their
+wit. And almost all the rest who played any prominent part in the
+conversation had either the real tone of good society which belonged to
+the period, or the jargon which often passes current for it.
+
+In short, the company and conversation was so agreeable, that Nigel's
+rigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and
+he listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de
+Beaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the "curieux
+and Futile," chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of
+cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which
+he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in
+commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one
+whom he had known in his youth, "Maitre de Cuisine to the Marechal
+Strozzi--tres bon gentilhomme pourtant;" who had maintained his master's
+table with twelve covers every day during the long and severe blockade
+of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on it than
+the quarter of a carrion-horse now and then, and the grass and weeds
+that grew on the ramparts. "Despardieux c'dtoit un homme superbe!" With
+one tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a soupe for twenty
+guests--an haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti des plus excellens;
+but his coupe de maitre was when the rendition--what you call the
+surrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me damme, he made out
+of the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five couverts; that the
+English and Scottish officers and nobility, who had the honour to dine
+with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell what the devil any
+of them were made upon at all.
+
+The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such
+genial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table,
+who had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own credit,
+or that of the ordinary, to make innovations.
+
+"You speak of the siege of Leith," said a tall, raw-boned man, with
+thick mustaches turned up with a military twist, a broad buff belt, a
+long rapier, and other outward symbols of the honoured profession, which
+lives by killing other people--"you talk of the siege of Leith, and I
+have seen the place--a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a plain wall,
+or rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every angle. Uds
+daggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four
+hours, not to say so many months, before it, without carrying the place
+and all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure storm, they would have
+deserved no better grace than the Provost-Marshal gives when his noose
+is reeved."
+
+"Saar," said the Chevalier, "Monsieur le Capitaine, I vas not at
+the siege of the petit Leyth, and I know not what you say about the
+cockloft; but I will say for Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he understood
+the grande guerre, and was grand capitaine--plus grand--that is more
+great, it may be, than some of the capitaines of Angleterre, who do
+speak very loud--tenez, Monsieur, car c'est a vous!"
+
+"O Monsieur." answered the swordsman, "we know the Frenchman will fight
+well behind his barrier of stone, or when he is armed with back, breast,
+and pot."
+
+"Pot!" exclaimed the Chevalier, "what do you mean by pot--do you mean to
+insult me among my noble guests? Saar, I have done my duty as a pauvre
+gentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at Courtrai and Yvry,
+and, ventre saint gris! we had neither pot nor marmite, but did always
+charge in our shirt."
+
+"Which refutes another base scandal," said Lord Dalgarno, laughing,
+"alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms."
+
+"Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord," said the
+captain, from the bottom of the table. "Craving your lordship's pardon,
+I do know something of these same gens-d'armes."
+
+"We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your modesty
+at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge was
+acquired," answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously.
+
+"I need not speak of it, my lord," said the man of war; "the world knows
+it--all perhaps, but the men of mohair--the poor sneaking citizens of
+London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, ere
+they would draw a farthing from their long purses to relieve them. O,
+if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once to come near that
+cuckoo's nest of theirs!"
+
+"A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!" said a gallant
+who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid
+and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it--"I will not
+brook to hear that repeated."
+
+"What!" said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of
+broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand, and
+twirling with the other his huge mustaches; "will you quarrel for your
+city?"
+
+"Ay, marry will I," replied the other. "I am a citizen, I care not who
+knows it; and he who shall speak a word in dispraise of the city, is an
+ass and a peremptory gull, and I will break his pate, to teach him sense
+and manners."
+
+The company, who probably had their reasons for not valuing the
+captain's courage at the high rate which he himself put upon it, were
+much entertained at the manner in which the quarrel was taken up by
+the indignant citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, "Well run,
+Bow-bell!"--"Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul's!"--"Sound a charge
+there, or the soldier will mistake his signals, and retreat when he
+should advance."
+
+"You mistake me, gentlemen," said the captain, looking round with an
+air of dignity. "I will but inquire whether this cavaliero citizen is
+of rank and degree fitted to measure swords with a man of action; (for,
+conceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can match myself
+without loss of reputation;) and in that case he shall soon hear from me
+honourably, by way of cartel."
+
+"You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of cudgel," said the
+citizen, starting up, and taking his sword, which he had laid in a
+corner. "Follow me."
+
+"It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the rules of
+the sword," said the captain; "and I do nominate the Maze, in
+Tothill-Fields, for place--two gentlemen, who shall be indifferent
+judges, for witnesses;--and for time--let me say this day fortnight, at
+daybreak."
+
+"And I," said the citizen, "do nominate the bowling-alley behind the
+house for place, the present good company for witnesses, and for time
+the present moment."
+
+So saying, he cast on his beaver, struck the soldier across the
+shoulders with his sheathed sword, and ran down stairs. The captain
+showed no instant alacrity to follow him; yet, at last, roused by the
+laugh and sneer around him, he assured the company, that what he did he
+would do deliberately, and, assuming his hat, which he put on with the
+air of Ancient Pistol, he descended the stairs to the place of combat,
+where his more prompt adversary was already stationed, with his sword
+unsheathed. Of the company, all of whom seemed highly delighted with
+the approaching fray, some ran to the windows which overlooked the
+bowling-alley, and others followed the combatants down stairs. Nigel
+could not help asking Dalgarno whether he would not interfere to prevent
+mischief.
+
+"It would be a crime against the public interest," answered his friend;
+"there can no mischief happen between two such originals, which will not
+be a positive benefit to society, and particularly to the Chevalier's
+establishment, as he calls it. I have been as sick of that captain's
+buff belt, and red doublet, for this month past, as e'er I was of aught;
+and now I hope this bold linendraper will cudgel the ass out of that
+filthy lion's hide. See, Nigel, see the gallant citizen has ta'en his
+ground about a bowl's-cast forward, in the midst of the alley--the very
+model of a hog in armour. Behold how he prances with his manly foot, and
+brandishes his blade, much as if he were about to measure forth cambric
+with it. See, they bring on the reluctant soldado, and plant him
+opposite to his fiery antagonist, twelve paces still dividing them--Lo,
+the captain draws his tool, but, like a good general, looks over his
+shoulder to secure his retreat, in case the worse come on't. Behold the
+valiant shop-keeper stoops his head, confident, doubtless, in the civic
+helmet with which his spouse has fortified his skull--Why, this is the
+rarest of sport. By Heaven, he will run a tilt at him, like a ram."
+
+It was even as Lord Dalgarno had anticipated; for the citizen, who
+seemed quite serious in his zeal for combat, perceiving that the man
+of war did not advance towards him, rushed onwards with as much good
+fortune as courage, beat down the captain's guard, and, pressing
+on, thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body of his
+antagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his length on the ground.
+A score of voices cried to the conqueror, as he stood fixed in
+astonishment at his own feat, "Away, away with you!--fly, fly--fly by
+the back door!--get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the
+Bankside, while we keep off the mob and the constables." And
+the conqueror, leaving his vanquished foeman on the ground, fled
+accordingly, with all speed.
+
+"By Heaven," said Lord Dalgarno, "I could never have believed that
+the fellow would have stood to receive a thrust--he has certainly been
+arrested by positive terror, and lost the use of his limbs. See, they
+are raising him."
+
+Stiff and stark seemed the corpse of the swordsman, as one or two of
+the guests raised him from the ground; but, when they began to open his
+waistcoat to search for the wound which nowhere existed, the man of war
+collected, his scattered spirits; and, conscious that the ordinary was
+no longer a stage on which to display his valour, took to his heels as
+fast as he could run, pursued by the laughter and shouts of the company.
+
+"By my honour," said Lord Dalgarno, "he takes the same course with his
+conqueror. I trust in heaven he will overtake him, and then the valiant
+citizen will suppose himself haunted by the ghost of him he has slain."
+
+"Despardieux, milor," said the Chevalier, "if he had stayed one moment,
+he should have had a _torchon_--what you call a dishclout, pinned to him
+for a piece of shroud, to show he be de ghost of one grand fanfaron."
+
+"In the meanwhile," said Lord Dalgarno, "you will oblige us, Monsieur le
+Chevalier, as well as maintain your own honoured reputation, by letting
+your drawers receive the man-at-arms with a cudgel, in case he should
+venture to come way again."
+
+"Ventre saint gris, milor," said the Chevalier, "leave that to
+me.--Begar, the maid shall throw the wash-sud upon the grand poltron!"
+
+When they had laughed sufficiently at this ludicrous occurrence, the
+party began to divide themselves into little knots--some took possession
+of the alley, late the scene of combat, and put the field to its proper
+use of a bowling-ground, and it soon resounded with all the terms of the
+game, as "run, run-rub, rub--hold bias, you infernal trundling timber!"
+thus making good the saying, that three things are thrown away in a
+bowling-green, namely, time, money, and oaths. In the house, many of the
+gentlemen betook themselves to cards or dice, and parties were formed at
+Ombre, at Basset, at Gleek, at Primero, and other games then in fashion;
+while the dice were used at various games, both with and without the
+tables, as Hazard, In-and-in, Passage, and so forth. The play, however,
+did not appear to be extravagantly deep; it was certainly conducted with
+great decorum and fairness; nor did there appear any thing to lead the
+young Scotsman in the least to doubt his companion's assurance, that
+the place was frequented by men of rank and quality, and that the
+recreations they adopted were conducted upon honourable principles.
+
+Lord Dalgarno neither had proposed play to his friend, nor joined in the
+amusement himself, but sauntered from one table to another, remarking
+the luck of the different players, as well as their capacity to avail
+themselves of it, and exchanging conversation with the highest and most
+respectable of the guests. At length, as if tired of what in modern
+phrase would have been termed lounging, he suddenly remembered that
+Burbage was to act Shakespeare's King Richard, at the Fortune, that
+afternoon, and that he could not give a stranger in London, like
+Lord Glenvarloch, a higher entertainment than to carry him to that
+exhibition; "unless, indeed," he added, in a whisper, "there is paternal
+interdiction of the theatre as well as of the ordinary."
+
+"I never heard my father speak of stage-plays," said Lord Glenvarloch,
+"for they are shows of a modern date, and unknown in Scotland. Yet, if
+what I have heard to their prejudice be true, I doubt much whether he
+would have approved of them."
+
+"Approved of them!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno--"why, George Buchanan wrote
+tragedies, and his pupil, learned and wise as himself, goes to see
+them, so it is next door to treason to abstain; and the cleverest men in
+England write for the stage, and the prettiest women in London resort to
+the playhouses, and I have a brace of nags at the door which will
+carry us along the streets like wild-fire, and the ride will digest our
+venison and ortolans, and dissipate the fumes of the wine, and so let's
+to horse--Godd'en to you, gentlemen--Godd'en, Chevalier de la Fortune."
+
+Lord Dalgarno's grooms were in attendance with two horses, and the young
+men mounted, the proprietor upon a favourite barb, and Nigel upon a
+high-dressed jennet, scarce less beautiful. As they rode towards the
+theatre, Lord Dalgarno endeavoured to discover his friend's opinion of
+the company to which he had introduced him, and to combat the exceptions
+which he might suppose him to have taken. "And wherefore lookest thou
+sad," he said, "my pensive neophyte? Sage son of the Alma Mater of
+Low-Dutch learning, what aileth thee? Is the leaf of the living world
+which we have turned over in company, less fairly written than thou
+hadst been taught to expect? Be comforted, and pass over one little blot
+or two; thou wilt be doomed to read through many a page, as black as
+Infamy, with her sooty pinion, can make them. Remember, most immaculate
+Nigel, that we are in London, not Leyden--that we are studying life, not
+lore. Stand buff against the reproach of thine over-tender conscience,
+man, and when thou summest up, like a good arithmetician, the actions
+of the day, before you balance the account on your pillow, tell the
+accusing spirit, to his brimstone beard, that if thine ears have heard
+the clatter of the devil's bones, thy hand hath not trowled them--that
+if thine eye hath seen the brawling of two angry boys, thy blade hath
+not been bared in their fray."
+
+"Now, all this may be wise and witty," replied Nigel; "yet I own I
+cannot think but that your lordship, and other men of good quality
+with whom we dined, might have chosen a place of meeting free from the
+intrusion of bullies, and a better master of your ceremonial than yonder
+foreign adventurer."
+
+"All shall be amended, Sancte Nigelle, when thou shalt come forth a
+new Peter the Hermit, to preach a crusade against dicing, drabbing, and
+company-keeping. We will meet for dinner in Saint Sepulchre's Church;
+we will dine in the chancel, drink our flask in the vestry, the parson
+shall draw every cork, and the clerk say amen to every health. Come man,
+cheer up, and get rid of this sour and unsocial humour. Credit me, that
+the Puritans who object to us the follies and the frailties incident to
+human nature, have themselves the vices of absolute devils, privy malice
+and backbiting hypocrisy, and spiritual pride in all its presumption.
+There is much, too, in life which we must see, were it only to learn to
+shun it. Will Shakespeare, who lives after death, and who is presently
+to afford thee such pleasure as none but himself can confer, has
+described the gallant Falconbridge as calling that man
+
+  ----' a bastard to the time,
+  That doth not smack of observation;
+  Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
+  Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn."
+
+But here we are at the door of the Fortune, where we shall have
+matchless Will speaking for himself.--Goblin, and you other lout, leave
+the horses to the grooms, and make way for us through the press."
+
+They dismounted, and the assiduous efforts of Lutin, elbowing, bullying,
+and proclaiming his master's name and title, made way through a crowd of
+murmuring citizens, and clamorous apprentices, to the door, where Lord
+Dalgarno speedily procured a brace of stools upon the stage for his
+companion and himself, where, seated among other gallants of the same
+class, they had an opportunity of displaying their fair dresses
+and fashionable manners, while they criticised the piece during its
+progress; thus forming, at the same time, a conspicuous part of the
+spectacle, and an important proportion of the audience.
+
+Nigel Olifaunt was too eagerly and deeply absorbed in the interest of
+the scene, to be capable of playing his part as became the place
+where he was seated. He felt all the magic of that sorcerer, who had
+displayed, within the paltry circle of a wooden booth, the long wars of
+York and Lancaster, compelling the heroes of either line to stalk across
+the scene in language and fashion as they lived, as if the grave had
+given up the dead for the amusement and instruction of the living.
+Burbage, esteemed the best Richard until Garrick arose, played the
+tyrant and usurper with such truth and liveliness, that when the Battle
+of Bosworth seemed concluded by his death, the ideas of reality and
+deception were strongly contending in Lord Glenvarloch's imagination,
+and it required him to rouse himself from his reverie, so strange did
+the proposal at first sound when his companion declared King Richard
+should sup with them at the Mermaid.
+
+They were joined, at the same time, by a small party of the gentlemen
+with whom they had dined, which they recruited by inviting two or three
+of the most accomplished wits and poets, who seldom failed to attend
+the Fortune Theatre, and were even but too ready to conclude a day of
+amusement with a night of pleasure. Thither the whole party adjourned,
+and betwixt fertile cups of sack, excited spirits, and the emulous wit
+of their lively companions, seemed to realise the joyous boast of one of
+Ben Jonson's contemporaries, when reminding the bard of
+
+            "Those lyric feasts,
+     Where men such clusters had,
+     As made them nobly wild, not mad;
+     While yet each verse of thine
+     Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+    Let the proud salmon gorge the feather'd hook,
+    Then strike, and then you have him--He will wince;
+    Spin out your line that it shall whistle from you
+    Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him--
+    Marry! you must have patience--the stout rock
+    Which is his trust, hath edges something sharp;
+    And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough
+    To mar your fishing--'less you are more careful.
+                _Albion, or the Double Kings._
+
+It is seldom that a day of pleasure, upon review, seems altogether
+so exquisite as the partaker of the festivity may have felt it while
+passing over him. Nigel Olifaunt, at least, did not feel it so, and it
+required a visit from his new acquaintance, Lord Dalgarno, to reconcile
+him entirely to himself. But this visit took place early after
+breakfast, and his friend's discourse was prefaced with a question, How
+he liked the company of the preceding evening?
+
+"Why, excellently well," said Lord Glenvarloch; "only I should have
+liked the wit better had it appeared to flow more freely. Every man's
+invention seemed on the stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to
+set one half of your men of wit into a brown study to produce something
+which should out-herod it."
+
+"And wherefore not?" said Lord Dalgarno, "or what are these fellows fit
+for, but to play the intellectual gladiators before us? He of them who
+declares himself recreant, should, d--n him, be restricted to muddy ale,
+and the patronage of the Waterman's Company. I promise you, that many a
+pretty fellow has been mortally wounded with a quibble or a carwitchet
+at the Mermaid, and sent from thence, in a pitiable estate, to Wit's
+hospital in the Vintry, where they languish to this day amongst fools
+and aldermen."
+
+"It may be so," said Lord Nigel; "yet I could swear by my honour, that
+last night I seemed to be in company with more than one man whose genius
+and learning ought either to have placed him higher in our company, or
+to have withdrawn him altogether from a scene, where, sooth to speak,
+his part seemed unworthily subordinate."
+
+"Now, out upon your tender conscience," said Lord Dalgarno; "and the
+fico for such outcasts of Parnassus! Why, these are the very leavings of
+that noble banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish, which lost London
+so many of her principal witmongers and bards of misrule. What would you
+have said had you seen Nash or Green, when you interest yourself about
+the poor mimes you supped with last night? Suffice it, they had their
+drench and their doze, and they drank and slept as much as may save
+them from any necessity of eating till evening, when, if they are
+industrious, they will find patrons or players to feed them. [Footnote:
+The condition of men of wit and talents was never more melancholy than
+about this period. Their lives were so irregular, and their means of
+living so precarious, that they were alternately rioting in debauchery,
+or encountering and struggling with the meanest necessities. Two or
+three lost their lives by a surfeit brought on by that fatal banquet of
+Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is familiar to those who
+study the lighter literature of that age. The whole history is a most
+melancholy picture of genius, degraded at once by its own debaucheries,
+and the patronage of heartless rakes and profligates.] For the rest of
+their wants, they can be at no loss for cold water while the New
+River head holds good; and your doublets of Parnassus are eternal in
+duration."
+
+"Virgil and Horace had more efficient patronage," said Nigel.
+
+"Ay," replied his countryman, "but these fellows are neither Virgil nor
+Horace; besides, we have other spirits of another sort, to whom I will
+introduce you on some early occasion. Our Swan of Avon hath sung his
+last; but we have stout old Ben, with as much learning and genius as
+ever prompted the treader of sock and buskin. It is not, however, of
+him I mean now to speak; but I come to pray you, of dear love, to row up
+with me as far as Richmond, where two or three of the gallants whom you
+saw yesterday, mean to give music and syllabubs to a set of beauties,
+with some curious bright eyes among them--such, I promise you, as might
+win an astrologer from his worship of the galaxy. My sister leads the
+bevy, to whom I desire to present you. She hath her admirers at Court;
+and is regarded, though I might dispense with sounding her praise, as
+one of the beauties of the time."
+
+There was no refusing an engagement, where the presence of the party
+invited, late so low in his own regard, was demanded by a lady of
+quality, one of the choice beauties of the time. Lord Glenvarloch
+accepted, as was inevitable, and spent a lively day among the gay
+and the fair. He was the gallant in attendance, for the day, upon his
+friend's sister, the beautiful Countess of Blackchester, who aimed at
+once at superiority in the realms of fashion, of power, and of wit.
+
+She was, indeed, considerably older than her brother, and had probably
+completed her six lustres; but the deficiency in extreme youth was more
+than atoned for, in the most precise and curious accuracy in attire,
+an early acquaintance with every foreign mode, and a peculiar gift
+in adapting the knowledge which she acquired, to her own particular
+features and complexion. At Court, she knew as well as any lady in the
+circle, the precise tone, moral, political, learned, or jocose, in which
+it was proper to answer the monarch, according to his prevailing humour;
+and was supposed to have been very active, by her personal interest,
+in procuring her husband a high situation, which the gouty old viscount
+could never have deserved by any merit of his own commonplace conduct
+and understanding.
+
+It was far more easy for this lady than for her brother, to reconcile
+so young a courtier as Lord Glenvarloch to the customs and habits of
+a sphere so new to him. In all civilised society, the females of
+distinguished rank and beauty give the tone to manners, and, through
+these, even to morals. Lady Blackchester had, besides, interest either
+in the Court, or over the Court, (for its source could not be well
+traced,) which created friends, and overawed those who might have been
+disposed to play the part of enemies.
+
+At one time, she was understood to be closely leagued with the
+Buckingham family, with whom her brother still maintained a great
+intimacy; and, although some coldness had taken place betwixt the
+Countess and the Duchess of Buckingham, so that they were little seen
+together, and the former seemed considerably to have withdrawn herself
+into privacy, it was whispered that Lady Blackchester's interest with
+the great favourite was not diminished in consequence of her breach with
+his lady.
+
+Our accounts of the private Court intrigues of that period, and of the
+persons to whom they were intrusted, are not full enough to enable us to
+pronounce upon the various reports which arose out of the circumstances
+we have detailed. It is enough to say, that Lady Blackchester possessed
+great influence on the circle around her, both from her beauty, her
+abilities, and her reputed talents for Court intrigue; and that Nigel
+Olifaunt was not long of experiencing its power, as he became a slave in
+some degree to that species of habit, which carries so many men into a
+certain society at a certain hour, without expecting or receiving any
+particular degree of gratification, or even amusement.
+
+His life for several weeks may be thus described. The ordinary was no
+bad introduction to the business of the day; and the young lord quickly
+found, that if the society there was not always irreproachable, still
+it formed the most convenient and agreeable place of meeting with the
+fashionable parties, with whom he visited Hyde Park, the theatres, and
+other places of public resort, or joined the gay and glittering circle
+which Lady Blackchester had assembled around her. Neither did he
+entertain the same scrupulous horror which led him originally even to
+hesitate entering into a place where gaming was permitted; but, on the
+contrary, began to admit the idea, that as there could be no harm done
+in beholding such recreation when only indulged in to a moderate degree,
+so, from a parity of reasoning, there could be no objection to joining
+in it, always under the same restrictions. But the young lord was a
+Scotsman, habituated to early reflection, and totally unaccustomed to
+any habit which inferred a careless risk or profuse waste of money.
+Profusion was not his natural vice, or one likely to be acquired in
+the course of his education; and, in all probability, while his father
+anticipated with noble horror the idea of his son approaching the
+gaming-table, he was more startled at the idea of his becoming a gaining
+than a losing adventurer. The second, according to his principles, had
+a termination, a sad one indeed, in the loss of temporal fortune--the
+first quality went on increasing the evil which he dreaded, and perilled
+at once both body and soul.
+
+However the old lord might ground his apprehension, it was so far
+verified by his son's conduct, that, from an observer of the various
+games of chance which he witnessed, he came, by degrees, by moderate
+hazards, and small bets or wagers, to take a certain interest in them.
+Nor could it be denied, that his rank and expectations entitled him to
+hazard a few pieces (for his game went no deeper) against persons, who,
+from the readiness with which they staked their money, might be supposed
+well able to afford to lose it.
+
+It chanced, or, perhaps, according to the common belief, his evil genius
+had so decreed, that Nigel's adventures were remarkably successful. He
+was temperate, cautious, cool-headed, had a strong memory, and a ready
+power of calculation; was besides, of a daring and intrepid character,
+one upon whom no one that had looked even slightly, or spoken to
+though but hastily, would readily have ventured to practise any thing
+approaching to trick, or which required to be supported by intimidation.
+While Lord Glenvarloch chose to play, men played with him regularly,
+or, according to the phrase, upon the square; and, as he found his
+luck change, or wished to hazard his good fortune no farther, the more
+professed votaries of fortune, who frequented the house of Monsieur le
+Chevalier de Saint Priest Beaujeu, did not venture openly to express
+their displeasure at his rising a winner. But when this happened
+repeatedly, the gamesters murmured amongst themselves equally at the
+caution and the success of the young Scotsman; and he became far from
+being a popular character among their society.
+
+It was no slight inducement to the continuance of this most evil habit,
+when it was once in some degree acquired, that it seemed to place
+Lord Glenvarloch, haughty as he naturally was, beyond the necessity of
+subjecting himself to farther pecuniary obligations, which his prolonged
+residence in London must otherwise have rendered necessary. He had to
+solicit from the ministers certain forms of office, which were to render
+his sign-manual effectually useful; and these, though they could not be
+denied, were delayed in such a manner, as to lead Nigel to believe there
+was some secret opposition, which occasioned the demur in his business.
+His own impulse was, to have appeared at Court a second time, with the
+king's sign-manual in his pocket, and to have appealed to his Majesty
+himself, whether the delay of the public officers ought to render his
+royal generosity unavailing. But the Lord Huntinglen, that good old
+peer, who had so frankly interfered in his behalf on a former occasion,
+and whom he occasionally visited, greatly dissuaded him from a similar
+adventure, and exhorted him quietly to await the deliverance of the
+ministers, which should set him free from dancing attendance in London.
+
+Lord Dalgarno joined his father in deterring his young friend from a
+second attendance at Court, at least till he was reconciled with the
+Duke of Buckingham--"a matter in which," he said, addressing his father,
+"I have offered my poor assistance, without being able to prevail on
+Lord Nigel to make any--not even the least--submission to the Duke of
+Buckingham."
+
+"By my faith, and I hold the laddie to be in the right on't, Malcom!"
+answered the stout old Scots lord.--"What right hath Buckingham, or,
+to speak plainly, the son of Sir George Villiers, to expect homage and
+fealty from one more noble than himself by eight quarters? I heard him
+myself, on no reason that I could perceive, term Lord Nigel his enemy;
+and it will never be by my counsel that the lad speaks soft word to him,
+till he recalls the hard one."
+
+"That is precisely my advice to Lord Glenvarloch," answered Lord
+Dalgarno; "but then you will admit, my dear father, that it would be the
+risk of extremity for our friend to return into the presence, the duke
+being his enemy--better to leave it with me to take off the heat of the
+distemperature, with which some pickthanks have persuaded the duke to
+regard our friend."
+
+"If thou canst persuade Buckingham of his error, Malcolm," said his
+father, "for once I will say there hath been kindness and honesty in
+Court service. I have oft told your sister and yourself, that in the
+general I esteem it as lightly as may be."
+
+"You need not doubt my doing my best in Nigel's case," answered Lord
+Dalgarno; "but you must think, my dear father, I must needs use slower
+and gentler means than those by which you became a favourite twenty
+years ago."
+
+"By my faith, I am afraid thou wilt," answered his father.--"I tell
+thee, Malcolm, I would sooner wish myself in the grave, than doubt
+thine honesty or honour; yet somehow it hath chanced, that honest,
+ready service, hath not the same acceptance at Court which it has in my
+younger time--and yet you rise there."
+
+"O, the time permits not your old-world service," said Lord
+Dalgarno; "we have now no daily insurrections, no nightly attempts at
+assassination, as were the fashion in the Scottish Court. Your prompt
+and uncourteous sword-in-hand attendance on the sovereign is no
+longer necessary, and would be as unbeseeming as your old-fashioned
+serving-men, with their badges, broadswords, and bucklers, would be at a
+court-mask. Besides, father, loyal haste hath its inconveniences. I have
+heard, and from royal lips too, that when you stuck your dagger into the
+traitor Ruthven, it was with such little consideration, that the point
+ran a quarter of an inch into the royal buttock. The king
+never talks of it but he rubs the injured part, and quotes his
+_'infandum-------renovare dolorem.'_ But this comes of old fashions, and
+of wearing a long Liddesdale whinger instead of a poniard of Parma. Yet
+this, my dear father, you call prompt and valiant service. The king, I
+am told, could not sit upright for a fortnight, though all the cushions
+in Falkland were placed in his chair of state, and the Provost of
+Dunfermline's borrowed to the boot of all."
+
+"It is a lie," said the old earl, "a false lie, forge it who list!--It
+is true I wore a dagger of service by my side, and not a bodkin like
+yours, to pick one's teeth withal--and for prompt service--Odds nouns!
+it should be prompt to be useful when kings are crying treason and
+murder with the screech of a half-throttled hen. But you young courtiers
+know nought of these matters, and are little better than the green geese
+they bring over from the Indies, whose only merit to their masters is to
+repeat their own words after them--a pack of mouthers, and flatterers,
+and ear-wigs.--Well, I am old and unable to mend, else I would break all
+off, and hear the Tay once more flinging himself over the Campsie Linn."
+
+"But there is your dinner-bell, father," said Lord Dalgarno, "which, if
+the venison I sent you prove seasonable, is at least as sweet a sound."
+
+"Follow me, then, youngsters, if you list," said the old earl; and
+strode on from the alcove in which this conversation was held, towards
+the house, followed by the two young men.
+
+In their private discourse, Lord Dalgarno had little trouble in
+dissuading Nigel from going immediately to Court; while, on the other
+hand, the offers he made him of a previous introduction to the Duke
+of Buckingham, were received by Lord Glenvarloch with a positive and
+contemptuous refusal. His friend shrugged his shoulders, as one who
+claims the merit of having given to an obstinate friend the best
+counsel, and desires to be held free of the consequences of his
+pertinacity.
+
+As for the father, his table indeed, and his best liquor, of which
+he was more profuse than necessary, were at the command of his young
+friend, as well as his best advice and assistance in the prosecution of
+his affairs. But Lord Huntinglen's interest was more apparent than real;
+and the credit he had acquired by his gallant defence of the king's
+person, was so carelessly managed by himself, and so easily eluded by
+the favourites and ministers of the sovereign, that, except upon one or
+two occasions, when the king was in some measure taken by surprise, as
+in the case of Lord Glenvarloch, the royal bounty was never efficiently
+extended either to himself or to his friends.
+
+"There never was a man," said Lord Dalgarno, whose shrewder knowledge of
+the English Court saw where his father's deficiency lay, "that had it so
+perfectly in his power to have made his way to the pinnacle of fortune
+as my poor father. He had acquired a right to build up a staircase, step
+by step, slowly and surely, letting every boon, which he begged year
+after year, become in its turn the resting-place for the next annual
+grant. But your fortunes shall not shipwreck upon the same coast,
+Nigel," he would conclude. "If I have fewer means of influence than my
+father has, or rather had, till he threw them away for butts of sack,
+hawks, hounds, and such carrion, I can, far better than he, improve that
+which I possess; and that, my dear Nigel, is all engaged in your behalf.
+Do not be surprised or offended that you now see me less than formerly.
+The stag-hunting is commenced, and the prince looks that I should attend
+him more frequently. I must also maintain my attendance on the duke,
+that I may have an opportunity of pleading your cause when occasion
+shall permit."
+
+"I have no cause to plead before the duke," said Nigel, gravely; "I have
+said so repeatedly."
+
+"Why, I meant the phrase no otherwise, thou churlish and suspicious
+disputant," answered Dalgarno, "than as I am now pleading the duke's
+cause with thee. Surely I only mean to claim a share in our royal
+master's favourite benediction, _Beati Pacifici_."
+
+Upon several occasions, Lord Glenvarloch's conversations, both with the
+old earl and his son, took a similar turn and had a like conclusion. He
+sometimes felt as if, betwixt the one and the other, not to mention the
+more unseen and unboasted, but scarce less certain influence of Lady
+Blackchester, his affair, simple as it had become, might have been
+somehow accelerated. But it was equally impossible to doubt the rough
+honesty of the father, and the eager and officious friendship of Lord
+Dalgarno; nor was it easy to suppose that the countenance of the lady,
+by whom he was received with such distinction, would be wanting, could
+it be effectual in his service.
+
+Nigel was further sensible of the truth of what Lord Dalgarno often
+pointed out, that the favourite being supposed to be his enemy, every
+petty officer, through whose hands his affair must necessarily pass,
+would desire to make a merit of throwing obstacles in his way, which
+he could only surmount by steadiness and patience, unless he preferred
+closing the breach, or, as Lord Dalgarno called it, making his peace
+with the Duke of Buckingham.
+
+Nigel might, and doubtless would, have had recourse to the advice of his
+friend George Heriot upon this occasion, having found it so advantageous
+formerly; but the only time he saw him after their visit to Court, he
+found the worthy citizen engaged in hasty preparations for a journey to
+Paris, upon business of great importance in the way of his profession,
+and by an especial commission from the Court and the Duke of Buckingham,
+which was likely to be attended with considerable profit. The good man
+smiled as he named the Duke of Buckingham. He had been, he said, pretty
+sure that his disgrace in that quarter would not be of long duration.
+Lord Glenvarloch expressed himself rejoiced at that reconciliation,
+observing, that it had been a most painful reflection to him, that
+Master Heriot should, in his behalf, have incurred the dislike, and
+perhaps exposed himself to the ill offices, of so powerful a favourite.
+
+"My lord," said Heriot, "for your father's son I would do much; and yet
+truly, if I know myself, I would do as much and risk as much, for the
+sake of justice, in the case of a much more insignificant person, as I
+have ventured for yours. But as we shall not meet for some time, I must
+commit to your own wisdom the farther prosecution of this matter."
+
+And thus they took a kind and affectionate leave of each other.
+
+There were other changes in Lord Glenvarloch's situation, which require
+to be noticed. His present occupations, and the habits of amusement
+which he had acquired, rendered his living so far in the city a
+considerable inconvenience. He may also have become a little ashamed of
+his cabin on Paul's Wharf, and desirous of being lodged somewhat
+more according to his quality. For this purpose, he had hired a small
+apartment near the Temple. He was, nevertheless, almost sorry for what
+he had done, when he observed that his removal appeared to give some
+pain to John Christie, and a great deal to his cordial and officious
+landlady. The former, who was grave and saturnine in every thing he did,
+only hoped that all had been to Lord Glenvarloch's mind, and that he had
+not left them on account of any unbeseeming negligence on their part.
+But the tear twinkled in Dame Nelly's eye, while she recounted the
+various improvements she had made in the apartment, of express purpose
+to render it more convenient to his lordship.
+
+"There was a great sea-chest," she said, "had been taken upstairs to the
+shopman's garret, though it left the poor lad scarce eighteen inches
+of opening to creep betwixt it and his bed; and Heaven knew--she did
+not--whether it could ever be brought down that narrow stair again. Then
+the turning the closet into an alcove had cost a matter of twenty round
+shillings; and to be sure, to any other lodger but his lordship, the
+closet was more convenient. There was all the linen, too, which she had
+bought on purpose--But Heaven's will be done--she was resigned."
+
+Everybody likes marks of personal attachment; and Nigel, whose heart
+really smote him, as if in his rising fortunes he were disdaining the
+lowly accommodations and the civilities of the humble friends which had
+been but lately actual favours, failed not by every assurance in his
+power, and by as liberal payment as they could be prevailed upon to
+accept, to alleviate the soreness of their feelings at his departure;
+and a parting kiss from the fair lips of his hostess sealed his
+forgiveness.
+
+Richie Moniplies lingered behind his master, to ask whether, in case of
+need, John Christie could help a canny Scotsman to a passage back to his
+own country; and receiving assurance of John's interest to that effect,
+he said at parting, he would remind him of his promise soon.--"For,"
+said he, "if my lord is not weary of this London life, I ken one that
+is, videlicet, mysell; and I am weel determined to see Arthur's Seat
+again ere I am many weeks older."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+  Bingo, why, Bingo! hey, boy--here, sir, here!--
+  He's gone and off, but he'll be home before us;--
+  'Tis the most wayward cur e'er mumbled bone,
+  Or dogg'd a master's footstep.--Bingo loves me
+  Better than ever beggar loved his alms;
+  Yet, when he takes such humour, you may coax
+  Sweet Mistress Fantasy, your worship's mistress,
+  Out of her sullen moods, as soon as Bingo.
+                       _The Dominie And His Dog_.
+
+Richie Moniplies was as good as his word. Two or three mornings after
+the young lord had possessed himself of his new lodgings, he appeared
+before Nigel, as he was preparing to dress, having left his pillow at an
+hour much later than had formerly been his custom.
+
+As Nigel looked upon his attendant, he observed there was a gathering
+gloom upon his solemn features, which expressed either additional
+importance, or superadded discontent, or a portion of both.
+
+"How now," he said, "what is the matter this morning, Richie, that you
+have made your face so like the grotesque mask on one of the spouts
+yonder?" pointing to the Temple Church, of which Gothic building they
+had a view from the window.
+
+Richie swivelled his head a little to the right with as little alacrity
+as if he had the crick in his neck, and instantly resuming his posture,
+replied,--"Mask here, mask there--it were nae such matters that I have
+to speak anent."
+
+"And what matters have you to speak anent, then?" said his master, whom
+circumstances had inured to tolerate a good deal of freedom from his
+attendant.
+
+"My lord,"--said Richie, and then stopped to cough and hem, as if what
+he had to say stuck somewhat in his throat.
+
+"I guess the mystery," said Nigel, "you want a little money, Richie;
+will five pieces serve the present turn?"
+
+"My lord," said Richie, "I may, it is like, want a trifle of money; and
+I am glad at the same time, and sorry, that it is mair plenty with your
+lordship than formerly."
+
+"Glad and sorry, man!" said Lord Nigel, "why, you are reading riddles to
+me, Richie."
+
+"My riddle will be briefly read," said Richie; "I come to crave of your
+lordship your commands for Scotland."
+
+"For Scotland!--why, art thou mad, man?" said Nigel; "canst thou not
+tarry to go down with me?"
+
+"I could be of little service," said Richie, "since you purpose to hire
+another page and groom."
+
+"Why, thou jealous ass," said the young lord, "will not thy load of
+duty lie the lighter?--Go, take thy breakfast, and drink thy ale double
+strong, to put such absurdities out of thy head--I could be angry with
+thee for thy folly, man--but I remember how thou hast stuck to me in
+adversity."
+
+"Adversity, my lord, should never have parted us," said Richie;
+"methinks, had the warst come to warst, I could have starved as
+gallantly as your lordship, or more so, being in some sort used to it;
+for, though I was bred at a flasher's stall, I have not through my life
+had a constant intimacy with collops."
+
+"Now, what is the meaning of all this trash?" said Nigel; "or has it no
+other end than to provoke my patience? You know well enough, that, had I
+twenty serving-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood by
+me in my distress the most valued of them all. But it is totally out of
+reason to plague me with your solemn capriccios."
+
+"My lord," said Richie, "in declaring your trust in me, you have done
+what is honourable to yourself, if I may with humility say so much, and
+in no way undeserved on my side. Nevertheless, we must part."
+
+"Body of me, man, why?" said Lord Nigel; "what reason can there be for
+it, if we are mutually satisfied?"
+
+"My lord," said Richie Moniplies, "your lordship's occupations are such
+as I cannot own or countenance by my presence."
+
+"How now, sirrah!" said his master, angrily.
+
+"Under favour, my lord," replied his domestic, "it is unequal dealing to
+be equally offended by my speech and by my silence. If you can hear with
+patience the grounds of my departure, it may be, for aught I know, the
+better for you here and hereafter--if not, let me have my license of
+departure in silence, and so no more about it."
+
+"Go to, sir!" said Nigel; "speak out your mind--only remember to whom
+you speak it."
+
+"Weel, weel, my lord--I speak it with humility;" (never did Richie look
+with more starched dignity than when he uttered the word;) "but do
+you think this dicing and card-shuffling, and haunting of taverns and
+playhouses, suits your lordship--for I am sure it does not suit me?"
+
+"Why, you are not turned precisian or puritan, fool?" said Lord
+Glenvarloch, laughing, though, betwixt resentment and shame, it cost him
+some trouble to do so.
+
+"My lord," replied the follower, "I ken the purport of your query. I
+am, it may be, a little of a precisian, and I wish to Heaven I was mair
+worthy of the name; but let that be a pass-over.--I have stretched the
+duties of a serving-man as far as my northern conscience will permit. I
+can give my gude word to my master, or to my native country, when I am
+in a foreign land, even though I should leave downright truth a wee bit
+behind me. Ay, and I will take or give a slash with ony man that
+speaks to the derogation of either. But this chambering, dicing, and
+play-haunting, is not my element--I cannot draw breath in it--and when
+I hear of your lordship winning the siller that some poor creature may
+full sairly miss--by my saul, if it wad serve your necessity, rather
+than you gained it from him, I wad take a jump over the hedge with your
+lordship, and cry 'Stand!' to the first grazier we met that was coming
+from Smithfield with the price of his Essex calves in his leathern
+pouch!"
+
+"You are a simpleton," said Nigel, who felt, however, much
+conscience-struck; "I never play but for small sums."
+
+"Ay, my lord," replied the unyielding domestic, "and--still with
+reverence--it is even sae much the waur. If you played with your equals,
+there might be like sin, but there wad be mair warldly honour in it.
+Your lordship kens, or may ken, by experience of your ain, whilk is not
+as yet mony weeks auld, that small sums can ill be missed by those that
+have nane larger; and I maun e'en be plain with you, that men notice it
+of your lordship, that ye play wi' nane but the misguided creatures that
+can but afford to lose bare stakes."
+
+"No man dare say so!" replied Nigel, very angrily. "I play with whom I
+please, but I will only play for what stake I please."
+
+"That is just what they say, my lord," said the unmerciful Richie,
+whose natural love of lecturing, as well as his bluntness of feeling,
+prevented him from having any idea of the pain which he was inflicting
+on his master; "these are even their own very words. It was but
+yesterday your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, to win from
+yonder young hafflins gentleman, with the crimson velvet doublet, and
+the cock's feather in his beaver--him, I mean, who fought with the
+ranting captain--a matter of five pounds, or thereby. I saw him come
+through the hall; and, if he was not cleaned out of cross and pile, I
+never saw a ruined man in my life."
+
+"Impossible!" said Lord Glenvarloch--"Why, who is he? he looked like a
+man of substance."
+
+"All is not gold that glistens, my lord," replied Richie; "'broidery
+and bullion buttons make bare pouches. And if you ask who he is--maybe I
+have a guess, and care not to tell."
+
+"At least, if I have done any such fellow an injury," said the Lord
+Nigel, "let me know how I can repair it."
+
+"Never fash your beard about that, my lord,--with reverence always,"
+said Richie,--"he shall be suitably cared after. Think on him but as
+ane wha was running post to the devil, and got a shouldering from your
+lordship to help him on his journey. But I will stop him, if reason can;
+and so your lordship needs asks nae mair about it, for there is no use
+in your knowing it, but much the contrair."
+
+"Hark you, sirrah," said his master, "I have borne with you thus far,
+for certain reasons; but abuse my good-nature no farther--and since you
+must needs go, why, go a God's name, and here is to pay your journey."
+So saying, he put gold into his hand, which Richie told over piece by
+piece, with the utmost accuracy.
+
+"Is it all right--or are they wanting in weight--or what the devil keeps
+you, when your hurry was so great five minutes since?" said the young
+lord, now thoroughly nettled at the presumptuous precision with which
+Richie dealt forth his canons of morality.
+
+"The tale of coin is complete," said Richie, with the most imperturbable
+gravity; "and, for the weight, though they are sae scrupulous in this
+town, as make mouths at a piece that is a wee bit light, or that has
+been cracked within the ring, my sooth, they will jump at them in
+Edinburgh like a cock at a grosart. Gold pieces are not so plenty there,
+the mair the pity!"
+
+"The more is your folly, then," said Nigel, whose anger was only
+momentary, "that leave the land where there is enough of them."
+
+"My lord," said Richie, "to be round with you, the grace of God is
+better than gold pieces. When Goblin, as you call yonder Monsieur
+Lutin,--and you might as well call him Gibbet, since that is what he is
+like to end in,--shall recommend a page to you, ye will hear little such
+doctrine as ye have heard from me.--And if they were my last words," he
+said, raising his voice, "I would say you are misled, and are forsaking
+the paths which your honourable father trode in; and, what is more, you
+are going--still under correction--to the devil with a dishclout, for ye
+are laughed at by them that lead you into these disordered bypaths."
+
+"Laughed at!" said Nigel, who, like others of his age, was more sensible
+to ridicule than to reason--"Who dares laugh at me?"
+
+"My lord, as sure as I live by bread--nay, more, as I am a true
+man--and, I think, your lordship never found Richie's tongue bearing
+aught but the truth--unless that your lordship's credit, my country's
+profit, or, it may be, some sma' occasion of my ain, made it unnecessary
+to promulgate the haill veritie,--I say then, as I am a true man, when I
+saw that puir creature come through the ha', at that ordinary, whilk is
+accurst (Heaven forgive me for swearing!) of God and man, with his teeth
+set, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet drawn over his brows like a
+desperate man, Goblin said to me, 'There goes a dunghill chicken, that
+your master has plucked clean enough; it will be long ere his lordship
+ruffle a feather with a cock of the game.' And so, my lord, to speak
+it out, the lackeys, and the gallants, and more especially your sworn
+brother, Lord Dalgarno, call you the sparrow-hawk.--I had some thought
+to have cracked Lutin's pate for the speech, but, after a', the
+controversy was not worth it."
+
+"Do they use such terms of me?" said Lord Nigel. "Death and the devil!"
+
+"And the devil's dam, my lord," answered Richie; "they are all three
+busy in London.--And, besides, Lutin and his master laughed at you, my
+lord, for letting it be thought that--I shame to speak it--that ye were
+over well with the wife of the decent honest man whose house you but
+now left, as not sufficient for your new bravery, whereas they said, the
+licentious scoffers, that you pretended to such favour when you had not
+courage enough for so fair a quarrel, and that the sparrow-hawk was
+too craven-crested to fly at the wife of a cheesemonger."--He stopped a
+moment, and looked fixedly in his master's face, which was inflamed with
+shame and anger, and then proceeded. "My lord, I did you justice in my
+thought, and myself too; for, thought I, he would have been as deep in
+that sort of profligacy as in others, if it hadna been Richie's four
+quarters."
+
+"What new nonsense have you got to plague me with?" said Lord Nigel.
+"But go on, since it is the last time I am to be tormented with your
+impertinence,--go on, and make the most of your time."
+
+"In troth," said Richie, "and so will I even do. And as Heaven has
+bestowed on me a tongue to speak and to advise----"
+
+"Which talent you can by no means be accused of suffering to remain
+idle," said Lord Glenvarloch, interrupting him.
+
+"True, my lord," said Richie, again waving his hand, as if to bespeak
+his master's silence and attention; "so, I trust, you will think some
+time hereafter. And, as I am about to leave your service, it is proper
+that ye suld know the truth, that ye may consider the snares to which
+your youth and innocence may be exposed, when aulder and doucer heads
+are withdrawn from beside you.--There has been a lusty, good-looking
+kimmer, of some forty, or bygane, making mony speerings about you, my
+lord."
+
+"Well, sir, what did she want with me?" said Lord Nigel.
+
+"At first, my lord," replied his sapient follower, "as she seemed to be
+a well-fashioned woman, and to take pleasure in sensible company, I was
+no way reluctant to admit her to my conversation."
+
+"I dare say not," said Lord Nigel; "nor unwilling to tell her about my
+private affairs."
+
+"Not I, truly, my lord," said the attendant;--"for, though she asked me
+mony questions about your fame, your fortune, your business here, and
+such like, I did not think it proper to tell her altogether the truth
+thereanent."
+
+"I see no call on you whatever," said Lord Nigel, "to tell the woman
+either truth or lies upon what she had nothing to do with."
+
+"I thought so, too, my lord," replied Richie, "and so I told her
+neither."
+
+"And what _did_ you tell her, then, you eternal babbler?" said his
+master, impatient of his prate, yet curious to know what it was all to
+end in.
+
+"I told her," said Richie, "about your warldly fortune, and sae forth,
+something whilk is not truth just at this time; but which hath been
+truth formerly, suld be truth now, and will be truth again,--and that
+was, that you were in possession of your fair lands, whilk ye are but
+in right of as yet. Pleasant communing we had on that and other topics,
+until she showed the cloven foot, beginning to confer with me about some
+wench that she said had a good-will to your lordship, and fain she would
+have spoken with you in particular anent it; but when I heard of such
+inklings, I began to suspect she was little better than--whew! "--Here
+he concluded his narrative with a low, but very expressive whistle.
+
+"And what did your wisdom do in these circumstances?" said Lord Nigel,
+who, notwithstanding his former resentment, could now scarcely forbear
+laughing.
+
+"I put on a look, my lord," replied Richie, bending his solemn brows,
+"that suld give her a heartscald of walking on such errands. I laid her
+enormities clearly before her, and I threatened her, in sae mony words,
+that I would have her to the ducking-stool; and she, on the contrair
+part, miscawed me for a forward northern tyke--and so we parted never
+to meet again, as I hope and trust. And so I stood between your lordship
+and that temptation, which might have been worse than the ordinary, or
+the playhouse either; since you wot well what Solomon, King of the Jews,
+sayeth of the strange woman--for, said I to mysell, we have taken to
+dicing already, and if we take to drabbing next, the Lord kens what we
+may land in!"
+
+"Your impertinence deserves correction, but it is the last which, for
+a time at least, I shall have to forgive--and I forgive it," said Lord
+Glenvarloch; "and, since we are to part, Richie, I will say no more
+respecting your precautions on my account, than that I think you might
+have left me to act according to my own judgment."
+
+"Mickle better not," answered Richie--"mickle better not; we are a'
+frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our ain
+cases. And for me, even myself, saving that case of the Sifflication,
+which might have happened to ony one, I have always observed myself to
+be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's
+behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own
+interest--whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, as in duty I
+ought."
+
+"I do believe thou hast," said Lord Nigel, "having ever found thee true
+and faithful. And since London pleases you so little, I will bid you a
+short farewell; and you may go down to Edinburgh until I come thither
+myself, when I trust you will re-enter into my service."
+
+"Now, Heaven bless you, my lord," said Richie Moniplies, with uplifted
+eyes; "for that word sounds more like grace than ony has come out of
+your mouth this fortnight.--I give you godd'en, my lord."
+
+So saying, he thrust forth his immense bony hand, seized on that of Lord
+Glenvarloch, raised it to his lips, then turned short on his heel, and
+left the room hastily, as if afraid of showing more emotion than was
+consistent with his ideas of decorum. Lord Nigel, rather surprised at
+his sudden exit, called after him to know whether he was sufficiently
+provided with money; but Richie, shaking his head, without making any
+other answer, ran hastily down stairs, shut the street-door heavily
+behind him, and was presently seen striding along the Strand.
+
+His master almost involuntarily watched and distinguished the tall
+raw-boned figure of his late follower, from the window, for some time,
+until he was lost among the crowd of passengers. Nigel's reflections
+were not altogether those of self-approval. It was no good sign of his
+course of life, (he could not help acknowledging this much to himself,)
+that so faithful an adherent no longer seemed to feel the same pride
+in his service, or attachment to his person, which he had formerly
+manifested. Neither could he avoid experiencing some twinges of
+conscience, while he felt in some degree the charges which Richie
+had preferred against him, and experienced a sense of shame and
+mortification, arising from the colour given by others to that, which
+he himself would have called his caution and moderation in play. He had
+only the apology, that it had never occurred to himself in this light.
+
+Then his pride and self-love suggested, that, on the other hand, Richie,
+with all his good intentions, was little better than a conceited,
+pragmatical domestic, who seemed disposed rather to play the tutor than
+the lackey, and who, out of sheer love, as he alleged, to his master's
+person, assumed the privilege of interfering with, and controlling, his
+actions, besides rendering him ridiculous in the gay world, from the
+antiquated formality, and intrusive presumption, of his manners.
+
+Nigel's eyes were scarce turned from the window, when his new landlord
+entering, presented to him a slip of paper, carefully bound round with
+a string of flox-silk and sealed---it had been given in, he said, by a
+woman, who did not stop an instant. The contents harped upon the same
+string which Richie Moniplies had already jarred. The epistle was in the
+following words:
+
+For the Right Honourable hands of Lord Glenvarloch, "These, from a
+friend unknown:--
+
+"MY LORD,
+
+"You are trusting to an unhonest friend, and diminishing an honest
+reputation. An unknown but real friend of your lordship will speak in
+one word what you would not learn from flatterers in so many days, as
+should suffice for your utter ruin. He whom you think most true--I say
+your friend Lord Dalgarno--is utterly false to you, and doth but seek,
+under pretence of friendship, to mar your fortune, and diminish the good
+name by which you might mend it. The kind countenance which he shows
+to you, is more dangerous than the Prince's frown; even as to gain
+at Beaujeu's ordinary is more discreditable than to lose. Beware of
+both.--And this is all from your true but nameless friend, IGNOTO."
+
+Lord Glenvarloch paused for an instant, and crushed the paper
+together--then again unfolded and read it with attention--bent
+his brows--mused for a moment, and then tearing it to fragments,
+exclaimed--"Begone for a vile calumny! But I will watch--I will
+observe--"
+
+Thought after thought rushed on him; but, upon the whole, Lord
+Glenvarloch was so little satisfied with the result of his own
+reflections, that he resolved to dissipate them by a walk in the Park,
+and, taking his cloak and beaver, went thither accordingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+  Twas when fleet Snowball's head was woxen grey,
+  A luckless lev'ret met him on his way.--
+  Who knows not Snowball--he, whose race renown'd
+  Is still victorious on each coursing ground?
+  Swaffhanm Newmarket, and the Roman Camp,
+  Have seen them victors o'er each meaner stamp--
+  In vain the youngling sought, with doubling wile,
+  The hedge, the hill, the thicket, or the stile.
+  Experience sage the lack of speed supplied,
+  And in the gap he sought, the victim died.
+  So was I once, in thy fair street, Saint James,
+  Through walking cavaliers, and car-borne dames,
+  Descried, pursued, turn'd o'er again, and o'er,
+  Coursed, coted, mouth'd by an unfeeling bore.
+                                        &c. &c. &c,
+
+The Park of Saint James's, though enlarged, planted with verdant alleys,
+and otherwise decorated by Charles II., existed in the days of his
+grandfather, as a public and pleasant promenade; and, for the sake of
+exercise or pastime, was much frequented by the better classes.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch repaired thither to dispel the unpleasant reflections
+which had been suggested by his parting with his trusty squire, Richie
+Moniplies, in a manner which was agreeable neither to his pride nor his
+feelings; and by the corroboration which the hints of his late attendant
+had received from the anonymous letter mentioned in the end of the last
+chapter.
+
+There was a considerable number of company in the Park when he entered
+it, but, his present state of mind inducing him to avoid society,
+he kept aloof from the more frequented walks towards Westminster
+and Whitehall, and drew to the north, or, as we should now say, the
+Piccadilly verge of the enclosure, believing he might there enjoy, or
+rather combat, his own thoughts unmolested.
+
+In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch was mistaken; for, as he strolled
+slowly along with his arms folded in his cloak, and his hat drawn over
+his eyes, he was suddenly pounced upon by Sir Mungo Malagrowther,
+who, either shunning or shunned, had retreated, or had been obliged to
+retreat, to the same less frequented corner of the Park.
+
+Nigel started when he heard the high, sharp, and querulous tones of the
+knight's cracked voice, and was no less alarmed when he beheld his tall
+thin figure hobbling towards him, wrapped in a thread-bare cloak, on
+whose surface ten thousand varied stains eclipsed the original scarlet,
+and having his head surmounted with a well-worn beaver, bearing a black
+velvet band for a chain, and a capon's feather for an ostrich plume.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch would fain have made his escape, but, as our motto
+intimates, a leveret had as little chance to free herself of an
+experienced greyhound. Sir Mungo, to continue the simile, had long ago
+learned to run cunning, and make sure of mouthing his game. So
+Nigel found himself compelled to stand and answer the hackneyed
+question--"What news to-day?"
+
+"Nothing extraordinary, I believe," answered the young nobleman,
+attempting to pass on.
+
+"O, ye are ganging to the French ordinary belive," replied the knight;
+"but it is early day yet--we will take a turn in the Park in the
+meanwhile--it will sharpen your appetite."
+
+So saying, he quietly slipped his arm under Lord Glenvarloch's, in spite
+of all the decent reluctance which his victim could exhibit, by keeping
+his elbow close to his side; and having fairly grappled the prize, he
+proceeded to take it in tow.
+
+Nigel was sullen and silent, in hopes to shake off his unpleasant
+companion; but Sir Mungo was determined, that if he did not speak, he
+should at least hear.
+
+"Ye are bound for the ordinary, my lord?" said the cynic;--"weel, ye
+canna do better--there is choice company there, and peculiarly selected,
+as I am tauld, being, dootless, sic as it is desirable that young
+noblemen should herd withal--and your noble father wad have been blithe
+to see you keeping such worshipful society."
+
+"I believe," said Lord Glenvarloch, thinking himself obliged to say
+something, "that the society is as good as generally can be found in
+such places, where the door can scarcely be shut against those who come
+to spend their money."
+
+"Right, my lord--vera right," said his tormentor, bursting out into a
+chuckling, but most discordant laugh. "These citizen chuffs and clowns
+will press in amongst us, when there is but an inch of a door open. And
+what remedy?--Just e'en this, that as their cash gies them confidence,
+we should strip them of it. Flay them, my lord--singe them as the
+kitchen wench does the rats, and then they winna long to come back
+again.--Ay, ay--pluck them, plume them--and then the larded capons will
+not be for flying so high a wing, my lord, among the goss-hawks and
+sparrow-hawks, and the like."
+
+And, therewithal, Sir Mungo fixed on Nigel his quick, sharp, grey
+eye, watching the effect of his sarcasm as keenly as the surgeon, in a
+delicate operation, remarks the progress of his anatomical scalpel.
+
+Nigel, however willing to conceal his sensations, could not avoid
+gratifying his tormentor by wincing under the operation. He coloured
+with vexation and anger; but a quarrel with Sir Mungo Malagrowther
+would, he felt, be unutterably ridiculous; and he only muttered to
+himself the words, "Impertinent coxcomb!" which, on this occasion,
+Sir Mungo's imperfection of organ did not prevent him from hearing and
+replying to.
+
+"Ay, ay--vera true," exclaimed the caustic old courtier--"Impertinent
+coxcombs they are, that thus intrude themselves on the society of their
+betters; but your lordship kens how to gar them as gude--ye have the
+trick on't.--They had a braw sport in the presence last Friday, how ye
+suld have routed a young shopkeeper, horse and foot, ta'en his _spolia
+ofima_, and a' the specie he had about him, down to the very silver
+buttons of his cloak, and sent him to graze with Nebuchadnezzar, King
+of Babylon. Muckle honour redounded to your lordship thereby.--We were
+tauld the loon threw himsell into the Thames in a fit of desperation.
+There's enow of them behind--there was mair tint on Flodden-edge."
+
+"You have been told a budget of lies, so far as I am concerned, Sir
+Mungo," said Nigel, speaking loud and sternly.
+
+"Vera likely--vera likely," said the unabashed and undismayed Sir Mungo;
+"naething but lies are current in the circle.--So the chield is not
+drowned, then?--the mair's the pity.--But I never believed that part of
+the story--a London dealer has mair wit in his anger. I dare swear the
+lad has a bonny broom-shank in his hand by this time, and is scrubbing
+the kennels in quest after rusty nails, to help him to begin his pack
+again.--He has three bairns, they say; they will help him bravely to
+grope in the gutters. Your good lordship may have the ruining of him
+again, my lord, if they have any luck in strand-scouring."
+
+"This is more than intolerable," said Nigel, uncertain whether to make
+an angry vindication of his character, or to fling the old tormentor
+from his arm. But an instant's recollection convinced him, that, to do
+either, would only give an air of truth and consistency to the scandals
+which he began to see were affecting his character, both in the higher
+and lower circles. Hastily, therefore, he formed the wiser resolution,
+to endure Sir Mungo's studied impertinence, under the hope of
+ascertaining, if possible, from what source those reports arose which
+were so prejudicial to his reputation.
+
+Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile, caught up, as usual, Nigel's last words, or
+rather the sound of them, and amplified and interpreted them in his own
+way. "Tolerable luck!" he repeated; "yes, truly, my lord, I am told that
+you have tolerable luck, and that ye ken weel how to use that jilting
+quean, Dame Fortune, like a canny douce lad, willing to warm yourself in
+her smiles, without exposing yourself to her frowns. And that is what I
+ca' having luck in a bag."
+
+"Sir Mungo Malagrowther," said Lord Glenvarloch, turning towards him
+seriously, "have the goodness to hear me for a moment."
+
+"As weel as I can, my lord--as weel as I can," said Sir Mungo, shaking
+his head, and pointing the finger of his left hand to his ear.
+
+"I will try to speak very distinctly," said Nigel, arming himself with
+patience. "You take me for a noted gamester; I give you my word that
+you have not been rightly informed--I am none such. You owe me some
+explanation, at least, respecting the source from which you have derived
+such false information."
+
+"I never heard ye were a _great_ gamester, and never thought or said ye
+were such, my lord," said Sir Mungo, who found it impossible to
+avoid hearing what Nigel said with peculiarly deliberate and distinct
+pronunciation. "I repeat it--I never heard, said, or thought that
+you were a ruffling gamester,--such as they call those of the first
+head.--Look you, my lord, I call _him_ a gamester, that plays with equal
+stakes and equal skill, and stands by the fortune of the game, good or
+bad; and I call _him_ a ruffling gamester, or ane of the first head, who
+ventures frankly and deeply upon such a wager. But he, my lord, who has
+the patience and prudence never to venture beyond small game, such as,
+at most, might crack the Christmas-box of a grocer's 'prentice, who vies
+with those that have little to hazard, and who therefore, having the
+larger stock, can always rook them by waiting for his good fortune, and
+by rising from the game when luck leaves him--such a one as he, my
+lord, I do not call a _great_ gamester, to whatever other name he may be
+entitled."
+
+"And such a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would infer that I am,"
+replied Lord Glenvarloch; "one who fears the skilful, and preys upon the
+ignorant--who avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure
+of pillaging his inferiors?--Is this what I am to understand has been
+reported of me?"
+
+"Nay, my lord, you will gain nought by speaking big with me," said Sir
+Mungo, who, besides that his sarcastic humour was really supported by
+a good fund of animal courage, had also full reliance on the immunities
+which he had derived from the broadsword of Sir Rullion Rattray, and the
+baton of the satellites employed by the Lady Cockpen. "And for the truth
+of the matter," he continued, "your lordship best knows whether you
+ever lost more than five pieces at a time since you frequented
+Beaujeu's--whether you have not most commonly risen a winner--and
+whether the brave young gallants who frequent the ordinary--I mean
+those of noble rank, and means conforming--are in use to play upon those
+terms?"
+
+"My father was right," said Lord Glenvarloch, in the bitterness of his
+spirit; "and his curse justly followed me when I first entered that
+place. There is contamination in the air, and he whose fortune avoids
+ruin, shall be blighted in his honour and reputation."
+
+Sir Mungo, who watched his victim with the delighted yet wary eye of an
+experienced angler, became now aware, that if he strained the line on
+him too tightly, there was every risk of his breaking hold. In order to
+give him room, therefore, to play, he protested that Lord Glenvarloch
+"should not take his free speech _in malam partem_. If you were a trifle
+ower sicker in your amusement, my lord, it canna be denied that it
+is the safest course to prevent farther endangerment of your somewhat
+dilapidated fortunes; and if ye play with your inferiors, ye are
+relieved of the pain of pouching the siller of your friends and
+equals; forby, that the plebeian knaves have had the advantage, _tecum
+certasse_, as Ajax Telamon sayeth, _apud Metamorphoseos_; and for the
+like of them to have played with ane Scottish nobleman is an honest and
+honourable consideration to compensate the loss of their stake, whilk, I
+dare say, moreover, maist of the churls can weel afford."
+
+"Be that as it may, Sir Mungo," said Nigel, "I would fain know--"
+
+"Ay, ay," interrupted Sir Mungo; "and, as you say, who cares whether the
+fat bulls of Bashan can spare it or no? gentlemen are not to limit their
+sport for the like of them."
+
+"I wish to know, Sir Mungo," said Lord Glenvarloch, "in what company you
+have learned these offensive particulars respecting me?"
+
+"Dootless--dootless, my lord," said Sir Mungo; "I have ever heard, and
+have ever reported, that your lordship kept the best of company in a
+private way.--There is the fine Countess of Blackchester, but I think
+she stirs not much abroad since her affair with his Grace of Buckingham;
+and there is the gude auld-fashioned Scottish nobleman, Lord Huntinglen,
+an undeniable man of quality--it is pity but he could keep caup and can
+frae his head, whilk now and then doth'minish his reputation. And there
+is the gay young Lord Dalgarno, that carries the craft of gray hairs
+under his curled love-locks--a fair race they are, father, daughter,
+and son, all of the same honourable family. I think we needna speak of
+George Heriot, honest man, when we have nobility in question. So that
+is the company I have heard of your keeping, my lord, out-taken those of
+the ordinary."
+
+"My company has not, indeed, been much more extended than amongst those
+you mention," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but in short--"
+
+"To Court?" said Sir Mungo, "that was just what I was going to say--Lord
+Dalgarno says he cannot prevail on ye to come to Court, and that does ye
+prejudice, my lord--the king hears of you by others, when he should see
+you in person--I speak in serious friendship, my lord. His Majesty,
+when you were named in the circle short while since, was heard to say,
+_'Jacta est alea!_--Glenvarlochides is turned dicer and drinker.'--My
+Lord Dalgarno took your part, and he was e'en borne down by the popular
+voice of the courtiers, who spoke of you as one who had betaken yourself
+to living a town life, and risking your baron's coronet amongst the
+flatcaps of the city."
+
+"And this was publicly spoken of me," said Nigel, "and in the king's
+presence?"
+
+"Spoken openly?" repeated Sir Mungo Malagrowther; "ay, by my troth
+was it--that is to say, it was whispered privately--whilk is as open
+promulgation as the thing permitted; for ye may think the Court is not
+like a place where men are as sib as Simmie and his brother, and roar
+out their minds as if they were at an ordinary."
+
+"A curse on the Court and the ordinary both!" cried Nigel, impatiently.
+
+"With all my heart," said the knight; "I have got little by a knight's
+service in the Court; and the last time I was at the ordinary, I lost
+four angels."
+
+"May I pray of you, Sir Mungo, to let me know," said Nigel, "the names
+of those who thus make free with the character of one who can be but
+little known to them, and who never injured any of them?"
+
+"Have I not told you already," answered Sir Mungo, "that the king said
+something to that effect--so did the Prince too;--and such being the
+case, ye may take it on your corporal oath, that every man in the circle
+who was not silent, sung the same song as they did."
+
+"You said but now," replied Glenvarloch, "that Lord Dalgarno interfered
+in my behalf."
+
+"In good troth did he," answered Sir Mungo, with a sneer; "but the young
+nobleman was soon borne down--by token, he had something of a catarrh,
+and spoke as hoarse as a roopit raven. Poor gentleman, if he had had his
+full extent of voice, he would have been as well listened to, dootless,
+as in a cause of his ain, whilk no man kens better how to plead to
+purpose.--And let me ask you, by the way," continued Sir Mungo, "whether
+Lord Dalgarno has ever introduced your lordship to the Prince, or the
+Duke of Buckingham, either of whom might soon carry through your suit?"
+
+"I have no claim on the favour of either the Prince or the Duke of
+Buckingham," said Lord Glenvarloch.--"As you seem to have made my
+affairs your study, Sir Mungo, although perhaps something unnecessarily,
+you may have heard that I have petitioned my Sovereign for payment of a
+debt due to my family. I cannot doubt the king's desire to do justice,
+nor can I in decency employ the solicitation of his Highness the Prince,
+or his Grace the Duke of Buckingham, to obtain from his Majesty what
+either should be granted me as a right, or refused altogether."
+
+Sir Mungo twisted his whimsical features into one of his most grotesque
+sneers, as he replied--
+
+"It is a vera clear and parspicuous position of the case, my lord; and
+in relying thereupon, you show an absolute and unimprovable acquaintance
+with the King, Court, and mankind in general.-But whom have we got
+here?--Stand up, my lord, and make way--by my word of honour, they are
+the very men we spoke of--talk of the devil, and--humph!"
+
+It must be here premised, that, during the conversation, Lord
+Glenvarloch, perhaps in the hope of shaking himself free of Sir Mungo,
+had directed their walk towards the more frequented part of the Park;
+while the good knight had stuck to him, being totally indifferent which
+way they went, provided he could keep his talons clutched upon his
+companion. They were still, however, at some distance from the livelier
+part of the scene, when Sir Mungo's experienced eye noticed the
+appearances which occasioned the latter part of his speech to Lord
+Glenvarloch. A low respectful murmur arose among the numerous groups of
+persons which occupied the lower part of the Park. They first clustered
+together, with their faces turned towards Whitehall, then fell back
+on either hand to give place to a splendid party of gallants, who,
+advancing from the Palace, came onward through the Park; all the other
+company drawing off the pathway, and standing uncovered as they passed.
+
+Most of these courtly gallants were dressed in the garb which the
+pencil of Vandyke has made familiar even at the distance of nearly two
+centuries; and which was just at this period beginning to supersede
+the more fluttering and frivolous dress which had been adopted from the
+French Court of Henri Quatre.
+
+The whole train were uncovered excepting the Prince of Wales, afterwards
+the most unfortunate of British monarchs, who came onward, having his
+long curled auburn tresses, and his countenance, which, even in early
+youth, bore a shade of anticipated melancholy, shaded by the Spanish hat
+and the single ostrich feather which drooped from it. On his right
+hand was Buckingham, whose commanding, and at the same time graceful,
+deportment, threw almost into shade the personal demeanour and majesty
+of the Prince on whom he attended. The eye, movements, and gestures
+of the great courtier were so composed, so regularly observant of all
+etiquette belonging to his situation, as to form a marked and strong
+contrast with the forward gaiety and frivolity by which he recommended
+himself to the favour of his "dear dad and gossip," King James. A
+singular fate attended this accomplished courtier, in being at once
+the reigning favourite of a father and son so very opposite in manners,
+that, to ingratiate himself with the youthful Prince, he was obliged
+to compress within the strictest limits of respectful observance the
+frolicsome and free humour which captivated his aged father.
+
+It is true, Buckingham well knew the different dispositions both of
+James and Charles, and had no difficulty in so conducting himself as
+to maintain the highest post in the favour of both. It has indeed been
+supposed, as we before hinted, that the duke, when he had completely
+possessed himself of the affections of Charles, retained his hold in
+those of the father only by the tyranny of custom; and that James,
+could he have brought himself to form a vigorous resolution, was, in
+the latter years of his life especially, not unlikely to have discarded
+Buckingham from his counsels and favour. But if ever the king indeed
+meditated such a change, he was too timid, and too much accustomed to
+the influence which the duke had long exercised over him, to summon up
+resolution enough for effecting such a purpose; and at all events it
+is certain, that Buckingham, though surviving the master by whom he was
+raised, had the rare chance to experience no wane of the most splendid
+court-favour during two reigns, until it was at once eclipsed in his
+blood by the dagger of his assassin Felton.
+
+To return from this digression: The Prince, with his train, advanced,
+and were near the place where Lord Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo had stood
+aside, according to form, in order to give the Prince passage, and
+to pay the usual marks of respect. Nigel could now remark that Lord
+Dalgarno walked close behind the Duke of Buckingham, and, as he thought,
+whispered something in his ear as they came onward. At any rate, both
+the Prince's and Duke of Buckingham's attention seemed to be directed
+by such circumstance towards Nigel, for they turned their heads in that
+direction and looked at him attentively--the Prince with a countenance,
+the grave, melancholy expression of which was blended with severity;
+while Buckingham's looks evinced some degree of scornful triumph.
+Lord Dalgarno did not seem to observe his friend, perhaps because the
+sunbeams fell from the side of the walk on which Nigel stood, obliging
+Malcolm to hold up his hat to screen his eyes.
+
+As the Prince passed, Lord Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo bowed, as respect
+required; and the Prince, returning their obeisance with that grave
+ceremony which paid to every rank its due, but not a tittle beyond
+it, signed to Sir Mungo to come forward. Commencing an apology for his
+lameness as he started, which he had just completed as his hobbling gait
+brought him up to the Prince, Sir Mungo lent an attentive, and, as it
+seemed, an intelligent ear, to questions, asked in a tone so low, that
+the knight would certainly have been deaf to them had they been put to
+him by any one under the rank of Prince of Wales. After about a minute's
+conversation, the Prince bestowed on Nigel the embarrassing notice of
+another fixed look, touched his hat slightly to Sir Mungo, and walked
+on.
+
+"It is even as I suspected, my lord," said Sir Mungo, with an air
+which he designed to be melancholy and sympathetic, but which, in
+fact, resembled the grin of an ape when he has mouthed a scalding
+chestnut--"Ye have back-friends, my lord, that is, unfriends--or, to be
+plain, enemies--about the person of the Prince."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it," said Nigel; "but I would I knew what they
+accuse me of."
+
+"Ye shall hear, my lord," said Sir Mungo, "the Prince's vera words--'Sir
+Mungo,' said he, 'I rejoice to see you, and am glad your rheumatic
+troubles permit you to come hither for exercise.'--I bowed, as in duty
+bound--ye might remark, my lord, that I did so, whilk formed the first
+branch of our conversation.--His Highness then demanded of me, 'if he
+with whom I stood, was the young Lord Glenvarloch.' I answered, 'that
+you were such, for his Highness's service;' whilk was the second
+branch.--Thirdly, his Highness, resuming the argument, said, that 'truly
+he had been told so,' (meaning that he had been told you were that
+personage,) 'but that he could not believe, that the heir of that noble
+and decayed house could be leading an idle, scandalous, and precarious
+life, in the eating-houses and taverns of London, while the king's
+drums were beating, and colours flying in Germany in the cause of the
+Palatine, his son-in-law.'--I could, your lordship is aware, do nothing
+but make an obeisance; and a gracious 'Give ye good-day, Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther,' licensed me to fall back to your lordship. And now,
+my lord, if your business or pleasure calls you to the ordinary,
+or anywhere in the direction of the city--why, have with you; for,
+dootless, ye will think ye have tarried lang enough in the Park, as they
+will likely turn at the head of the walk, and return this way--and you
+have a broad hint, I think, not to cross the Prince's presence in a
+hurry."
+
+"_You_ may stay or go as you please, Sir Mungo," said Nigel, with an
+expression of calm, but deep resentment; "but, for my own part, my
+resolution is taken. I will quit this public walk for pleasure of no
+man--still less will I quit it like one unworthy to be seen in places of
+public resort. I trust that the Prince and his retinue will return this
+way as you expect; for I will abide, Sir Mungo, and beard them."
+
+"Beard them!" exclaimed Sir Mungo, in the extremity of surprise,--"Beard
+the Prince of Wales--the heir-apparent of the kingdoms!--By my saul, you
+shall beard him yourself then."
+
+Accordingly, he was about to leave Nigel very hastily, when some
+unwonted touch of good-natured interest in his youth and experience,
+seemed suddenly to soften his habitual cynicism.
+
+"The devil is in me for an auld fule!" said Sir Mungo; "but I must
+needs concern mysell--I that owe so little either to fortune or
+my fellow-creatures, must, I say, needs concern mysell--with this
+springald, whom I will warrant to be as obstinate as a pig possessed
+with a devil, for it's the cast of his family; and yet I maun e'en
+fling away some sound advice on him.--My dainty young Lord Glenvarloch,
+understand me distinctly, for this is no bairn's-play. When the Prince
+said sae much to me as I have repeated to you, it was equivalent to
+a command not to appear in his presence; wherefore take an auld man's
+advice that wishes you weel, and maybe a wee thing better than he has
+reason to wish ony body. Jouk, and let the jaw gae by, like a canny
+bairn--gang hame to your lodgings, keep your foot frae taverns, and your
+fingers frae the dice-box; compound your affairs quietly wi' some ane
+that has better favour than yours about Court, and you will get a round
+spell of money to carry you to Germany, or elsewhere, to push your
+fortune. It was a fortunate soldier that made your family four or five
+hundred years syne, and, if you are brave and fortunate, you may find
+the way to repair it. But, take my word for it, that in this Court you
+will never thrive."
+
+When Sir Mungo had completed his exhortation, in which there was more of
+sincere sympathy with another's situation, than he had been heretofore
+known to express in behalf of any one, Lord Glenvarloch replied, "I am
+obliged to you, Sir Mungo--you have spoken, I think, with sincerity, and
+I thank you. But in return for your good advice, I heartily entreat you
+to leave me; I observe the Prince and his train are returning down the
+walk, and you may prejudice yourself, but cannot help me, by remaining
+with me."
+
+"And that is true,"--said Sir Mungo; "yet, were I ten years younger,
+I would be tempted to stand by you, and gie them the meeting. But at
+threescore and upward, men's courage turns cauldrife; and they that
+canna win a living, must not endanger the small sustenance of their
+age. I wish you weel through, my lord, but it is an unequal fight." So
+saying, he turned and limped away; often looking back, however, as if
+his natural spirit, even in its present subdued state, aided by his
+love of contradiction and of debate, rendered him unwilling to adopt the
+course necessary for his own security.
+
+Thus abandoned by his companion, whose departure he graced with better
+thoughts of him than those which he bestowed on his appearance, Nigel
+remained with his arms folded, and reclining against a solitary tree
+which overhung the path, making up his mind to encounter a moment which
+he expected to be critical of his fate. But he was mistaken in supposing
+that the Prince of Wales would either address him, or admit him to
+expostulation, in such a public place as the Park. He did not remain
+unnoticed, however, for, when he made a respectful but haughty
+obeisance, intimating in look and manner that he was possessed of, and
+undaunted by, the unfavourable opinion which the Prince had so lately
+expressed, Charles returned his reverence with such a frown, as is only
+given by those whose frown is authority and decision. The train passed
+on, the Duke of Buckingham not even appearing to see Lord Glenvarloch;
+while Lord Dalgarno, though no longer incommoded by the sunbeams, kept
+his eyes, which had perhaps been dazzled by their former splendour, bent
+upon the ground.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch had difficulty to restrain an indignation, to which,
+in the circumstances, it would have been madness to have given vent. He
+started from his reclining posture, and followed the Prince's train so
+as to keep them distinctly in sight; which was very easy, as they walked
+slowly. Nigel observed them keep their road towards the Palace, where
+the Prince turned at the gate and bowed to the noblemen in attendance,
+in token of dismissing them, and entered the Palace, accompanied only by
+the Duke of Buckingham, and one or two of his equerries. The rest of
+the train, having returned in all dutiful humility the farewell of the
+Prince, began to disperse themselves through the Park.
+
+All this was carefully noticed by Lord Glenvarloch, who, as he adjusted
+his cloak, and drew his sword-belt round so as to bring the hilt closer
+to his hand, muttered--"Dalgarno shall explain all this to me, for it is
+evident that he is in the secret!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+  Give way--give way--I must and will have justice.
+  And tell me not of privilege and place;
+  Where I am injured, there I'll sue redress.
+  Look to it, every one who bars my access;
+  I have a heart to feel the injury,
+  A hand to night myself, and, by my honour,
+  That hand shall grasp what grey-beard Law denies me.
+                                _The Chamberlain._
+
+It was not long ere Nigel discovered Lord Dalgarno advancing towards him
+in the company of another young man of quality of the Prince's train;
+and as they directed their course towards the south-eastern corner of
+the Park, he concluded they were about to go to Lord Huntinglen's. They
+stopped, however, and turned up another path leading to the north; and
+Lord Glenvarloch conceived that this change of direction was owing to
+their having seen him, and their desire to avoid him.
+
+Nigel followed them without hesitation by a path which, winding around
+a thicket of shrubs and trees, once more conducted him to the less
+frequented part of the Park. He observed which side of the thicket
+was taken by Lord Dalgarno and his companion, and he himself, walking
+hastily round the other verge, was thus enabled to meet them face to
+face.
+
+"Good-morrow, my Lord Dalgarno," said Lord Glenvarloch, sternly.
+
+"Ha! my friend Nigel," answered Lord Dalgarno, in his usual careless and
+indifferent tone, "my friend Nigel, with business on his brow?--but you
+must wait till we meet at Beaujeu's at noon--Sir Ewes Haldimund and I
+are at present engaged in the Prince's service."
+
+"If you were engaged in the king's, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch,
+"you must stand and answer me."
+
+"Hey-day!" said Lord Dalgarno, with an air of great astonishment, "what
+passion is this? Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!--You have
+frequented the theatres too much lately--Away with this folly, man; go,
+dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to
+bed at sun-down, and defy those foul fiends, Wrath and Misconstruction."
+
+"I have had misconstruction enough among you," said Glenvarloch, in the
+same tone of determined displeasure, "and from you, my Lord Dalgarno, in
+particular, and all under the mask of friendship."
+
+"Here is a proper business!"--said Dalgarno, turning as if to appeal to
+Sir Ewes Haldimund; "do you see this angry ruffler, Sir Ewes? A month
+since, he dared not have looked one of yonder sheep in the face, and
+now he is a prince of roisterers, a plucker of pigeons, a controller of
+players and poets--and in gratitude for my having shown him the way
+to the eminent character which he holds upon town, he comes hither to
+quarrel with his best friend, if not his only one of decent station."
+
+"I renounce such hollow friendship, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch; "I
+disclaim the character which, even to my very face, you labour to fix
+upon me, and ere we part I will call you to a reckoning for it."
+
+"My lords both," interrupted Sir Ewes Haldimund, "let me remind you that
+the Royal Park is no place to quarrel in."
+
+"I will make my quarrel good," said Nigel, who did not know, or in
+his passion might not have recollected, the privileges of the place,
+"wherever I find my enemy."
+
+"You shall find quarelling enough," replied Lord Dalgarno, calmly, "so
+soon as you assign a sufficient cause for it. Sir Ewes Haldimund,
+who knows the Court, will warrant you that I am not backward on such
+occasions.--But of what is it that you now complain, after having
+experienced nothing save kindness from me and my family?"
+
+"Of your family I complain not," replied Lord Glenvarloch; "they have
+done for me all they could, more, far more, than I could have expected;
+but you, my lord, have suffered me, while you called me your friend, to
+be traduced, where a word of your mouth would have placed my character
+in its true colours--and hence the injurious message which I just now
+received from the Prince of Wales. To permit the misrepresentation of a
+friend, my lord, is to share in the slander."
+
+"You have been misinformed, my Lord Glenvarloch," said Sir Ewes
+Haldimund; "I have myself often heard Lord Dalgarno defend your
+character, and regret that your exclusive attachment to the pleasures of
+a London life prevented your paying your duty regularly to the King and
+Prince."
+
+"While he himself," said Lord Glenvarloch, "dissuaded me from presenting
+myself at Court."
+
+"I will cut this matter short," said Lord Dalgarno, with haughty
+coldness. "You seem to have conceived, my lord, that you and I were
+Pylades and Orestes--a second edition of Damon and Pythias--Theseus and
+Pirithoiis at the least. You are mistaken, and have given the name of
+friendship to what, on my part, was mere good-nature and compassion for
+a raw and ignorant countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge which my
+father gave me respecting you. Your character, my lord, is of no one's
+drawing, but of your own making. I introduced you where, as in all such
+places, there was good and indifferent company to be met with--your
+habits, or taste, made you prefer the worse. Your holy horror at the
+sight of dice and cards degenerated into the cautious resolution to play
+only at those times, and with such persons, as might ensure your rising
+a winner--no man can long do so, and continue to be held a gentleman.
+Such is the reputation you have made for yourself, and you have no right
+to be angry that I do not contradict in society what yourself know to be
+true. Let us pass on, my lord; and if you want further explanation, seek
+some other time and fitter place."
+
+"No time can be better than the present," said Lord Glenvarloch, whose
+resentment was now excited to the uttermost by the cold-blooded and
+insulting manner, in which Dalgarno vindicated himself,--"no place
+fitter than the place where we now stand. Those of my house have ever
+avenged insult, at the moment, and on the spot, where it was offered,
+were it at the foot of the throne.--Lord Dalgarno, you are a villain!
+draw and defend yourself." At the same moment he unsheathed his rapier.
+
+"Are you mad?" said Lord Dalgarno, stepping back; "we are in the
+precincts of the Court."
+
+"The better," answered Lord Glenvarloch; "I will cleanse them from a
+calumniator and a coward." He then pressed on Lord Dalgarno, and struck
+him with the flat of the sword.
+
+The fray had now attracted attention, and the cry went round, "Keep
+the peace--keep the peace--swords drawn in the Park!--What, ho!
+guards!--keepers--yeomen--rangers!" and a number of people came rushing
+to the spot from all sides.
+
+Lord Dalgarno, who had half drawn his sword on receiving the blow,
+returned it to his scabbard when he observed the crowd thicken, and,
+taking Sir Ewes Haldimund by the arm, walked hastily away, only saying
+to Lord Glenvarloch as they left him, "You shall dearly abye this
+insult--we will meet again."
+
+A decent-looking elderly man, who observed that Lord Glenvarloch
+remained on the spot, taking compassion on his youthful appearance,
+said to him, "Are you aware that this is a Star-Chamber business, young
+gentleman, and that it may cost you your right hand?--Shift for yourself
+before the keepers or constables come up--Get into Whitefriars or
+somewhere, for sanctuary and concealment, till you can make friends or
+quit the city."
+
+The advice was not to be neglected. Lord Glenvarloch made hastily
+towards the issue from the Park by Saint James's Palace, then Saint
+James's Hospital. The hubbub increased behind him; and several
+peace-officers of the Royal Household came up to apprehend the
+delinquent. Fortunately for Nigel, a popular edition of the cause of the
+affray had gone abroad. It was said that one of the Duke of Buckingham's
+companions had insulted a stranger gentleman from the country, and that
+the stranger had cudgelled him soundly. A favourite, or the companion
+of a favourite, is always odious to John Bull, who has, besides, a
+partiality to those disputants who proceed, as lawyers term it, _par
+wye du fait_, and both prejudices were in Nigel's favour. The officers,
+therefore, who came to apprehend him, could learn from the spectators no
+particulars of his appearance, or information concerning the road he had
+taken; so that, for the moment, he escaped being arrested.
+
+What Lord Glenvarloch heard among the crowd as he passed along, was
+sufficient to satisfy him, that in his impatient passion he had placed
+himself in a predicament of considerable danger. He was no stranger
+to the severe and arbitrary proceedings of the Court of Star-Chamber,
+especially in cases of breach of privilege, which made it the terror
+of all men; and it was no farther back than the Queen's time that the
+punishment of mutilation had been actually awarded and executed, for
+some offence of the same kind which he had just committed. He had also
+the comfortable reflection, that, by his violent quarrel with Lord
+Dalgarno, he must now forfeit the friendship and good offices of that
+nobleman's father and sister, almost the only persons of consideration
+in whom he could claim any interest; while all the evil reports which
+had been put in circulation concerning his character, were certain to
+weigh heavily against him, in a case where much must necessarily depend
+on the reputation of the accused. To a youthful imagination, the idea
+of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself;
+and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled
+with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his
+offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting
+suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him,
+that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering
+knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure
+to consider what he was next to do.
+
+Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name
+of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the
+privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief
+Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place
+abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens,
+ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes,
+homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued
+together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both
+difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants
+emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety
+was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord
+Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed
+the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and
+secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure
+to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in
+some shape accommodated.
+
+Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of
+sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno
+to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his
+intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into
+the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery.
+
+"Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that," were his bitter reflections; "I
+have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels,
+and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed
+implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even
+from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous
+labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions,
+have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of
+a name which was never sullied until I bore it."
+
+As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the
+Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by
+which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to
+the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from
+which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there,
+his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of
+the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it
+were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public
+haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself
+in those of avowed vice and profligacy.
+
+As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards
+him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the
+ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild
+young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at
+the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his
+father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald
+Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that
+little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the
+paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose,
+and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science
+than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which
+he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the
+place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often
+very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed
+sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of
+old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below
+him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted
+with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable
+way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by
+name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's
+this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the
+board before they could reach the ordinary.
+
+"I do not go there to-day," answered Lord Glenvarloch. "Which way, then,
+my lord?" said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to
+parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but
+a Scottish one.
+
+"I--I--" said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local
+knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to
+take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation
+in which he stood--"I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars."
+
+"What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia?" said
+Lowestoffe-"-Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to
+the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to
+be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with,
+though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship
+will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would
+have proposed such a voyage of discovery."
+
+"I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have
+expressed in the observation," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but my present
+circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the
+sanctuary a matter of necessity."
+
+"Indeed!" said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; "I thought your
+lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg
+pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much
+law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere
+impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in
+Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty."
+
+"My misfortune has no connexion with want of money," said Nigel.
+
+"Why, then, I suppose," said Lowestoffe, "you have been tilting,
+my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a
+purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a
+twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of
+their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so
+far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you
+else."
+
+"My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe," answered
+Lord Glenvarloch, "as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a
+gentleman in the Park, that is all."
+
+"By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through
+him at Barns Elms," said the Templar. "Strike within the verge of
+the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands,
+especially if your party be of rank and have favour."
+
+"I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe," said Nigel, "since I have
+gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen
+at Beaujeu's."
+
+"A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most
+unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot
+bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We
+converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars
+would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be
+arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter
+between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on
+either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers
+here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take
+sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars
+about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We
+must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or
+there will be no life there for you."
+
+While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into
+his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems
+and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a
+boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's
+shop; "and this," he said, "must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass
+of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me
+a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey,
+when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the
+good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you
+shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall."
+
+The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had
+re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and
+admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble
+guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners,
+though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were
+calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though
+his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of
+reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his
+gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and
+accommodation.
+
+"You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord,"
+said the Templar. "No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman
+that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve
+your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's
+truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno."
+
+"May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe?" said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"O, my lord," replied the Templar, "it was for a hap that chanced after
+you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I
+think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play
+began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when
+there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game
+at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which
+went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I
+held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and
+tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may
+suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as
+fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk
+purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his
+lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood
+by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was
+obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I
+have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was
+a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry
+quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his
+hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch
+penny makes every man equal."
+
+As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord
+Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of
+aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the
+dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society,
+to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was
+impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of
+the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the
+conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of
+White-friars. There also his host was at home.
+
+"You know, my lord," said Master Lowestoffe, "that we Templars are a
+power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold
+some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last
+year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity
+myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining
+an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the
+Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make
+alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States."
+
+"I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of
+your neighbours," said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"You do us something too much honour, my lord," said the Templar; "the
+Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose,
+some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of
+our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate
+not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians
+have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing
+our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within
+their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the
+league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that
+I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator
+well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that?"
+
+The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a
+distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote
+huzza.
+
+"There is something doing," said Lowestoffe, "in the Whitefriars at this
+moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff
+or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the
+rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim," he
+said, calling out to the attendant, "and see what they are doing in
+Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy," he continued, as the lad, accustomed
+to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of
+the apartment, and so down stairs, "is worth gold in this quarter--he
+serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would
+think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time
+most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever
+matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from
+that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can
+tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at
+the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your
+lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's
+cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your
+valet or groom of the chamber?"
+
+Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully
+sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be
+done for his extrication.
+
+The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced,
+and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes,
+portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe,
+he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually
+to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent
+society of Alsatia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+ Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now
+ 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation
+ More than by constant income--Single-suited
+ They are, I grant you; yet each single suit
+ Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers--
+ And they be men, who, hazarding their all,
+ Needful apparel, necessary income,
+ And human body, and immortal soul,
+ Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion;
+ Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer,
+ And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend;
+ Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes,
+ Play better than himself his game on earth.
+                                        _The Mohocks._
+
+"Your lordship," said Reginald Lowestoffe, "must be content to exchange
+your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe
+keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about
+the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil
+and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in
+_cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured
+embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of
+the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to
+change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you."
+
+Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed
+his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly
+disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he
+considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act
+of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of
+his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was
+sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when
+he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and
+insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in
+a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most
+unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a
+predicament.
+
+While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his
+friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment--"Zounds!" he said, "my
+lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours
+at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here
+is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a
+privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to
+the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse
+of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was
+after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy,
+the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that
+they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most
+judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all
+is quiet."
+
+"And who may Duke Hildebrod be?" said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"Nouns! my lord," said the Templar, "have you lived so long on the town,
+and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke
+Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the
+man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame."
+
+"Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe," said Lord
+Glenvarloch; "or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to
+aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him."
+
+"Why, then," said Lowestoffe--"but, first, let me have the honour of
+trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of
+set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt
+be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will
+have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in
+Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the
+points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too
+accurately trussed--so."
+
+"Arrange it as you will, sir," said Nigel; "but let me hear at least
+something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with
+other wretches, I am compelled to retreat."
+
+"Why, my lord," replied the Templar, "our neighbouring state of Alsatia,
+which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations
+and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a
+lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have
+been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the
+Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have
+had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty
+revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state
+has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not
+forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and
+even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine
+months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a
+broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving
+tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon
+resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the
+first, whom Heaven long preserve."
+
+"And is this potentate's government," said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing
+himself to take some interest in the conversation, "of a despotic
+character?"
+
+"Pardon me, my lord," said the Templar; "this said sovereign is too
+wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding
+so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a
+council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught
+at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their
+_ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the
+hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of
+the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of
+the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy
+senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high
+office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending
+sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship,
+that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you
+a place of residence."
+
+"Does their authority extend to such regulation?" said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord,"
+answered Lowestoffe; "and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means
+by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his
+senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and
+factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or
+new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can
+pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As
+for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the
+registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of
+garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and
+the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should
+dispute these points of jurisdiction."
+
+"Well, Master Lowestoffe," said Lord Glenvarloch, "I must be controlled
+by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of
+course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank."
+
+"It will be highly advisable, my lord," said Lowestoffe; "and is a
+case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or
+whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked
+him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape
+the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise
+belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation,
+your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for
+not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with
+news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship
+myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the
+influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple,
+which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions
+when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time
+is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple
+walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your
+present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs
+that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor
+sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a
+nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars."
+
+They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed
+the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar
+exclaimed,--"And now let us sing, with Ovid,
+
+     'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--'
+
+Off, off, ye lendings!" he continued, in the same vein. "Via, the
+curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord?" he continued,
+when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading
+change in his situation, "I trust you are not offended at my rattling
+folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give
+you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only
+be your residence for a very few days."
+
+Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, "I am
+sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own
+folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its
+bitterness."
+
+Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but,
+used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the
+least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and
+thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of
+a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the
+appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it
+produced a deep sensation.
+
+The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the
+elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally
+involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick
+buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for,
+in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but,
+erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their
+speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the
+lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new.
+The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable
+exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the
+wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of
+complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths,
+profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses
+and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all
+the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be
+evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at
+the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied
+with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary,
+which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the
+passengers.
+
+"_Semi-reducta Venus_," said the Templar, pointing to one of these
+nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself
+behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant
+of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.--"I
+know the face of yonder waistcoateer," continued the guide; "and I could
+wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean
+head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male
+inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades,
+whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and
+pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast
+against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will
+his writ of _capias_."
+
+As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians,
+whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled
+with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under
+the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some
+straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid.
+Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their
+broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the
+ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an
+extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully,
+then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character.
+
+"Tour out," said the one ruffian to the other; "tour the bien mort
+twiring at the gentry cove!" [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is
+coquetting with the strange gallants!]
+
+"I smell a spy," replied the other, looking at Nigel. "Chalk him across
+the peepers with your cheery." [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with
+your dagger.]
+
+"Bing avast, bing avast!" replied his companion; "yon other is rattling
+Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and
+free of the province."
+
+So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke,
+they went on without farther greeting.
+
+"_Grasso in aere_!" said the Templar. "You hear what a character the
+impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care
+not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for
+we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod."
+
+"I will be called Grahame," said Nigel; "it was my mother's name."
+
+"Grime," repeated the Templar, "will suit Alsatia well enough--both a
+grim and grimy place of refuge."
+
+"I said Grahame, sir, not Grime," said Nigel, something shortly, and
+laying an emphasis on the vowel--for few Scotsmen understand raillery
+upon the subject of their names.
+
+"I beg pardon, my lord," answered the undisconcerted punster; "but
+_Graam_ will suit the circumstance, too--it signifies tribulation in
+the High Dutch, and your lordship must be considered as a man under
+trouble."
+
+Nigel laughed at the pertinacity of the Templar; who, proceeding to
+point out a sign representing, or believed to represent, a dog attacking
+a bull, and running at his head, in the true scientific style of
+onset,--"There," said he, "doth faithful Duke Hildebrod deal forth laws,
+as well as ale and strong waters, to his faithful Alsatians. Being a
+determined champion of Paris Garden, he has chosen a sign corresponding
+to his habits; and he deals in giving drink to the thirsty, that he
+himself may drink without paying, and receive pay for what is drunken by
+others.--Let us enter the ever-open gate of this second Axylus."
+
+As they spoke, they entered the dilapidated tavern, which was,
+nevertheless, more ample in dimensions, and less ruinous, than many
+houses in the same evil neighbourhood. Two or three haggard, ragged
+drawers, ran to and fro, whose looks, like those of owls, seemed only
+adapted for midnight, when other creatures sleep, and who by day seemed
+bleared, stupid, and only half awake. Guided by one of these blinking
+Ganymedes, they entered a room, where the feeble rays of the sun were
+almost wholly eclipsed by volumes of tobacco-smoke, rolled from the
+tubes of the company, while out of the cloudy sanctuary arose the old
+chant of--
+
+      "Old Sir Simon the King,
+       And old Sir Simon the King,
+       With his malmsey nose,
+       And his ale-dropped hose,
+       And sing hey ding-a-ding-ding."
+
+Duke Hildebrod, who himself condescended to chant this ditty to his
+loving subjects, was a monstrously fat old man, with only one eye; and
+a nose which bore evidence to the frequency, strength, and depth of
+his potations. He wore a murrey-coloured plush jerkin, stained with the
+overflowings of the tankard, and much the worse for wear, and unbuttoned
+at bottom for the ease of his enormous paunch. Behind him lay a
+favourite bull-dog, whose round head and single black glancing eye, as
+well as the creature's great corpulence, gave it a burlesque resemblance
+to its master.
+
+The well-beloved counsellors who surrounded the ducal throne, incensed
+it with tobacco, pledged its occupier in thick clammy ale, and echoed
+back his choral songs, were Satraps worthy of such a Soldan. The buff
+jerkin, broad belt, and long sword of one, showed him to be a Low
+Country soldier, whose look of scowling importance, and drunken
+impudence, were designed to sustain his title to call himself a Roving
+Blade. It seemed to Nigel that he had seen this fellow somewhere or
+other. A hedge-parson, or buckle-beggar, as that order of priesthood
+has been irreverently termed, sat on the Duke's left, and was easily
+distinguished by his torn band, flapped hat, and the remnants of a rusty
+cassock. Beside the parson sat a most wretched and meagre-looking old
+man, with a threadbare hood of coarse kersey upon his head, and buttoned
+about his neck, while his pinched features, like those of old Daniel,
+were illuminated by
+
+                            --"an eye,
+  Through the last look of dotage still cunning and sly."
+
+On his left was placed a broken attorney, who, for some malpractices,
+had been struck from the roll of practitioners, and who had nothing
+left of his profession, except its roguery. One or two persons of
+less figure, amongst whom there was one face, which, like that of the
+soldier, seemed not unknown to Nigel, though he could not recollect
+where he had seen it, completed the council-board of Jacob Duke
+Hildebrod.
+
+The strangers had full time to observe all this; for his grace the Duke,
+whether irresistibly carried on by the full tide of harmony, or whether
+to impress the strangers with a proper idea of his consequence, chose
+to sing his ditty to an end before addressing them, though, during the
+whole time, he closely scrutinized them with his single optic.
+
+When Duke Hildebrod had ended his song, he informed his Peers that a
+worthy officer of the Temple attended them, and commanded the captain
+and parson to abandon their easy chairs in behalf of the two strangers,
+whom he placed on his right and left hand. The worthy representative of
+the army and the church of Alsatia went to place themselves on a crazy
+form at the bottom of the table, which, ill calculated to sustain men
+of such weight, gave way under them, and the man of the sword and man of
+the gown were rolled over each other on the floor, amidst the exulting
+shouts of the company. They arose in wrath, contending which should vent
+his displeasure in the loudest and deepest oaths, a strife in which
+the parson's superior acquaintance with theology enabled him greatly to
+excel the captain, and were at length with difficulty tranquillised by
+the arrival of the alarmed waiters with more stable chairs, and by a
+long draught of the cooling tankard. When this commotion was appeased,
+and the strangers courteously accommodated with flagons, after the
+fashion of the others present, the Duke drank prosperity to the Temple
+in the most gracious manner, together with a cup of welcome to Master
+Reginald Lowestoffe; and, this courtesy having been thankfully accepted,
+the party honoured prayed permission to call for a gallon of Rhenish,
+over which he proposed to open his business.
+
+The mention of a liquor so superior to their usual potations had an
+instant and most favourable effect upon the little senate; and its
+immediate appearance might be said to secure a favourable reception
+of Master Lowestoffe's proposition, which, after a round or two had
+circulated, he explained to be the admission of his friend Master Nigel
+Grahame to the benefit of the sanctuary and other immunities of Alsatia,
+in the character of a grand compounder; for so were those termed who
+paid a double fee at their matriculation, in order to avoid laying
+before the senate the peculiar circumstances which compelled them to
+take refuge there.
+
+The worthy Duke heard the proposition with glee, which glittered in his
+single eye; and no wonder, as it was a rare occurrence, and of peculiar
+advantage to his private revenue. Accordingly, he commanded his ducal
+register to be brought him, a huge book, secured with brass clasps like
+a merchant's ledger, and whose leaves, stained with wine, and slabbered
+with tobacco juice, bore the names probably of as many rogues as are to
+be found in the Calendar of Newgate.
+
+Nigel was then directed to lay down two nobles as his ransom, and to
+claim privilege by reciting the following doggerel verses, which were
+dictated to him by the Duke:--
+
+        "Your suppliant, by name
+         Nigel Grahame,
+         In fear of mishap
+         From a shoulder-tap;
+         And dreading a claw
+         From the talons of law,
+          That are sharper than briers:
+         His freedom to sue,
+         And rescue by you--
+         Thorugh weapon and wit,
+         From warrant and writ,
+         From bailiff's hand,
+         From tipstaff's wand,
+          Is come hither to Whitefriars."
+
+As Duke Hildebrod with a tremulous hand began to make the entry, and had
+already, with superfluous generosity, spelled Nigel with two g's instead
+of one, he was interrupted by the parson. [Footnote: This curious
+register is still in existence, being in possession of that eminent
+antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, who liberally offered the author permission to
+have the autograph of Duke Hildebrod engraved as an illustration of this
+passage. Unhappily, being rigorous as Ritson himself in adhering to the
+very letter of his copy, the worthy Doctor clogged his munificence with
+the condition that we should adopt the Duke's orthography, and entitle
+the work "The Fortunes of Niggle," with which stipulation we did
+not think it necessary to comply.] This reverend gentleman had been
+whispering for a minute or two, not with the captain, but with that
+other individual, who dwelt imperfectly, as we have already mentioned,
+in Nigel's memory, and being, perhaps, still something malecontent on
+account of the late accident, he now requested to be heard before the
+registration took place.
+
+"The person," he said, "who hath now had the assurance to propose
+himself as a candidate for the privileges and immunities of this
+honourable society, is, in plain terms, a beggarly Scot, and we have
+enough of these locusts in London already--if we admit such palmer-worms
+and caterpillars to the Sanctuary, we shall soon have the whole nation."
+
+"We are not entitled to inquire," said Duke Hildebrod, "whether he be
+Scot, or French, or English; seeing he has honourably laid down his
+garnish, he is entitled to our protection."
+
+"Word of denial, most Sovereign Duke," replied the parson, "I ask him no
+questions--his speech betrayeth him--he is a Galilean--and his garnish
+is forfeited for his assurance in coming within this our realm; and I
+call on you, Sir Duke, to put the laws in force against him!"
+
+The Templar here rose, and was about to interrupt the deliberations of
+the court, when the Duke gravely assured him that he should be heard
+in behalf of his friend, so soon as the council had finished their
+deliberations.
+
+The attorney next rose, and, intimating that he was to speak to the
+point of law, said--"It was easy to be seen that this gentleman did not
+come here in any civil case, and that he believed it to be the story
+they had already heard of concerning a blow given within the verge of
+the Park--that the Sanctuary would not bear out the offender in such
+case--and that the queer old Chief would send down a broom which would
+sweep the streets of Alsatia from the Strand to the Stairs; and it
+was even policy to think what evil might come to their republic, by
+sheltering an alien in such circumstances."
+
+The captain, who had sat impatiently while these opinions were
+expressed, now sprung on his feet with the vehemence of a cork bouncing
+from a bottle of brisk beer, and, turning up his mustaches with a
+martial air, cast a glance of contempt on the lawyer and churchman,
+while he thus expressed his opinion.
+
+"Most noble Duke Hildebrod! When I hear such base, skeldering, coistril
+propositions come from the counsellors of your grace, and when I
+remember the Huffs, the Muns, and the Tityretu's by whom your grace's
+ancestors and predecessors were advised on such occasions, I begin to
+think the spirit of action is as dead in Alsatia as in my old grannam;
+and yet who thinks so thinks a lie, since I will find as many roaring
+boys in the Friars as shall keep the liberties against all the
+scavengers of Westminster. And, if we should be overborne for a turn,
+death and darkness! have we not time to send the gentleman off by water,
+either to Paris Garden or to the bankside? and, if he is a gallant of
+true breed, will he not make us full amends for all the trouble we have?
+Let other societies exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys of
+the Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we are in right
+opposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, sergeant and tipstaff,
+catchpoll, and bum-bailey."
+
+This speech was followed by a murmur of approbation, and Lowestoffe,
+striking in before the favourable sound had subsided, reminded the Duke
+and his council how much the security of their state depended upon the
+amity of the Templars, who, by closing their gates, could at pleasure
+shut against the Alsatians the communication betwixt the Friars and the
+Temple, and that as they conducted themselves on this occasion, so would
+they secure or lose the benefit of his interest with his own body, which
+they knew not to be inconsiderable. "And, in respect of my friend being
+a Scotsman and alien, as has been observed by the reverend divine and
+learned lawyer, you are to consider," said Lowestoffe, "for what he is
+pursued hither--why, for giving the bastinado, not to an Englishman, but
+to one of his own countrymen. And for my own simple part," he continued,
+touching Lord Glenvarloch at the same time, to make him understand he
+spoke but in jest, "if all the Scots in London were to fight a Welsh
+main, and kill each other to a man, the survivor would, in my humble
+opinion, be entitled to our gratitude, as having done a most acceptable
+service to poor Old England."
+
+A shout of laughter and applause followed this ingenious apology for the
+client's state of alienage; and the Templar followed up his plea with
+the following pithy proposition:--"I know well," said he, "it is the
+custom of the fathers of this old and honourable republic, ripely
+and well to consider all their proceedings over a proper allowance of
+liquor; and far be it from me to propose the breach of so laudable a
+custom, or to pretend that such an affair as the present can be well and
+constitutionally considered during the discussion of a pitiful gallon
+of Rhenish. But, as it is the same thing to this honourable conclave
+whether they drink first and determine afterwards, or whether they
+determine first and drink afterwards, I propose your grace, with the
+advice of your wise and potent senators, shall pass your edict, granting
+to mine honourable friend the immunities of the place, and assigning
+him a lodging, according to your wise forms, to which he will presently
+retire, being somewhat spent with this day's action; whereupon I will
+presently order you a rundlet of Rhenish, with a corresponding quantity
+of neats' tongues and pickled herrings, to make you all as glorious as
+George-a-Green."
+
+This overture was received with a general shout of applause, which
+altogether drowned the voice of the dissidents, if any there were
+amongst the Alsatian senate who could have resisted a proposal so
+popular. The words of, kind heart! noble gentleman! generous gallant!
+flew from mouth to mouth; the inscription of the petitioner's name in
+the great book was hastily completed, and the oath administered to him
+by the worthy Doge. Like the Laws of the Twelve Tables, of the ancient
+Cambro-Britons, and other primitive nations, it was couched in poetry,
+and ran as follows:--
+
+ "By spigot and barrel,
+  By bilboe and buff;
+  Thou art sworn to the quarrel
+  Of the blades of the huff.
+  For Whitefriars and its claims
+  To be champion or martyr,
+  And to fight for its dames
+  Like a Knight of the Garter."
+
+Nigel felt, and indeed exhibited, some disgust at this mummery; but,
+the Templar reminding him that he was too far advanced to draw back,
+he repeated the words, or rather assented as they were repeated by Duke
+Hildebrod, who concluded the ceremony by allowing him the privilege of
+sanctuary, in the following form of prescriptive doggerel:--
+
+ "From the touch of the tip,
+  From the blight of the warrant,
+  From the watchmen who skip
+  On the Harman Beck's errand;
+  From the bailiffs cramp speech,
+  That makes man a thrall,
+  I charm thee from each,
+  And I charm thee from all.
+  Thy freedom's complete
+  As a Blade of the Huff,
+  To be cheated and cheat,
+  To be cuff'd and to cuff;
+  To stride, swear, and swagger,
+  To drink till you stagger,
+  To stare and to stab,
+  And to brandish your dagger
+  In the cause of your drab;
+  To walk wool-ward in winter,
+  Drink brandy, and smoke,
+  And go _fresco_ in summer
+  For want of a cloak;
+  To eke out your living
+  By the wag of your elbow,
+  By fulham and gourd,
+  And by baring of bilboe;
+  To live by your shifts,
+  And to swear by your honour,
+  Are the freedom and gifts
+  Of which I am the donor."[Footnote: Of the cant words used in this
+inauguratory oration, some are obvious in their meaning, others, as
+Harman Beck (constable), and the like, derive their source from that
+ancient piece of lexicography, the Slang Dictionary]
+
+This homily being performed, a dispute arose concerning the special
+residence to be assigned the new brother of the Sanctuary; for, as
+the Alsatians held it a maxim in their commonwealth, that ass's milk
+fattens, there was usually a competition among the inhabitants which
+should have the managing, as it was termed, of a new member of the
+society.
+
+The Hector who had spoken so warmly and critically in Nigel's behalf,
+stood out now chivalrously in behalf of a certain Blowselinda, or
+Bonstrops, who had, it seems, a room to hire, once the occasional
+residence of Slicing Dick of Paddington, who lately suffered at Tyburn,
+and whose untimely exit had been hitherto mourned by the damsel in
+solitary widowhood, after the fashion of the turtle-dove.
+
+The captain's interest was, however, overruled, in behalf of the old
+gentleman in the kersey hood, who was believed, even at his extreme age,
+to understand the plucking of a pigeon, as well, or better, than any man
+in Alsatia.
+
+This venerable personage was an usurer of notoriety, called Trapbois,
+and had very lately done the state considerable service in advancing a
+subsidy necessary to secure a fresh importation of liquors to the Duke's
+cellars, the wine-merchant at the Vintry being scrupulous to deal with
+so great a man for any thing but ready money.
+
+When, therefore, the old gentleman arose, and with much coughing,
+reminded the Duke that he had a poor apartment to let, the claims of all
+others were set aside, and Nigel was assigned to Trapbois as his guest.
+
+No sooner was this arrangement made, than Lord Glenvarloch expressed to
+Lowestoffe his impatience to leave this discreditable assembly, and took
+his leave with a careless haste, which, but for the rundlet of Rhenish
+wine that entered just as he left the apartment, might have been taken
+in bad part. The young Templar accompanied his friend to the house of
+the old usurer, with the road to which he and some other youngsters
+about the Temple were even but too well acquainted. On the way, he
+assured Lord Glenvarloch that he was going to the only clean house in
+Whitefriars; a property which it owed solely to the exertions of the old
+man's only daughter, an elderly damsel, ugly enough to frighten sin, yet
+likely to be wealthy enough to tempt a puritan, so soon as the devil had
+got her old dad for his due. As Lowestoffe spoke thus, they knocked at
+the door of the house, and the sour stern countenance of the female by
+whom it was opened, fully confirmed all that the Templar had said of
+the hostess. She heard with an ungracious and discontented air the young
+Templar's information, that the gentleman, his companion, was to be her
+father's lodger, muttered something about the trouble it was likely
+to occasion, but ended by showing the stranger's apartment, which was
+better than could have been augured from the general appearance of the
+place, and much larger in extent than that which he occupied at Paul's
+Wharf, though inferior to it in neatness.
+
+Lowestoffe, having thus seen his friend fairly installed in his new
+apartment, and having obtained for him a note of the rate at which he
+could be accommodated with victuals from a neighbouring cook's shop, now
+took his leave, offering, at the same time, to send the whole, or any
+part of Lord Glenvarloch's baggage, from his former place of residence
+to his new lodging. Nigel mentioned so few articles, that the Templar
+could not help observing, that his lordship, it would seem, did not
+intend to enjoy his new privileges long.
+
+"They are too little suited to my habits and taste, that I should do
+so," replied Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"You may change your opinion to-morrow," said Lowestoffe; "and so I wish
+you a good even. To-morrow I will visit you betimes."
+
+The morning came, but instead of the Templar, it brought only a letter
+from him. The epistle stated, that Lowestoffe's visit to Alsatia had
+drawn down the animadversions of some crabbed old pantaloons among the
+benchers, and that he judged it wise not to come hither at present, for
+fear of attracting too much attention to Lord Glenvarloch's place of
+residence. He stated, that he had taken measures for the safety of his
+baggage, and would send him, by a safe hand, his money-casket, and
+what articles he wanted. Then followed some sage advices, dictated by
+Lowestoffe's acquaintance with Alsatia and its manners. He advised him
+to keep the usurer in the most absolute uncertainty concerning the state
+of his funds-never to throw a main with the captain, who was in the
+habit of playing dry-fisted, and paying his losses with three vowels;
+and, finally, to beware of Duke Hildebrod, who was as sharp, he said,
+as a needle, though he had no more eyes than are possessed by that
+necessary implement of female industry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+_Mother._ What I dazzled by a flash from Cupid's mirror, With which
+the boy, as mortal urchins wont, Flings back the sunbeam in the eye of
+passengers--Then laughs to see them stumble!
+
+_Daughter._ Mother! no--It was a lightning-flash which dazzled me, And
+never shall these eyes see true again. _Beef and Pudding.-An Old English
+Comedy._
+
+It is necessary that we should leave our hero Nigel for a time, although
+in a situation neither safe, comfortable, nor creditable, in order
+to detail some particulars which have immediate connexion with his
+fortunes.
+
+It was but the third day after he had been forced to take refuge in the
+house of old Trapbois, the noted usurer of Whitefriars, commonly called
+Golden Trapbois, when the pretty daughter of old Ramsay, the watchmaker,
+after having piously seen her father finish his breakfast, (from
+the fear that he might, in an abstruse fit of thought, swallow the
+salt-cellar instead of a crust of the brown loaf,) set forth from the
+house as soon as he was again plunged into the depth of calculation,
+and, accompanied only by that faithful old drudge, Janet, the Scots
+laundress, to whom her whims were laws, made her way to Lombard Street,
+and disturbed, at the unusual hour of eight in the morning, Aunt Judith,
+the sister of her worthy godfather.
+
+The venerable maiden received her young visitor with no great
+complacency; for, naturally enough, she had neither the same admiration
+of her very pretty countenance, nor allowance for her foolish and
+girlish impatience of temper, which Master George Heriot entertained.
+Still Mistress Margaret was a favourite of her brother's, whose will was
+to Aunt Judith a supreme law; and she contented herself with asking her
+untimely visitor, "what she made so early with her pale, chitty face, in
+the streets of London?"
+
+"I would speak with the Lady Hermione," answered the almost breathless
+girl, while the blood ran so fast to her face as totally to remove the
+objection of paleness which Aunt Judith had made to her complexion.
+
+"With the Lady Hermione?" said Aunt Judith--"with the Lady Hermione? and
+at this time in the morning, when she will scarce see any of the family,
+even at seasonable hours? You are crazy, you silly wench, or you abuse
+the indulgence which my brother and the lady have shown to you."
+
+"Indeed, indeed I have not," repeated Margaret, struggling to retain the
+unbidden tear which seemed ready to burst out on the slightest occasion.
+"Do but say to the lady that your brother's god-daughter desires
+earnestly to speak to her, and I know she will not refuse to see me."
+
+Aunt Judith bent an earnest, suspicious, and inquisitive glance on her
+young visitor, "You might make me your secretary, my lassie," she said,
+"as well as the Lady Hermione. I am older, and better skilled to advise.
+I live more in the world than one who shuts herself up within four
+rooms, and I have the better means to assist you."
+
+"O! no--no--no," said Margaret, eagerly, and with more earnest sincerity
+than complaisance; "there are some things to which you cannot advise me,
+Aunt Judith. It is a case--pardon me, my dear aunt--a case beyond your
+counsel."
+
+"I am glad on't, maiden," said Aunt Judith, somewhat angrily; "for I
+think the follies of the young people of this generation would drive mad
+an old brain like mine. Here you come on the viretot, through the whole
+streets of London, to talk some nonsense to a lady, who scarce sees
+God's sun, but when he shines on a brick wall. But I will tell her you
+are here."
+
+She went away, and shortly returned with a dry--"Miss Marget, the lady
+will be glad to see you; and that's more, my young madam, than you had a
+right to count upon."
+
+Mistress Margaret hung her head in silence, too much perplexed by
+the train of her own embarrassed thoughts, for attempting either to
+conciliate Aunt Judith's kindness, or, which on other occasions
+would have been as congenial to her own humour, to retaliate on her
+cross-tempered remarks and manner. She followed Aunt Judith, therefore,
+in silence and dejection, to the strong oaken door which divided the
+Lady Hermione's apartments from the rest of George Heriot's spacious
+house.
+
+At the door of this sanctuary it is necessary to pause, in order to
+correct the reports with which Richie Moniplies had filled his master's
+ear, respecting the singular appearance of that lady's attendance at
+prayers, whom we now own to be by name the Lady Hermione. Some part
+of these exaggerations had been communicated to the worthy Scotsman by
+Jenkin Vincent, who was well experienced in the species of wit which
+has been long a favourite in the city, under the names of cross-biting,
+giving the dor, bamboozling, cramming, hoaxing, humbugging, and
+quizzing; for which sport Richie Moniplies, with his solemn gravity,
+totally unapprehensive of a joke, and his natural propensity to the
+marvellous, formed an admirable subject. Farther ornaments the tale had
+received from Richie himself, whose tongue, especially when oiled with
+good liquor, had a considerable tendency to amplification, and
+who failed not, while he retailed to his master all the wonderful
+circumstances narrated by Vincent, to add to them many conjectures of
+his own, which his imagination had over-hastily converted into facts.
+
+Yet the life which the Lady Hermione had led for two years, during which
+she had been the inmate of George Heriot's house, was so singular, as
+almost to sanction many of the wild reports which went abroad. The house
+which the worthy goldsmith inhabited, had in former times belonged to a
+powerful and wealthy baronial family, which, during the reign of Henry
+VIII., terminated in a dowager lady, very wealthy, very devout, and most
+unalienably attached to the Catholic faith. The chosen friend of the
+Honourable Lady Foljambe was the Abbess of Saint Roque's Nunnery, like
+herself a conscientious, rigid, and devoted Papist. When the house of
+Saint Roque was despotically dissolved by the fiat of the impetuous
+monarch, the Lady Foljambe received her friend into her spacious
+mansion, together with two vestal sisters, who, like their Abbess, were
+determined to follow the tenor of their vows, instead of embracing the
+profane liberty which the Monarch's will had thrown in their choice.
+For their residence, the Lady Foljambe contrived, with all secrecy--for
+Henry might not have relished her interference--to set apart a suite of
+four rooms, with a little closet fitted up as an oratory, or chapel; the
+whole apartments fenced by a stout oaken door to exclude strangers, and
+accommodated with a turning wheel to receive necessaries, according
+to the practice of all nunneries. In this retreat, the Abbess of Saint
+Roque and her attendants passed many years, communicating only with the
+Lady Foljambe, who, in virtue of their prayers, and of the support she
+afforded them, accounted herself little less than a saint on earth. The
+Abbess, fortunately for herself, died before her munificent patroness,
+who lived deep in Queen Elizabeth's time, ere she was summoned by fate.
+
+The Lady Foljambe was succeeded in this mansion by a sour fanatic
+knight, a distant and collateral relation, who claimed the same merit
+for expelling the priestess of Baal, which his predecessor had founded
+on maintaining the votaresses of Heaven. Of the two unhappy nuns, driven
+from their ancient refuge, one went beyond sea; the other, unable from
+old age to undertake such a journey, died under the roof of a faithful
+Catholic widow of low degree. Sir Paul Crambagge, having got rid of
+the nuns, spoiled the chapel of its ornaments, and had thoughts of
+altogether destroying the apartments, until checked by the reflection
+that the operation would be an unnecessary expense, since he only
+inhabited three rooms of the large mansion, and had not therefore the
+slightest occasion for any addition to its accommodations. His son
+proved a waster and a prodigal, and from him the house was bought by our
+friend George Heriot, who, finding, like Sir Paul, the house more than
+sufficiently ample for his accommodation, left the Foljambe apartments,
+or Saint Roque's rooms, as they were called, in the state in which he
+found them.
+
+About two years and a half before our history opened, when Heriot was
+absent upon an expedition to the Continent, he sent special orders to
+his sister and his cash-keeper, directing that the Foljambe apartments
+should be fitted up handsomely, though plainly, for the reception of
+a lady, who would make them her residence for some time; and who would
+live more or less with his own family according to her pleasure. He also
+directed, that the necessary repairs should be made with secrecy,
+and that as little should be said as possible upon the subject of his
+letter.
+
+When the time of his return came nigh, Aunt Judith and the household
+were on the tenter-hooks of impatience. Master George came, as he had
+intimated, accompanied by a lady, so eminently beautiful, that, had
+it not been for her extreme and uniform paleness, she might have been
+reckoned one of the loveliest creatures on earth. She had with her an
+attendant, or humble companion, whose business seemed only to wait upon
+her. This person, a reserved woman, and by her dialect a foreigner, aged
+about fifty, was called by the lady Monna Paula, and by Master Heriot,
+and others, Mademoiselle Pauline. She slept in the same room with
+her patroness at night, ate in her apartment, and was scarcely ever
+separated from her during the day.
+
+These females took possession of the nunnery of the devout Abbess, and,
+without observing the same rigorous seclusion, according to the letter,
+seemed wellnigh to restore the apartments to the use to which they had
+been originally designed. The new inmates lived and took their meals
+apart from the rest of the family. With the domestics Lady Hermione, for
+so she was termed, held no communication, and Mademoiselle Pauline only
+such as was indispensable, which she dispatched as briefly as possible.
+Frequent and liberal largesses reconciled the servants to this conduct;
+and they were in the habit of observing to each other, that to do a
+service for Mademoiselle Pauline, was like finding a fairy treasure.
+
+To Aunt Judith the Lady Hermione was kind and civil, but their
+intercourse was rare; on which account the elder lady felt some pangs
+both of curiosity and injured dignity. But she knew her brother so well,
+and loved him so dearly, that his will, once expressed, might be truly
+said to become her own. The worthy citizen was not without a spice of
+the dogmatism which grows on the best disposition, when a word is a
+law to all around. Master George did not endure to be questioned by his
+family, and, when he had generally expressed his will, that the Lady
+Hermione should live in the way most agreeable to her, and that no
+inquiries should be made concerning their history, or her motives for
+observing such strict seclusion, his sister well knew that he would have
+been seriously displeased with any attempt to pry into the secret.
+
+But, though Heriot's servants were bribed, and his sister awed into
+silent acquiescence in these arrangements, they were not of a nature to
+escape the critical observation of the neighbourhood. Some opined that
+the wealthy goldsmith was about to turn papist, and re-establish Lady
+Foljambe's nunnery--others that he was going mad--others that he
+was either going to marry, or to do worse. Master George's constant
+appearance at church, and the knowledge that the supposed votaress
+always attended when the prayers of the English ritual were read in the
+family, liberated him from the first of these suspicions; those who
+had to transact business with him upon 'Change, could not doubt the
+soundness of Master Heriot's mind; and, to confute the other rumours,
+it was credibly reported by such as made the matter their particular
+interest, that Master George Heriot never visited his guest but in
+presence of Mademoiselle Pauline, who sat with her work in a remote part
+of the same room in which they conversed. It was also ascertained that
+these visits scarcely ever exceeded an hour in length, and were usually
+only repeated once a week, an intercourse too brief and too long
+interrupted, to render it probable that love was the bond of their
+union.
+
+The inquirers were, therefore, at fault, and compelled to relinquish
+the pursuit of Master Heriot's secret, while a thousand ridiculous
+tales were circulated amongst the ignorant and superstitious, with some
+specimens of which our friend Richie Moniplies had been _crammed_, as we
+have seen, by the malicious apprentice of worthy David Ramsay.
+
+There was one person in the world who, it was thought, could (if she
+would) have said more of the Lady Hermione than any one in London,
+except George Heriot himself; and that was the said David Ramsay's only
+child, Margaret.
+
+This girl was not much past the age of fifteen when the Lady Hermione
+first came to England, and was a very frequent visitor at her
+godfather's, who was much amused by her childish sallies, and by the
+wild and natural beauty with which she sung the airs of her native
+country. Spoilt she was on all hands; by the indulgence of her
+godfather, the absent habits and indifference of her father, and the
+deference of all around to her caprices, as a beauty and as an heiress.
+But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as
+wilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom
+fails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited
+upon many occasions that affectation of extreme shyness, silence, and
+reserve, which misses in their teens are apt to take for an amiable
+modesty; and, upon others, a considerable portion of that flippancy,
+which youth sometimes confounds with wit, Mistress Margaret had much
+real shrewdness and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of
+observation to refine it--a lively, good-humoured, playful disposition,
+and an excellent heart. Her acquired follies were much increased by
+reading plays and romances, to which she devoted a great deal of her
+time, and from which she adopted ideas as different as possible from
+those which she might have obtained from the invaluable and affectionate
+instructions of an excellent mother; and the freaks of which she was
+sometimes guilty, rendered her not unjustly liable to the charge of
+affectation and coquetry. But the little lass had sense and shrewdness
+enough to keep her failings out of sight of her godfather, to whom she
+was sincerely attached; and so high she stood in his favour, that, at
+his recommendation, she obtained permission to visit the recluse Lady
+Hermione.
+
+The singular mode of life which that lady observed; her great beauty,
+rendered even more interesting by her extreme paleness; the conscious
+pride of being admitted farther than the rest of the world into the
+society of a person who was wrapped in so much mystery, made a
+deep impression on the mind of Margaret Ramsay; and though their
+conversations were at no time either long or confidential, yet, proud of
+the trust reposed in her, Margaret was as secret respecting their tenor
+as if every word repeated had been to cost her life. No inquiry, however
+artfully backed by flattery and insinuation, whether on the part of Dame
+Ursula, or any other person equally inquisitive, could wring from the
+little maiden one word of what she heard or saw, after she entered these
+mysterious and secluded apartments. The slightest question concerning
+Master Heriot's ghost, was sufficient, at her gayest moment, to check
+the current of her communicative prattle, and render her silent.
+
+We mention this, chiefly to illustrate the early strength of Margaret's
+character--a strength concealed under a hundred freakish whims and
+humours, as an ancient and massive buttress is disguised by its
+fantastic covering of ivy and wildflowers. In truth, if the damsel had
+told all she heard or saw within the Foljambe apartments, she would have
+said but little to gratify the curiosity of inquirers.
+
+At the earlier period of their acquaintance, the Lady Hermione was wont
+to reward the attentions of her little friend with small but elegant
+presents, and entertain her by a display of foreign rarities and
+curiosities, many of them of considerable value. Sometimes the time
+was passed in a way much less agreeable to Margaret, by her receiving
+lessons from Pauline in the use of the needle. But, although her
+preceptress practised these arts with a dexterity then only known in
+foreign convents, the pupil proved so incorrigibly idle and awkward,
+that the task of needlework was at length given up, and lessons of music
+substituted in their stead. Here also Pauline was excellently qualified
+as an instructress, and Margaret, more successful in a science for which
+Nature had gifted her, made proficiency both in vocal and instrumental
+music. These lessons passed in presence of the Lady Hermione, to whom
+they seemed to give pleasure. She sometimes added her own voice to the
+performance, in a pure, clear stream of liquid melody; but this was only
+when the music was of a devotional cast. As Margaret became older, her
+communications with the recluse assumed a different character. She was
+allowed, if not encouraged, to tell whatever she had remarked out of
+doors, and the Lady Hermione, while she remarked the quick, sharp, and
+retentive powers of observation possessed by her young friend, often
+found sufficient reason to caution her against rashness in forming
+opinions, and giddy petulance in expressing them.
+
+The habitual awe with which she regarded this singular personage,
+induced Mistress Margaret, though by no means delighting in
+contradiction or reproof, to listen with patience to her admonitions,
+and to make full allowance for the good intentions of the patroness by
+whom they were bestowed; although in her heart she could hardly conceive
+how Madame Hermione, who never stirred from the Foljambe apartments,
+should think of teaching knowledge of the world to one who walked twice
+a-week between Temple Bar and Lombard Street, besides parading in
+the Park every Sunday that proved to be fair weather. Indeed, pretty
+Mistress Margaret was so little inclined to endure such remonstrances,
+that her intercourse with the inhabitants of the Foljambe apartments
+would have probably slackened as her circle of acquaintance increased
+in the external world, had she not, on the one hand, entertained an
+habitual reverence for her monitress, of which she could not divest
+herself, and been flattered, on the other, by being to a certain degree
+the depository of a confidence for which others thirsted in vain.
+Besides, although the conversation of Hermione was uniformly serious, it
+was not in general either formal or severe; nor was the lady offended by
+flights of levity which Mistress Margaret sometimes ventured on in her
+presence, even when they were such as made Monna Paula cast her eyes
+upwards, and sigh with that compassion which a devotee extends towards
+the votaries of a trivial and profane world. Thus, upon the whole, the
+little maiden was disposed to submit, though not without some wincing,
+to the grave admonitions of the Lady Hermione; and the rather that the
+mystery annexed to the person of her monitress was in her mind early
+associated with a vague idea of wealth and importance, which had been
+rather confirmed than lessened by many accidental circumstances which
+she had noticed since she was more capable of observation.
+
+It frequently happens, that the counsel which we reckon intrusive when
+offered to us unasked, becomes precious in our eyes when the pressure of
+difficulties renders us more diffident of our own judgment than we are
+apt to find ourselves in the hours of ease and indifference; and this is
+more especially the case if we suppose that our adviser may also possess
+power and inclination to back his counsel with effectual assistance.
+Mistress Margaret was now in that situation. She was, or believed
+herself to be, in a condition where both advice and assistance might be
+necessary; and it was therefore, after an anxious and sleepless night,
+that she resolved to have recourse to the Lady Hermione, who she knew
+would readily afford her the one, and, as she hoped, might also possess
+means of giving her the other. The conversation between them will best
+explain the purport of the visit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+  By this good light, a wench of matchless mettle!
+  This were a leaguer-lass to love a soldier,
+  To bind his wounds, and kiss his bloody brow,
+  And sing a roundel as she help'd to arm him,
+  Though the rough foeman's drums were beat so nigh,
+  They seem'd to bear the burden.
+                               _Old Play._
+
+When Mistress Margaret entered the Foljambe apartment, she found the
+inmates employed in their usual manner; the lady in reading, and her
+attendant in embroidering a large piece of tapestry, which had occupied
+her ever since Margaret had been first admitted within these secluded
+chambers.
+
+Hermione nodded kindly to her visitor, but did not speak; and Margaret,
+accustomed to this reception, and in the present case not sorry for it,
+as it gave her an interval to collect her thoughts, stooped over Monna
+Paula's frame and observed, in a half whisper, "You were just so far as
+that rose, Monna, when I first saw you--see, there is the mark where I
+had the bad luck to spoil the flower in trying to catch the stitch--I
+was little above fifteen then. These flowers make me an old woman, Monna
+Paula."
+
+"I wish they could make you a wise one, my child," answered Monna Paula,
+in whose esteem pretty Mistress Margaret did not stand quite so high as
+in that of her patroness; partly owing to her natural austerity, which
+was something intolerant of youth and gaiety, and partly to the jealousy
+with which a favourite domestic regards any one whom she considers as a
+sort of rival in the affections of her mistress.
+
+"What is it you say to Monna, little one?" asked the lady.
+
+"Nothing, madam," replied Mistress Margaret, "but that I have seen the
+real flowers blossom three times over since I first saw Monna Paula
+working in her canvass garden, and her violets have not budded yet."
+
+"True, lady-bird," replied Hermione; "but the buds that are longest in
+blossoming will last the longest in flower. You have seen them in the
+garden bloom thrice, but you have seen them fade thrice also; now, Monna
+Paula's will remain in blow for ever--they will fear neither frost nor
+tempest."
+
+"True, madam," answered Mistress Margaret; "but neither have they life
+or odour."
+
+"That, little one," replied the recluse, "is to compare a life agitated
+by hope and fear, and chequered with success and disappointment, and
+fevered by the effects of love and hatred, a life of passion and of
+feeling, saddened and shortened by its exhausting alternations, to a
+calm and tranquil existence, animated but by a sense of duties, and only
+employed, during its smooth and quiet course, in the unwearied discharge
+of them. Is that the moral of your answer?"
+
+"I do not know, madam," answered Mistress Margaret; "but, of all birds
+in the air, I would rather be the lark, that sings while he is drifting
+down the summer breeze, than the weathercock that sticks fast yonder
+upon his iron perch, and just moves so much as to discharge his duty,
+and tell us which way the wind blows."
+
+"Metaphors are no arguments, my pretty maiden," said the Lady Hermione,
+smiling.
+
+"I am sorry for that, madam," answered Margaret; "for they are such a
+pretty indirect way of telling one's mind when it differs from one's
+betters--besides, on this subject there is no end of them, and they are
+so civil and becoming withal."
+
+"Indeed?" replied the lady; "let me hear some of them, I pray you."
+
+"It would be, for example, very bold in me," said Margaret, "to say
+to your ladyship, that, rather than live a quiet life, I would like a
+little variety of hope and fear, and liking and disliking--and--and--and
+the other sort of feelings which your ladyship is pleased to speak of;
+but I may say freely, and without blame, that I like a butterfly better
+than a bettle, or a trembling aspen better than a grim Scots fir, that
+never wags a leaf--or that of all the wood, brass, and wire that ever my
+father's fingers put together, I do hate and detest a certain huge
+old clock of the German fashion, that rings hours and half hours, and
+quarters and half quarters, as if it were of such consequence that the
+world should know it was wound up and going. Now, dearest lady, I wish
+you would only compare that clumsy, clanging, Dutch-looking piece of
+lumber, with the beautiful timepiece that Master Heriot caused my father
+to make for your ladyship, which uses to play a hundred merry tunes, and
+turns out, when it strikes the hour, a whole band of morrice dancers, to
+trip the hays to the measure."
+
+"And which of these timepieces goes the truest, Margaret?" said the
+lady.
+
+"I must confess the old Dutchman has the advantage in that"--said
+Margaret. "I fancy you are right, madam, and that comparisons are no
+arguments; at least mine has not brought me through."
+
+"Upon my word, maiden Margaret," said the lady, smiling, "you have been
+of late thinking very much of these matters."
+
+"Perhaps too much, madam," said Margaret, so low as only to be heard by
+the lady, behind the back of whose chair she had now placed herself. The
+words were spoken very gravely, and accompanied by a half sigh, which
+did not escape the attention of her to whom they were addressed.
+The Lady Hermione turned immediately round, and looked earnestly at
+Margaret, then paused for a moment, and, finally, commanded Monna Paula
+to carry her frame and embroidery into the antechamber. When they were
+left alone, she desired her young friend to come from behind the chair
+on the back of which she still rested, and sit down beside her upon a
+stool.
+
+"I will remain thus, madam, under your favour," answered Margaret,
+without changing her posture; "I would rather you heard me without
+seeing me."
+
+"In God's name, maiden," returned her patroness, "what is it you can
+have to say, that may not be uttered face to face, to so true a friend
+as I am?"
+
+Without making any direct answer, Margaret only replied, "You were
+right, dearest lady, when you said, I had suffered my feelings too much
+to engross me of late. I have done very wrong, and you will be angry
+with me--so will my godfather, but I cannot help it--he must be
+rescued."
+
+"_He?_" repeated the lady, with emphasis; "that brief little word does,
+indeed, so far explain your mystery;--but come from behind the chair,
+you silly popinjay! I will wager you have suffered yonder gay young
+apprentice to sit too near your heart. I have not heard you mention
+young Vincent for many a day--perhaps he has not been out of mouth and
+out of mind both. Have you been so foolish as to let him speak to you
+seriously?--I am told he is a bold youth."
+
+"Not bold enough to say any thing that could displease me, madam," said
+Margaret.
+
+"Perhaps, then, you were _not_ displeased," said the lady; "or perhaps
+he has not _spoken_, which would be wiser and better. Be open-hearted,
+my love--your godfather will soon return, and we will take him into
+our consultations. If the young man is industrious, and come of honest
+parentage, his poverty may be no such insurmountable obstacle. But you
+are both of you very young, Margaret--I know your godfather will expect,
+that the youth shall first serve out his apprenticeship."
+
+Margaret had hitherto suffered the lady to proceed, under the mistaken
+impression which she had adopted, simply because she could not tell how
+to interrupt her; but pure despite at hearing her last words gave her
+boldness at length to say "I crave your pardon, madam; but neither
+the youth you mention, nor any apprentice or master within the city of
+London--"
+
+"Margaret," said the lady, in reply, "the contemptuous tone with which
+you mention those of your own class, (many hundreds if not thousands of
+whom are in all respects better than yourself, and would greatly honour
+you by thinking of you,) is methinks, no warrant for the wisdom of your
+choice--for a choice, it seems, there is. Who is it, maiden, to whom you
+have thus rashly attached yourself?--rashly, I fear it must be."
+
+"It is the young Scottish Lord Glenvarloch, madam," answered Margaret,
+in a low and modest tone, but sufficiently firm, considering the
+subject.
+
+"The young Lord of Glenvarloch!" repeated the lady, in great
+surprise--"Maiden, you are distracted in your wits."
+
+"I knew you would say so, madam," answered Margaret. "It is what another
+person has already told me--it is, perhaps, what all the world would
+tell me--it is what I am sometimes disposed to tell myself. But look
+at me, madam, for I will now come before you, and tell me if there is
+madness or distraction in my look and word, when I repeat to you again,
+that I have fixed my affections on this young nobleman."
+
+"If there is not madness in your look or word, maiden, there is infinite
+folly in what you say," answered the Lady Hermione, sharply. "When did
+you ever hear that misplaced love brought any thing but wretchedness?
+Seek a match among your equals, Margaret, and escape the countless
+kinds of risk and misery that must attend an affection beyond your
+degree.--Why do you smile, maiden? Is there aught to cause scorn in what
+I say?"
+
+"Surely no, madam," answered Margaret. "I only smiled to think how it
+should happen, that, while rank made such a wide difference between
+creatures formed from the same clay, the wit of the vulgar should,
+nevertheless, jump so exactly the same length with that of the
+accomplished and the exalted. It is but the variation of the phrase
+which divides them. Dame Ursley told me the very same thing which your
+ladyship has but now uttered; only you, madam, talk of countless misery,
+and Dame Ursley spoke of the gallows, and Mistress Turner, who was
+hanged upon it."
+
+"Indeed?" answered the Lady Hermione; "and who may Dame Ursley be,
+that your wise choice has associated with me in the difficult task of
+advising a fool?"
+
+"The barber's wife at next door, madam," answered Margaret, with feigned
+simplicity, but far from being sorry at heart, that she had found an
+indirect mode of mortifying her monitress. "She is the wisest woman that
+I know, next to your ladyship."
+
+"A proper confidant," said the lady, "and chosen with the same delicate
+sense of what is due to yourself and others!--But what ails you,
+maiden--where are you going?"
+
+"Only to ask Dame Ursley's advice," said Margaret, as if about to
+depart; "for I see your ladyship is too angry to give me any, and the
+emergency is pressing."
+
+"What emergency, thou simple one?" said the lady, in a kinder
+tone.--"Sit down, maiden, and tell me your tale. It is true you are a
+fool, and a pettish fool to boot; but then you are a child--an amiable
+child, with all your self-willed folly, and we must help you, if we
+can.--Sit down, I say, as you are desired, and you will find me a safer
+and wiser counseller than the barber-woman. And tell me how you come to
+suppose, that you have fixed your heart unalterably upon a man whom you
+have seen, as I think, but once."
+
+"I have seen him oftener," said the damsel, looking down; "but I have
+only spoken to him once. I should have been able to get that once out of
+my head, though the impression was so deep, that I could even now repeat
+every trifling word he said; but other things have since riveted it in
+my bosom for ever."
+
+"Maiden," replied the lady, "_for ever_ is the word which comes most
+lightly on the lips in such circumstances, but which, not the less,
+is almost the last that we should use. The fashion of this world,
+its passions, its joys, and its sorrows, pass away like the winged
+breeze--there is nought for ever but that which belongs to the world
+beyond the grave."
+
+"You have corrected me justly, madam," said Margaret calmly; "I ought
+only to have spoken of my present state of mind, as what will last me
+for my lifetime, which unquestionably may be but short."
+
+"And what is there in this Scottish lord that can rivet what concerns
+him so closely in your fancy?" said the lady. "I admit him a personable
+man, for I have seen him; and I will suppose him courteous and
+agreeable. But what are his accomplishments besides, for these surely
+are not uncommon attributes."
+
+"He is unfortunate, madam--most unfortunate--and surrounded by snares
+of different kinds, ingeniously contrived to ruin his character, destroy
+his estate, and, perhaps, to reach even his life. These schemes have
+been devised by avarice originally, but they are now followed close by
+vindictive ambition, animated, I think, by the absolute and concentrated
+spirit of malice; for the Lord Dalgarno--"
+
+"Here, Monna Paula--Monna Paula!" exclaimed the Lady Hermione,
+interrupting her young friend's narrative. "She hears me not," she
+answered, rising and going out, "I must seek her--I will return
+instantly." She returned accordingly very soon after. "You mentioned a
+name which I thought was familiar to me," she said; "but Monna Paula has
+put me right. I know nothing of your lord--how was it you named him?"
+
+"Lord Dalgarno," said Margaret;--"the wickedest man who lives. Under
+pretence of friendship, he introduced the Lord Glenvarloch to a
+gambling-house with the purpose of engaging him in deep play; but
+he with whom the perfidious traitor had to deal, was too virtuous,
+moderate, and cautious, to be caught in a snare so open. What did they
+next, but turn his own moderation against him, and persuade others
+that--because he would not become the prey of wolves, he herded with
+them for a share of their booty! And, while this base Lord Dalgarno was
+thus undermining his unsuspecting countryman, he took every measure
+to keep him surrounded by creatures of his own, to prevent him from
+attending Court, and mixing with those of his proper rank. Since the
+Gunpowder Treason, there never was a conspiracy more deeply laid, more
+basely and more deliberately pursued."
+
+The lady smiled sadly at Margaret's vehemence, but sighed the next
+moment, while she told her young friend how little she knew the world
+she was about to live in, since she testified so much surprise at
+finding it full of villainy.
+
+"But by what means," she added, "could you, maiden, become possessed of
+the secret views of a man so cautious as Lord Dalgarno--as villains in
+general are?"
+
+"Permit me to be silent on that subject," said the maiden; "I could not
+tell you without betraying others--let it suffice that my tidings are as
+certain as the means by which I acquired them are secret and sure. But I
+must not tell them even to you."
+
+"You are too bold, Margaret," said the lady, "to traffic in such matters
+at your early age. It is not only dangerous, but even unbecoming and
+unmaidenly."
+
+"I knew you would say that also," said Margaret, with more meekness and
+patience than she usually showed on receiving reproof; "but, God knows,
+my heart acquits me of every other feeling save that of the wish to
+assist this most innocent and betrayed man.--I contrived to send him
+warning of his friend's falsehood;--alas! my care has only hastened his
+utter ruin, unless speedy aid be found. He charged his false friend with
+treachery, and drew on him in the Park, and is now liable to the fatal
+penalty due for breach of privilege of the king's palace."
+
+"This is indeed an extraordinary tale," said Hermione; "is Lord
+Glenvarloch then in prison?"
+
+"No, madam, thank God, but in the Sanctuary at Whitefriars--it is matter
+of doubt whether it will protect him in such a case--they speak of a
+warrant from the Lord Chief Justice--A gentleman of the temple has been
+arrested, and is in trouble for having assisted him in his flight.--Even
+his taking temporary refuge in that base place, though from extreme
+necessity, will be used to the further defaming him. All this I know,
+and yet I cannot rescue him--cannot rescue him save by your means."
+
+"By my means, maiden?" said the lady--"you are beside yourself!--What
+means can I possess in this secluded situation, of assisting this
+unfortunate nobleman?"
+
+"You have means," said Margaret, eagerly; "you have those means, unless
+I mistake greatly, which can do anything--can do everything, in this
+city, in this world--you have wealth, and the command of a small portion
+of it will enable me to extricate him from his present danger. He will
+be enabled and directed how to make his escape--and I--" she paused.
+
+"Will accompany him, doubtless, and reap the fruits of your sage
+exertions in his behalf?" said the Lady Hermione, ironically.
+
+"May heaven forgive you the unjust thought, lady," answered Margaret.
+"I will never see him more--but I shall have saved him, and the thought
+will make me happy."
+
+"A cold conclusion to so bold and warm a flame," said the lady, with a
+smile which seemed to intimate incredulity.
+
+"It is, however, the only one which I expect, madam--I could almost
+say the only one which I wish--I am sure I will use no efforts to bring
+about any other; if I am bold in his cause, I am timorous enough in my
+own. During our only interview I was unable to speak a word to him. He
+knows not the sound of my voice--and all that I have risked, and must
+yet risk, I am doing for one, who, were he asked the question, would say
+he has long since forgotten that he ever saw, spoke to, or sat beside, a
+creature of so little signification as I am."
+
+"This is a strange and unreasonable indulgence of a passion equally
+fanciful and dangerous," said Lady Hermione. "You will _not_ assist me,
+then?" said Margaret; "have good-day, then, madam--my secret, I trust,
+is safe in such honourable keeping."
+
+"Tarry yet a little," said the lady, "and tell me what resource you
+have to assist this youth, if you were supplied with money to put it in
+motion."
+
+"It is superfluous to ask me the question, madam," answered Margaret,
+"unless you purpose to assist me; and, if you do so purpose, it is still
+superfluous. You could not understand the means I must use, and time is
+too brief to explain."
+
+"But have you in reality such means?" said the lady.
+
+"I have, with the command of a moderate sum," answered Margaret Ramsay,
+"the power of baffling all his enemies--of eluding the passion of
+the irritated king--the colder but more determined displeasure of the
+prince--the vindictive spirit of Buckingham, so hastily directed against
+whomsoever crosses the path of his ambition--the cold concentrated
+malice of Lord Dalgarno--all, I can baffle them all!"
+
+"But is this to be done without your own personal risk, Margaret?"
+replied the lady; "for, be your purpose what it will, you are not to
+peril your own reputation or person, in the romantic attempt of serving
+another; and I, maiden, am answerable to your godfather,--to your
+benefactor, and my own,--not to aid you in any dangerous or unworthy
+enterprise."
+
+"Depend upon my word,--my oath,--dearest lady," replied the supplicant,
+"that I will act by the agency of others, and do not myself design to
+mingle in any enterprise in which my appearance might be either perilous
+or unwomanly."
+
+"I know not what to do," said the Lady Hermione; "it is perhaps
+incautious and inconsiderate in me to aid so wild a project; yet the end
+seems honourable, if the means be sure--what is the penalty if he fall
+into their power?"
+
+"Alas, alas! the loss of his right hand!" replied Margaret, her voice
+almost stifled with sobs.
+
+"Are the laws of England so cruel? Then there is mercy in heaven alone,"
+said the lady, "since, even in this free land, men are wolves to each
+other.--Compose yourself, Margaret, and tell me what money is necessary
+to secure Lord Glenvarloch's escape."
+
+"Two hundred pieces," replied Margaret; "I would speak to you of
+restoring them--and I must one day have the power--only that I
+know--that is, I think--your ladyship is indifferent on that score."
+
+"Not a word more of it," said the lady; "call Monna Paula hither."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+  Credit me, friend, it hath been ever thus,
+  Since the ark rested on Mount Ararat.
+  False man hath sworn, and woman hath believed--
+  Repented and reproach'd, and then believed once more.
+                                  _The New World._
+
+By the time that Margaret returned with Monna Paula, the Lady Hermione
+was rising from the table at which she had been engaged in writing
+something on a small slip of paper, which she gave to her attendant.
+
+"Monna Paula," she said, "carry this paper to Roberts the cash-keeper;
+let them give you the money mentioned in the note, and bring it hither
+presently."
+
+Monna Paula left the room, and her mistress proceeded.
+
+"I do not know," she said, "Margaret, if I have done, and am doing,
+well in this affair. My life has been one of strange seclusion, and I am
+totally unacquainted with the practical ways of this world--an ignorance
+which I know cannot be remedied by mere reading.--I fear I am doing
+wrong to you, and perhaps to the laws of the country which affords me
+refuge, by thus indulging you; and yet there is something in my heart
+which cannot resist your entreaties."
+
+"O, listen to it--listen to it, dear, generous lady!" said Margaret,
+throwing herself on her knees and grasping those of her benefactress
+and looking in that attitude like a beautiful mortal in the act
+of supplicating her tutelary angel; "the laws of men are but the
+injunctions of mortality, but what the heart prompts is the echo of the
+voice from heaven within us."
+
+"Rise, rise, maiden," said Hermione; "you affect me more than I thought
+I could have been moved by aught that should approach me. Rise and tell
+me whence it comes, that, in so short a time, your thoughts, your looks,
+your speech, and even your slightest actions, are changed from those
+of a capricious and fanciful girl, to all this energy and impassioned
+eloquence of word and action?"
+
+"I am sure I know not, dearest lady," said Margaret, looking down; "but
+I suppose that, when I was a trifler, I was only thinking of trifles.
+What I now reflect is deep and serious, and I am thankful if my speech
+and manner bear reasonable proportion to my thoughts."
+
+"It must be so," said the lady; "yet the change seems a rapid and
+strange one. It seems to be as if a childish girl had at once shot up
+into deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike,
+and sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favourite object of
+affection, which is often so basely rewarded."
+
+The Lady Hermione sighed bitterly, and Monna Paula entered ere the
+conversation proceeded farther. She spoke to her mistress in the foreign
+language in which they frequently conversed, but which was unknown to
+Margaret.
+
+"We must have patience for a time," said the lady to her visitor; "the
+cash-keeper is abroad on some business, but he is expected home in the
+course of half an hour."
+
+Margaret wrung her hands in vexation and impatience.
+
+"Minutes are precious," continued the lady; "that I am well aware of;
+and we will at least suffer none of them to escape us. Monna Paula shall
+remain below and transact our business, the very instant that Roberts
+returns home."
+
+She spoke to her attendant accordingly, who again left the room.
+
+"You are very kind, madam--very good," said the poor little Margaret,
+while the anxious trembling of her lip and of her hand showed all that
+sickening agitation of the heart which arises from hope deferred.
+
+"Be patient, Margaret, and collect yourself," said the lady; "you
+may, you must, have much to do to carry through this your bold
+purpose--reserve your spirits, which you may need so much--be
+patient--it is the only remedy against the evils of life."
+
+"Yes, madam," said Margaret, wiping her eyes, and endeavouring in
+vain to suppress the natural impatience of her temper,--"I have heard
+so--very often indeed; and I dare say I have myself, heaven forgive me,
+said so to people in perplexity and affliction; but it was before I
+had suffered perplexity and vexation myself, and I am sure I will never
+preach patience to any human being again, now that I know how much the
+medicine goes against the stomach."
+
+"You will think better of it, maiden," said the Lady Hermione; "I also,
+when I first felt distress, thought they did me wrong who spoke to me
+of patience; but my sorrows have been repeated and continued till I have
+been taught to cling to it as the best, and--religious duties excepted,
+of which, indeed, patience forms a part--the only alleviation which life
+can afford them."
+
+Margaret, who neither wanted sense nor feeling, wiped her tears hastily,
+and asked her patroness's forgiveness for her petulance.
+
+"I might have thought"--she said, "I ought to have reflected, that even
+from the manner of your life, madam, it is plain you must have suffered
+sorrow; and yet, God knows, the patience which I have ever seen you
+display, well entitles you to recommend your own example to others."
+
+The lady was silent for a moment, and then replied--
+
+"Margaret, I am about to repose a high confidence in you. You are no
+longer a child, but a thinking and a feeling woman. You have told me as
+much of your secret as you dared--I will let you know as much of mine as
+I may venture to tell. You will ask me, perhaps, why, at a moment when
+your own mind is agitated, I should force upon you the consideration of
+my sorrows? and I answer, that I cannot withstand the impulse which now
+induces me to do so. Perhaps from having witnessed, for the first time
+these three years, the natural effects of human passion, my own
+sorrows have been awakened, and are for the moment too big for my own
+bosom--perhaps I may hope that you, who seem driving full sail on the
+very rock on which I was wrecked for ever, will take warning by the tale
+I have to tell. Enough, if you are willing to listen, I am willing to
+tell you who the melancholy inhabitant of the Foljambe apartments really
+is, and why she resides here. It will serve, at least, to while away the
+time until Monna Paula shall bring us the reply from Roberts."
+
+At any other moment of her life, Margaret Ramsay would have heard
+with undivided interest a communication so flattering in itself, and
+referring to a subject upon which the general curiosity had been so
+strongly excited. And even at this agitating moment, although she ceased
+not to listen with an anxious ear and throbbing heart for the sound of
+Monna Paula's returning footsteps, she nevertheless, as gratitude and
+policy, as well as a portion of curiosity dictated, composed herself,
+in appearance at least, to the strictest attention to the Lady Hermione,
+and thanked her with humility for the high confidence she was pleased
+to repose in her. The Lady Hermione, with the same calmness which always
+attended her speech and actions, thus recounted her story to her young
+friend:
+
+"My father," she said, "was a merchant, but he was of a city whose
+merchants are princes. I am the daughter of a noble house in Genoa,
+whose name stood as high in honour and in antiquity, as any inscribed in
+the Golden Register of that famous aristocracy.
+
+"My mother was a noble Scottish woman. She was descended--do not
+start--and not remotely descended, of the house of Glenvarloch--no
+wonder that I was easily led to take concern in the misfortunes of this
+young lord. He is my near relation, and my mother, who was more than
+sufficiently proud of her descent, early taught me to take an interest
+in the name. My maternal grandfather, a cadet of that house of
+Glenvarloch, had followed the fortunes of an unhappy fugitive, Francis
+Earl of Bothwell, who, after showing his miseries in many a foreign
+court, at length settled in Spain upon a miserable pension, which
+he earned by conforming to the Catholic faith. Ralph Olifaunt, my
+grandfather, separated from him in disgust, and settled at Barcelona,
+where, by the friendship of the governor, his heresy, as it was termed,
+was connived at. My father, in the course of his commerce, resided more
+at Barcelona than in his native country, though at times he visited
+Genoa.
+
+"It was at Barcelona that he became acquainted with my mother, loved
+her, and married her; they differed in faith, but they agreed in
+affection. I was their only child. In public I conformed to the
+docterins and ceremonial of the Church of Rome; but my mother, by whom
+these were regarded with horror, privately trained me up in those of the
+reformed religion; and my father, either indifferent in the matter, or
+unwilling to distress the woman whom he loved, overlooked or connived at
+my secretly joining in her devotions.
+
+"But when, unhappily, my father was attacked, while yet in the prime
+of life, by a slow wasting disease, which he felt to be incurable, he
+foresaw the hazard to which his widow and orphan might be exposed, after
+he was no more, in a country so bigoted to Catholicism as Spain. He made
+it his business, during the two last years of his life, to realize and
+remit to England a large part of his fortune, which, by the faith and
+honour of his correspondent, the excellent man under whose roof I now
+reside, was employed to great advantage. Had my father lived to complete
+his purpose, by withdrawing his whole fortune from commerce, he himself
+would have accompanied us to England, and would have beheld us settled
+in peace and honour before his death. But heaven had ordained it
+otherwise. He died, leaving several sums engaged in the hands of his
+Spanish debtors; and, in particular, he had made a large and extensive
+consignment to a certain wealthy society of merchants at Madrid, who
+showed no willingness after his death to account for the proceeds. Would
+to God we had left these covetous and wicked men in possession of their
+booty, for such they seemed to hold the property of their deceased
+correspondent and friend! We had enough for comfort, and even splendour,
+already secured in England; but friends exclaimed upon the folly
+of permitting these unprincipled men to plunder us of our rightful
+property. The sum itself was large, and the claim having been made,
+my mother thought that my father's memory was interested in its being
+enforced, especially as the defences set up for the mercantile society
+went, in some degree, to impeach the fairness of his transactions.
+
+"We went therefore to Madrid. I was then, my Margaret, about your age,
+young and thoughtless, as you have hitherto been--We went, I say, to
+Madrid, to solicit the protection of the Court and of the king, without
+which we were told it would be in vain to expect justice against an
+opulent and powerful association.
+
+"Our residence at the Spanish metropolis drew on from weeks to months.
+For my part, my natural sorrow for a kind, though not a fond father,
+having abated, I cared not if the lawsuit had detained us at Madrid for
+ever. My mother permitted herself and me rather more liberty than we
+had been accustomed to. She found relations among the Scottish and Irish
+officers, many of whom held a high rank in the Spanish armies; their
+wives and daughters became our friends and companions, and I had
+perpetual occasion to exercise my mother's native language, which I had
+learned from my infancy. By degrees, as my mother's spirits were low,
+and her health indifferent, she was induced, by her partial fondness for
+me, to suffer me to mingle occasionally in society which she herself did
+not frequent, under the guardianship of such ladies as she imagined she
+could trust, and particularly under the care of the lady of a general
+officer, whose weakness or falsehood was the original cause of my
+misfortunes. I was as gay, Margaret, and thoughtless--I again repeat
+it--as you were but lately, and my attention, like yours, became
+suddenly riveted to one object, and to one set of feelings.
+
+"The person by whom they were excited was young, noble, handsome,
+accomplished, a soldier, and a Briton. So far our cases are nearly
+parallel; but, may heaven forbid that the parallel should become
+complete! This man, so noble, so fairly formed, so gifted, and so
+brave--this villain, for that, Margaret, was his fittest name, spoke of
+love to me, and I listened---Could I suspect his sincerity? If he was
+wealthy, noble, and long-descended, I also was a noble and an opulent
+heiress. It is true, that he neither knew the extent of my father's
+wealth, nor did I communicate to him (I do not even remember if I myself
+knew it at the time) the important circumstance, that the greater part
+of that wealth was beyond the grasp of arbitrary power, and not subject
+to the precarious award of arbitrary judges. My lover might think,
+perhaps, as my mother was desirous the world at large should believe,
+that almost our whole fortune depended on the precarious suit which we
+had come to Madrid to prosecute--a belief which she had countenanced
+out of policy, being well aware that a knowledge of my father's having
+remitted such a large part of his fortune to England, would in no shape
+aid the recovery of further sums in the Spanish courts. Yet, with no
+more extensive views of my fortune than were possessed by the public,
+I believe that he, of whom I am speaking, was at first sincere in his
+pretensions. He had himself interest sufficient to have obtained a
+decision in our favour in the courts, and my fortune, reckoning only
+what was in Spain, would then have been no inconsiderable sum. To be
+brief, whatever might be his motives or temptation for so far committing
+himself, he applied to my mother for my hand, with my consent and
+approval. My mother's judgment had become weaker, but her passions had
+become more irritable, during her increasing illness.
+
+"You have heard of the bitterness of the ancient Scottish feuds, of
+which it may be said, in the language of Scripture, that the fathers eat
+sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge. Unhappily--I
+should say _happily_, considering what this man has now shown himself
+to be--some such strain of bitterness had divided his house from my
+mother's, and she had succeeded to the inheritance of hatred. When
+he asked her for my hand, she was no longer able to command her
+passions--she raked up every injury which the rival families had
+inflicted upon each other during a bloody feud of two centuries--heaped
+him with epithets of scorn, and rejected his proposal of alliance, as if
+it had come from the basest of mankind.
+
+"My lover retired in passion; and I remained to weep and murmur against
+fortune, and--I will confess my fault--against my affectionate parent.
+I had been educated with different feelings, and the traditions of the
+feuds and quarrels of my mother's family in Scotland, which we're to her
+monuments and chronicles, seemed to me as insignificant and unmeaning
+as the actions and fantasies of Don Quixote; and I blamed my mother
+bitterly for sacrificing my happiness to an empty dream of family
+dignity.
+
+"While I was in this humour, my lover sought a renewal of our
+intercourse. We met repeatedly in the house of the lady whom I
+have mentioned, and who, in levity, or in the spirit of intrigue,
+countenanced our secret correspondence. At length we were secretly
+married--so far did my blinded passion hurry me. My lover had secured
+the assistance of a clergyman of the English church. Monna Paula, who
+had been my attendant from infancy, was one witness of our union. Let me
+do the faithful creature justice--She conjured me to suspend my purpose
+till my mother's death should permit us to celebrate our marriage
+openly; but the entreaties of my lover, and my own wayward passion,
+prevailed over her remonstrances. The lady I have spoken of was another
+witness, but whether she was in full possession of my bridegroom's
+secret, I had never the means to learn. But the shelter of her name and
+roof afforded us the means of frequently meeting, and the love of my
+husband seemed as sincere and as unbounded as my own.
+
+"He was eager, he said, to gratify his pride, by introducing me to one
+or two of his noble English friends. This could not be done at Lady
+D---'s; but by his command, which I was now entitled to consider as my
+law, I contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompanied only
+by Monna Paula. There was a very small party, of two ladies and two
+gentlemen. There was music, mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the
+frankness of the English nation, but I could not help thinking it
+bordered on license during these entertainments, and in the course
+of the collation which followed; but I imputed my scruples to my
+inexperience, and would not doubt the propriety of what was approved by
+my husband.
+
+"I was soon summoned to other scenes: My poor mother's disease drew to
+a conclusion--Happy I am that it took place before she discovered what
+would have cut her to the soul.
+
+"In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly
+the monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the
+good of the church. I have said that my mother's temper was irritated by
+disease, and her judgment impaired in proportion. She gathered spirits
+and force from the resentment which the priests around her bed excited
+by their importunity, and the boldness of the stern sect of reformers,
+to which she had secretly adhered, seemed to animate her dying tongue.
+She avowed the religion she had so long concealed; renounced all hope
+and aid which did not come by and through its dictates; rejected with
+contempt the ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished
+priests with reproaches for their greediness and hypocrisy, and
+commanded them to leave her house. They went in bitterness and rage,
+but it was to return with the inquisitorial power, its warrants, and its
+officers; and they found only the cold corpse left of her, on whom they
+had hoped to work their vengeance. As I was soon discovered to have
+shared my mother's heresy, I was dragged from her dead body, imprisoned
+in a solitary cloister, and treated with severity, which the Abbess
+assured me was due to the looseness of my life, as well as my spiritual
+errors. I avowed my marriage, to justify the situation in which I found
+myself--I implored the assistance of the Superior to communicate my
+situation to my husband. She smiled coldly at the proposal, and told
+me the church had provided a better spouse for me; advised me to secure
+myself of divine grace hereafter, and deserve milder treatment here, by
+presently taking the veil. In order to convince me that I had no other
+resource, she showed me a royal decree, by which all my estate was
+hypothecated to the convent of Saint Magdalen, and became their complete
+property upon my death, or my taking the vows. As I was, both from
+religious principle, and affectionate attachment to my husband,
+absolutely immovable in my rejection of the veil, I believe--may heaven
+forgive me if I wrong her--that the Abbess was desirous to make sure of
+my spoils, by hastening the former event.
+
+"It was a small and a poor convent, and situated among the mountains
+of Guadarrama. Some of the sisters were the daughters of neighbouring
+Hidalgoes, as poor as they were proud and ignorant; others were women
+immured there on account of their vicious conduct. The Superior herself
+was of a high family, to which she owed her situation; but she was said
+to have disgraced her connexions by her conduct during youth, and now,
+in advanced age, covetousness and the love of power, a spirit too of
+severity and cruelty, had succeeded to the thirst after licentious
+pleasure. I suffered much under this woman--and still her dark, glassy
+eye, her tall, shrouded form, and her rigid features, haunt my slumbers.
+
+"I was not destined to be a mother. I was very ill, and my recovery was
+long doubtful. The most violent remedies were applied, if remedies
+they indeed were. My health was restored at length, against my own
+expectation and that of all around me. But, when I first again beheld
+the reflection of my own face, I thought it was the visage of a ghost. I
+was wont to be flattered by all, but particularly by my husband, for the
+fineness of my complexion--it was now totally gone, and, what is more
+extraordinary, it has never returned. I have observed that the few
+who now see me, look upon me as a bloodless phantom--Such has been
+the abiding effect of the treatment to which I was subjected. May God
+forgive those who were the agents of it!--I thank Heaven I can say so
+with as sincere a wish, as that with which I pray for forgiveness of
+my own sins. They now relented somewhat towards me--moved perhaps
+to compassion by my singular appearance, which bore witness to my
+sufferings; or afraid that the matter might attract attention during
+a visitation of the bishop, which was approaching. One day, as I was
+walking in the convent-garden, to which I had been lately admitted, a
+miserable old Moorish slave, who was kept to cultivate the little
+spot, muttered as I passed him, but still keeping his wrinkled face and
+decrepit form in the same angle with the earth--'There is Heart's Ease
+near the postern.'
+
+"I knew something of the symbolical language of flowers, once carried to
+such perfection among the Moriscoes of Spain; but if I had been ignorant
+of it, the captive would soon have caught at any hint which seemed
+to promise liberty. With all the haste consistent with the utmost
+circumspection--for I might be observed by the Abbess or some of the
+sisters from the window--I hastened to the postern. It was closely
+barred as usual, but when I coughed slightly, I was answered from the
+other side--and, O heaven! it was my husband's voice which said, 'Lose
+not a minute here at present, but be on this spot when the vesper bell
+has tolled.'
+
+"I retired in an ecstasy of joy. I was not entitled or permitted to
+assist at vespers, but was accustomed to be confined to my cell while
+the nuns were in the choir. Since my recovery, they had discontinued
+locking the door; though the utmost severity was denounced against me
+if I left these precincts. But, let the penalty be what it would, I
+hastened to dare it.--No sooner had the last toll of the vesper bell
+ceased to sound, than I stole from my chamber, reached the garden
+unobserved, hurried to the postern, beheld it open with rapture, and
+in the next moment was in my husband's arms. He had with him another
+cavalier of noble mien--both were masked and armed. Their horses, with
+one saddled for my use, stood in a thicket hard by, with two other
+masked horsemen, who seemed to be servants. In less than two minutes we
+were mounted, and rode off as fast as we could through rough and devious
+roads, in which one of the domestics appeared to act as guide.
+
+"The hurried pace at which we rode, and the anxiety of the moment, kept
+me silent, and prevented my expressing my surprise or my joy save in a
+few broken words. It also served as an apology for my husband's silence.
+At length we stopped at a solitary hut--the cavaliers dismounted, and I
+was assisted from my saddle, not by M----M----my husband, I would say,
+who seemed busied about his horse, but by the stranger.
+
+"'Go into the hut,' said my husband, 'change your dress with the
+speed of lightning--you will find one to _assist_ you--we must forward
+instantly when you have shifted your apparel.'
+
+"I entered the hut, and was received in the arms of the faithful Monna
+Paula, who had waited my arrival for many hours, half distracted with
+fear and anxiety. With her assistance I speedily tore off the detested
+garments of the convent, and exchanged them for a travelling suit, made
+after the English fashion. I observed that Monna Paula was in a similar
+dress. I had but just huddled on my change of attire, when we were
+hastily summoned to mount. A horse, I found, was provided for Monna
+Paula, and we resumed our route. On the way, my convent-garb, which had
+been wrapped hastily together around a stone, was thrown into a lake,
+along the verge of which we were then passing. The two cavaliers rode
+together in front, my attendant and I followed, and the servants brought
+up the rear. Monna Paula, as we rode on, repeatedly entreated me to
+be silent upon the road, as our lives depended on it. I was easily
+reconciled to be passive, for, the first fever of spirits which attended
+the sense of liberation and of gratified affection having passed away, I
+felt as it were dizzy with the rapid motion; and my utmost exertion was
+necessary to keep my place on the saddle, until we suddenly (it was now
+very dark) saw a strong light before us.
+
+"My husband reined up his horse, and gave a signal by a low whistle
+twice repeated, which was answered from a distance. The whole party then
+halted under the boughs of a large cork-tree, and my husband, drawing
+himself close to my side, said, in a voice which I then thought was only
+embarrassed by fear for my safety,--'We must now part. Those to whom I
+commit you are contrabandists, who only know you as English-women, but
+who, for a high bribe, have undertaken to escort you through the passes
+of the Pyrenees as far as Saint Jean de Luz.'
+
+"'And do you not go with us?' I exclaimed with emphasis, though in a
+whisper.
+
+"'It is impossible,' he said, 'and would ruin all--See that you speak
+in English in these people's hearing, and give not the least sign of
+understanding what they say in Spanish--your life depends on it; for,
+though they live in opposition to, and evasion of, the laws of Spain,
+they would tremble at the idea of violating those of the church--I see
+them coming--farewell--farewell.'
+
+"The last words were hastily uttered-I endeavoured to detain him yet a
+moment by my feeble grasp on his cloak.
+
+"'You will meet me, then, I trust, at Saint Jean de Luz?'
+
+"'Yes, yes,' he answered hastily, 'at Saint Jean de Luz you will meet
+your protector.'
+
+"He then extricated his cloak from my grasp, and was lost in the
+darkness. His companion approached--kissed my hand, which in the
+agony of the moment I was scarce sensible of, and followed my husband,
+attended by one of the domestics."
+
+The tears of Hermione here flowed so fast as to threaten the
+interruption of her narrative. When she resumed it, it was with a kind
+of apology to Margaret.
+
+"Every circumstance," she said, "occurring in those moments, when I
+still enjoyed a delusive idea of happiness, is deeply imprinted in my
+remembrance, which, respecting all that has since happened, is waste and
+unvaried as an Arabian desert. But I have no right to inflict on you,
+Margaret, agitated as you are with your own anxieties, the unavailing
+details of my useless recollections."
+
+Margaret's eyes were full of tears--it was impossible it could
+be otherwise, considering that the tale was told by her suffering
+benefactress, and resembled, in some respects, her own situation; and
+yet she must not be severely blamed, if, while eagerly pressing her
+patroness to continue her narrative, her eye involuntarily sought the
+door, as if to chide the delay of Monna Paula.
+
+The Lady Hermione saw and forgave these conflicting emotions; and
+she, too, must be pardoned, if, in her turn, the minute detail of her
+narrative showed, that, in the discharge of feelings so long locked
+in her own bosom, she rather forgot those which were personal to
+her auditor, and by which it must be supposed Margaret's mind was
+principally occupied, if not entirely engrossed.
+
+"I told you, I think, that one domestic followed the gentlemen," thus
+the lady continued her story, "the other remained with us for the
+purpose, as it seemed, of introducing us to two persons whom M--, I
+say, whom my husband's signal had brought to the spot. A word or two of
+explanation passed between them and the servant, in a sort of _patois_,
+which I did not understand; and one of the strangers taking hold of my
+bridle, the other of Monna Paula's, they led us towards the light,
+which I have already said was the signal of our halting. I touched Monna
+Paula, and was sensible that she trembled very much, which surprised me,
+because I knew her character to be so strong and bold as to border upon
+the masculine.
+
+"When we reached the fire, the gipsy figures of those who surrounded it,
+with their swarthy features, large Sombrero hats, girdles stuck full
+of pistols and poniards, and all the other apparatus of a roving and
+perilous life, would have terrified me at another moment. But then I
+only felt the agony of having parted from my husband almost in the very
+moment of my rescue. The females of the gang--for there were four or
+five women amongst these contraband traders--received us with a sort of
+rude courtesy. They were, in dress and manners, not extremely different
+from the men with whom they associated--were almost as hardy and
+adventurous, carried arms like them, and were, as we learned from
+passing circumstances, scarce less experienced in the use of them.
+
+"It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet they gave us no
+reason to complain of them, but used us on all occasions with a kind of
+clumsy courtesy, accommodating themselves to our wants and our weakness
+during the journey, even while we heard them grumbling to each other
+against our effeminacy,--like some rude carrier, who, in charge of a
+package of valuable and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its
+preservation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it occasions
+him. Once or twice, when they were disappointed in their contraband
+traffic, lost some goods in a rencontre with the Spanish officers of
+the revenue, and were finally pursued by a military force, their murmurs
+assumed a more alarming tone, in the terrified ears of my attendant and
+myself, when, without daring to seem to understand them, we heard them
+curse the insular heretics, on whose account God, Saint James, and
+Our Lady of the Pillar, had blighted their hopes of profit. These are
+dreadful recollections, Margaret."
+
+"Why, then, dearest lady," answered Margaret, "will you thus dwell on
+them?"
+
+"It is only," said the Lady Hermione, "because I linger like a criminal
+on the scaffold, and would fain protract the time that must inevitably
+bring on the final catastrophe. Yes, dearest Margaret, I rest and dwell
+on the events of that journey, marked as it was by fatigue and danger,
+though the road lay through the wildest and most desolate deserts and
+mountains, and though our companions, both men and women, were fierce
+and lawless themselves, and exposed to the most merciless retaliation
+from those with whom they were constantly engaged--yet would I rather
+dwell on these hazardous events than tell that which awaited me at Saint
+Jean de Luz."
+
+"But you arrived there in safety?" said Margaret.
+
+"Yes, maiden," replied the Lady Hermione; "and were guided by the chief
+of our outlawed band to the house which had been assigned for reception,
+with the same punctilious accuracy with which he would have delivered a
+bale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I was told a gentleman
+had expected me for two days--I rushed into the apartment, and, when
+I expected to embrace my husband--I found myself in the arms of his
+friend!"
+
+"The villain!" exclaimed Margaret, whose anxiety had, in spite of
+herself, been a moment suspended by the narrative of the lady.
+
+"Yes," replied Hermione, calmly, though her voice somewhat faltered, "it
+is the name that best--that well befits him. He, Margaret, for whom I
+had sacrificed all--whose love and whose memory were dearer to me than
+my freedom, when I was in the convent--than my life, when I was on my
+perilous journey--had taken his measures to shake me off, and transfer
+me, as a privileged wanton, to the protection of his libertine
+friend. At first the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the
+hysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wanton, or the wily
+affection of a courtezan. My claim of marriage he laughed at, assuring
+me he knew it was a mere farce required by me, and submitted to by his
+friend, to save some reserve of delicacy; and expressed his surprise
+that I should consider in any other light a ceremony which could be
+valid neither in Spain nor England, and insultingly offered to remove
+my scruples, by renewing such a union with me himself. My exclamations
+brought Monna Paula to my aid--she was not, indeed, far distant, for she
+had expected some such scene."
+
+"Good heaven!" said Margaret, "was she a confidant of your base
+husband?"
+
+"No," answered Hermione, "do her not that injustice. It was her
+persevering inquiries that discovered the place of my confinement--it
+was she who gave the information to my husband, and who remarked even
+then that the news was so much more interesting to his friend than to
+him, that she suspected, from an early period, it was the purpose of the
+villain to shake me off. On the journey, her suspicions were confirmed.
+She had heard him remark to his companion, with a cold sarcastic
+sneer, the total change which my prison and my illness had made on my
+complexion; and she had heard the other reply, that the defect might be
+cured by a touch of Spanish red. This, and other circumstances, having
+prepared her for such treachery, Monna Paula now entered, completely
+possessed of herself, and prepared to support me. Her calm
+representations went farther with the stranger than the expressions of
+my despair. If he did not entirely believe our tale, he at least
+acted the part of a man of honour, who would not intrude himself
+on defenceless females, whatever was their character; desisted from
+persecuting us with his presence; and not only directed Monna Paula how
+we should journey to Paris, but furnished her with money for the purpose
+of our journey. From the capital I wrote to Master Heriot, my father's
+most trusted correspondent; he came instantly to Paris on receiving
+the letter; and--But here comes Monna Paula, with more than the sum you
+desired. Take it, my dearest maiden--serve this youth if you will. But,
+O Margaret, look for no gratitude in return!"
+
+The Lady Hermione took the bag of gold from her attendant, and gave it
+to her young friend, who threw herself into her arms, kissed her on
+both the pale cheeks, over which the sorrows so newly awakened by
+her narrative had drawn many tears, then sprung up, wiped her own
+overflowing eyes, and left the Foljambe apartments with a hasty and
+resolved step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+  Rove not from pole to pole-the man lives here
+  Whose razor's only equall'd by his beer;
+  And where, in either sense, the cockney-put
+  May, if he pleases, get confounded cut.
+       _On the sign of an Alehouse kept by a Barber._
+
+We are under the necessity of transporting our readers to the habitation
+of Benjamin Suddlechop, the husband of the active and efficient Dame
+Ursula, and who also, in his own person, discharged more offices than
+one. For, besides trimming locks and beards, and turning whiskers upward
+into the martial and swaggering curl, or downward into the drooping
+form which became mustaches of civil policy; besides also occasionally
+letting blood, either by cupping or by the lancet, extracting a stump,
+and performing other actions of petty pharmacy, very nearly as well as
+his neighbour Raredrench, the apothecary: he could, on occasion, draw
+a cup of beer as well as a tooth, tap a hogshead as well as a vein, and
+wash, with a draught of good ale, the mustaches which his art had just
+trimmed. But he carried on these trades apart from each other.
+
+His barber's shop projected its long and mysterious pole into Fleet
+Street, painted party-coloured-wise, to represent the ribbons with
+which, in elder times, that ensign was garnished. In the window were
+seen rows of teeth displayed upon strings like rosaries--cups with a red
+rag at the bottom, to resemble blood, an intimation that patients
+might be bled, cupped, or blistered, with the assistance of "sufficient
+advice;" while the more profitable, but less honourable operations upon
+the hair of the head and beard, were briefly and gravely announced.
+Within was the well-worn leather chair for customers, the guitar, then
+called a ghittern or cittern, with which a customer might amuse himself
+till his predecessor was dismissed from under Benjamin's hands, and
+which, therefore, often flayed the ears of the patient metaphorically,
+while his chin sustained from the razor literal scarification. All,
+therefore, in this department, spoke the chirurgeon-barber, or the
+barber-chirurgeon.
+
+But there was a little back-room, used as a private tap-room, which had
+a separate entrance by a dark and crooked alley, which communicated with
+Fleet Street, after a circuitous passage through several by-lanes
+and courts. This retired temple of Bacchus had also a connexion with
+Benjamin's more public shop by a long and narrow entrance, conducting to
+the secret premises in which a few old topers used to take their morning
+draught, and a few gill-sippers their modicum of strong waters, in a
+bashful way, after having entered the barber's shop under pretence of
+being shaved. Besides, this obscure tap-room gave a separate admission
+to the apartments of Dame Ursley, which she was believed to make use of
+in the course of her multifarious practice, both to let herself secretly
+out, and to admit clients and employers who cared not to be seen to
+visit her in public. Accordingly, after the hour of noon, by which time
+the modest and timid whetters, who were Benjamin's best customers, had
+each had his draught, or his thimbleful, the business of the tap was in
+a manner ended, and the charge of attending the back-door passed from
+one of the barber's apprentices to the little mulatto girl, the dingy
+Iris of Dame Suddlechop. Then came mystery thick upon mystery; muffled
+gallants, and masked females, in disguises of different fashions, were
+seen to glide through the intricate mazes of the alley; and even the low
+tap on the door, which frequently demanded the attention of the
+little Creole, had in it something that expressed secrecy and fear of
+discovery.
+
+It was the evening of the same day when Margaret had held the long
+conference with the Lady Hermione, that Dame Suddlechop had directed her
+little portress to "keep the door fast as a miser's purse-strings; and,
+as she valued her saffron skin, to let in none but---" the name she
+added in a whisper, and accompanied it with a nod. The little domestic
+blinked intelligence, went to her post, and in brief time thereafter
+admitted and ushered into the presence of the dame, that very
+city-gallant whose clothes sat awkwardly upon him, and who had behaved
+so doughtily in the fray which befell at Nigel's first visit to
+Beaujeu's ordinary. The mulatto introduced him--"Missis, fine young
+gentleman, all over gold and velvet "--then muttered to herself as she
+shut the door, "fine young gentleman, he!--apprentice to him who makes
+the tick-tick."
+
+It was indeed--we are sorry to say it, and trust our readers will
+sympathize with the interest we take in the matter--it was indeed honest
+Jin Vin, who had been so far left to his own devices, and abandoned by
+his better angel, as occasionally to travesty himself in this fashion,
+and to visit, in the dress of a gallant of the day, those places of
+pleasure and dissipation, in which it would have been everlasting
+discredit to him to have been seen in his real character and condition;
+that is, had it been possible for him in his proper shape to have gained
+admission. There was now a deep gloom on his brow, his rich habit was
+hastily put on, and buttoned awry; his belt buckled in a most disorderly
+fashion, so that his sword stuck outwards from his side, instead of
+hanging by it with graceful negligence; while his poniard, though fairly
+hatched and gilded, stuck in his girdle like a butcher's steel in
+the fold of his blue apron. Persons of fashion had, by the way, the
+advantage formerly of being better distinguished from the vulgar than at
+present; for, what the ancient farthingale and more modern hoop were to
+court ladies, the sword was to the gentleman; an article of dress, which
+only rendered those ridiculous who assumed it for the nonce, without
+being in the habit of wearing it. Vincent's rapier got between his legs,
+and, as he stumbled over it, he exclaimed--"Zounds! 'tis the second time
+it has served me thus--I believe the damned trinket knows I am no true
+gentleman, and does it of set purpose."
+
+"Come, come, mine honest Jin Vin--come, my good boy," said the dame, in
+a soothing tone, "never mind these trankums--a frank and hearty London
+'prentice is worth all the gallants of the inns of court."
+
+"I was a frank and hearty London 'prentice before I knew you, Dame
+Suddlechop," said Vincent; "what your advice has made me, you may find a
+name for; since, fore George! I am ashamed to think about it myself."
+
+"A-well-a-day," quoth the dame, "and is it even so with thee?--nay,
+then, I know but one cure;" and with that, going to a little corner
+cupboard of carved wainscoat, she opened it by the assistance of a key,
+which, with half-a-dozen besides, hung in a silver chain at her girdle,
+and produced a long flask of thin glass cased with wicker, bringing
+forth at the same time two Flemish rummer glasses, with long stalks and
+capacious wombs. She filled the one brimful for her guest, and the other
+more modestly to about two-thirds of its capacity, for her own
+use, repeating, as the rich cordial trickled forth in a smooth oily
+stream--"Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody
+brain!"
+
+But, though Jin Vin tossed off his glass without scruple, while the lady
+sippped hers more moderately, it did not appear to produce the expected
+amendment upon his humour. On the contrary, as he threw himself into the
+great leathern chair, in which Dame Ursley was wont to solace herself of
+an evening, he declared himself "the most miserable dog within the sound
+of Bow-bell."
+
+"And why should you be so idle as to think yourself so, silly boy?" said
+Dame Suddlechop; "but 'tis always thus--fools and children never know
+when they are well. Why, there is not one that walks in St. Paul's,
+whether in flat cap, or hat and feather, that has so many kind glances
+from the wenches as you, when ye swagger along Fleet Street with your
+bat under your arm, and your cap set aside upon your head. Thou knowest
+well, that, from Mrs. Deputy's self down to the waist-coateers in the
+alley, all of them are twiring and peeping betwixt their fingers when
+you pass; and yet you call yourself a miserable dog! and I must tell
+you all this over and over again, as if I were whistling the chimes
+of London to a pettish child, in order to bring the pretty baby into
+good-humour!"
+
+The flattery of Dame Ursula seemed to have the fate of her cordial--it
+was swallowed, indeed, by the party to whom she presented it, and that
+with some degree of relish, but it did not operate as a sedative on the
+disturbed state of the youth's mind. He laughed for an instant, half
+in scorn, and half in gratified vanity, but cast a sullen look on Dame
+Ursley as he replied to her last words,
+
+"You do treat me like a child indeed, when you sing over and over to me
+a cuckoo song that I care not a copper-filing for."
+
+"Aha!" said Dame Ursley; "that is to say, you care not if you please
+all, unless you please one--You are a true lover, I warrant, and care
+not for all the city, from here to Whitechapel, so you could write
+yourself first in your pretty Peg-a-Ramsay's good-will. Well, well, take
+patience, man, and be guided by me, for I will be the hoop will bind you
+together at last."
+
+"It is time you were so," said Jenkin, "for hitherto you have rather
+been the wedge to separate us."
+
+Dame Suddlechop had by this time finished her cordial--it was not the
+first she had taken that day; and, though a woman of strong brain,
+and cautious at least, if not abstemious, in her potations, it may
+nevertheless be supposed that her patience was not improved by the
+regimen which she observed.
+
+"Why, thou ungracious and ingrate knave," said Dame Ursley, "have not
+I done every thing to put thee in thy mistress's good graces? She loves
+gentry, the proud Scottish minx, as a Welshman loves cheese, and has
+her father's descent from that Duke of Daldevil, or whatsoever she calls
+him, as close in her heart as gold in a miser's chest, though she
+as seldom shows it--and none she will think of, or have, but a
+gentleman--and a gentleman I have made of thee, Jin Vin, the devil
+cannot deny that."
+
+"You have made a fool of me," said poor Jenkin, looking at the sleeve of
+his jacket.
+
+"Never the worse gentleman for that," said Dame Ursley, laughing.
+
+"And what is worse," said he, turning his back to her suddenly, and
+writhing in his chair, "you have made a rogue of me."
+
+"Never the worse gentleman for that neither," said Dame Ursley, in the
+same tone; "let a man bear his folly gaily and his knavery stoutly, and
+let me see if gravity or honesty will look him in the face now-a-days.
+Tut, man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King Lud, that a
+gentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon by a leap over the line
+of reason or honesty--It is the bold look, the ready hand, the fine
+clothes, the brisk oath, and the wild brain, that makes the gallant
+now-a-days."
+
+"I know what you have made me," said Jin Vin; "since I have given up
+skittles and trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin
+Bordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and
+kickshaws--my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for
+a modish oath, my Christmas-box for a dice-box, my religion for the
+devil's matins, and mine honest name for--Woman, I could brain thee,
+when I think whose advice has guided me in all this!"
+
+"Whose advice, then? whose advice, then? Speak out, thou poor, petty
+cloak-brusher, and say who advised thee!" retorted Dame Ursley, flushed
+and indignant--"Marry come up, my paltry companion--say by whose advice
+you have made a gamester of yourself, and a thief besides, as your
+words would bear--The Lord deliver us from evil!" And here Dame Ursley
+devoutly crossed herself.
+
+"Hark ye, Dame Ursley Suddlechop," said Jenkin, starting up, his dark
+eyes flashing with anger; "remember I am none of your husband--and, if
+I were, you would do well not to forget whose threshold was swept
+when they last rode the Skimmington [Footnote: A species of triumphal
+procession in honour of female supremacy, when it rose to such a height
+as to attract the attention of the neighbourhood. It is described at
+full length in Hudibras. (Part II. Canto II.) As the procession passed
+on, those who attended it in an official capacity were wont to sweep
+the threshold of the houses in which Fame affirmed the mistresses to
+exercise paramount authority, which was given and received as a hint
+that their inmates might, in their turn, be made the subject of a
+similar ovation. The Skimmington, which in some degree resembled
+the proceedings of Mumbo Jumbo in an African village, has been long
+discontinued in England, apparently because female rule has become
+either milder or less frequent than among our ancestors.] upon such
+another scolding jade as yourself."
+
+"I hope to see you ride up Holborn next," said Dame Ursley, provoked out
+of all her holiday and sugar-plum expressions, "with a nosegay at your
+breast, and a parson at your elbow!"
+
+"That may well be," answered Jin Vin, bitterly, "if I walk by your
+counsels as I have begun by them; but, before that day comes, you
+shall know that Jin Vin has the brisk boys of Fleet Street still at
+his wink.--Yes, you jade, you shall be carted for bawd and conjurer,
+double-dyed in grain, and bing off to Bridewell, with every brass basin
+betwixt the Bar and Paul's beating before you, as if the devil were
+banging them with his beef-hook."
+
+Dame Ursley coloured like scarlet, seized upon the half-emptied flask of
+cordial, and seemed, by her first gesture, about to hurl it at the head
+of her adversary; but suddenly, and as if by a strong internal effort,
+she checked her outrageous resentment, and, putting the bottle to its
+more legitimate use, filled, with wonderful composure, the two glasses,
+and, taking up one of them, said, with a smile, which better became her
+comely and jovial countenance than the fury by which it was animated the
+moment before--
+
+"Here is to thee, Jin Vin, my lad, in all loving kindness, whatever
+spite thou bearest to me, that have always been a mother to thee."
+
+Jenkin's English good-nature could not resist this forcible appeal; he
+took up the other glass, and lovingly pledged the dame in her cup of
+reconciliation, and proceeded to make a kind of grumbling apology for
+his own violence--
+
+"For you know," he said, "it was you persuaded me to get these fine
+things, and go to that godless ordinary, and ruffle it with the best,
+and bring you home all the news; and you said, I, that was the cock
+of the ward, would soon be the cock of the ordinary, and would win
+ten times as much at gleek and primero, as I used to do at put and
+beggar-my-neighbour--and turn up doublets with the dice, as busily as I
+was wont to trowl down the ninepins in the skittle-ground--and then you
+said I should bring you such news out of the ordinary as should make
+us all, when used as you knew how to use it--and now you see what is to
+come of it all!"
+
+"'Tis all true thou sayest, lad," said the dame; "but thou must have
+patience. Rome was not built in a day--you cannot become used to your
+court-suit in a month's time, any more than when you changed your long
+coat for a doublet and hose; and in gaming you must expect to lose as
+well as gain--'tis the sitting gamester sweeps the board."
+
+"The board has swept me, I know," replied Jin Vin, "and that pretty
+clean out.--I would that were the worst; but I owe for all this finery,
+and settling-day is coming on, and my master will find my accompt worse
+than it should be by a score of pieces. My old father will be called in
+to make them good; and I--may save the hangman a labour and do the job
+myself, or go the Virginia voyage."
+
+"Do not speak so loud, my dear boy," said Dame Ursley; "but tell me why
+you borrow not from a friend to make up your arrear. You could lend him
+as much when his settling-day came round."
+
+"No, no--I have had enough of that work," said Vincent. "Tunstall would
+lend me the money, poor fellow, an he had it; but his gentle, beggarly
+kindred, plunder him of all, and keep him as bare as a birch at
+Christmas. No--my fortune may be spelt in four letters, and these read,
+RUIN."
+
+"Now hush, you simple craven," said the dame; "did you never hear, that
+when the need is highest the help is nighest? We may find aid for you
+yet, and sooner than you are aware of. I am sure I would never have
+advised you to such a course, but only you had set heart and eye on
+pretty Mistress Marget, and less would not serve you--and what could
+I do but advise you to cast your city-slough, and try your luck where
+folks find fortune?"
+
+"Ay, ay--I remember your counsel well," said Jenkin; "I was to be
+introduced to her by you when I was perfect in my gallantries, and as
+rich as the king; and then she was to be surprised to find I was poor
+Jin Vin, that used to watch, from matin to curfew, for one glance of
+her eye; and now, instead of that, she has set her soul on this Scottish
+sparrow-hawk of a lord that won my last tester, and be cursed to him;
+and so I am bankrupt in love, fortune, and character, before I am out of
+my time, and all along of you, Mother Midnight."
+
+"Do not call me out of my own name, my dear boy, Jin Vin," answered
+Ursula, in a tone betwixt rage and coaxing,--"do not; because I am no
+saint, but a poor sinful woman, with no more patience than she needs,
+to carry her through a thousand crosses. And if I have done you wrong by
+evil counsel, I must mend it and put you right by good advice. And for
+the score of pieces that must be made up at settling-day, why, here is,
+in a good green purse, as much as will make that matter good; and
+we will get old Crosspatch, the tailor, to take a long day for your
+clothes; and--"
+
+"Mother, are you serious?" said Jin Vin, unable to trust either his eyes
+or his ears.
+
+"In troth am I," said the dame; "and will you call me Mother Midnight
+now, Jin Vin?"
+
+"Mother Midnight!" exclaimed Jenkin, hugging the dame in his transport,
+and bestowing on her still comely cheek a hearty and not unacceptable
+smack, that sounded like the report of a pistol,--"Mother Midday,
+rather, that has risen to light me out of my troubles--a mother more
+dear than she who bore me; for she, poor soul, only brought me into a
+world of sin and sorrow, and your timely aid has helped me out of the
+one and the other." And the good-natured fellow threw himself back in
+his chair, and fairly drew his hand across his eyes.
+
+"You would not have me be made to ride the Skimmington then," said the
+dame; "or parade me in a cart, with all the brass basins of the ward
+beating the march to Bridewell before me?"
+
+"I would sooner be carted to Tyburn myself," replied the penitent.
+
+"Why, then, sit up like a man, and wipe thine eyes; and, if thou art
+pleased with what I have done, I will show thee how thou mayst requite
+me in the highest degree."
+
+"How?" said Jenkin Vincent, sitting straight up in his chair.--"You
+would have me, then, do you some service for this friendship of yours?"
+
+"Ay, marry would I," said Dame Ursley; "for you are to know, that though
+I am right glad to stead you with it, this gold is not mine, but was
+placed in my hands in order to find a trusty agent, for a certain
+purpose; and so--But what's the matter with you?--are you fool enough to
+be angry because you cannot get a purse of gold for nothing? I would
+I knew where such were to come by. I never could find them lying in my
+road, I promise you."
+
+"No, no, dame," said poor Jenkin, "it is not for that; for, look you,
+I would rather work these ten bones to the knuckles, and live by my
+labour; but--" (and here he paused.)
+
+"But what, man?" said Dame Ursley. "You are willing to work for what you
+want; and yet, when I offer you gold for the winning, you look on me as
+the devil looks over Lincoln."
+
+"It is ill talking of the devil, mother," said Jenkin. "I had him even
+now in my head--for, look you, I am at that pass, when they say he
+will appear to wretched ruined creatures, and proffer them gold for the
+fee-simple of their salvation. But I have been trying these two days to
+bring my mind strongly up to the thought, that I will rather sit down
+in shame, and sin, and sorrow, as I am like to do, than hold on in ill
+courses to get rid of my present straits; and so take care, Dame Ursula,
+how you tempt me to break such a good resolution."
+
+"I tempt you to nothing, young man," answered Ursula; "and, as I
+perceive you are too wilful to be wise, I will e'en put my purse in my
+pocket, and look out for some one that will work my turn with better
+will, and more thankfulness. And you may go your own course,--break
+your indenture, ruin your father, lose your character, and bid pretty
+Mistress Margaret farewell, for ever and a day."
+
+"Stay, stay," said Jenkin "the woman is in as great a hurry as a brown
+baker when his oven is overheated. First, let me hear that which you
+have to propose to me."
+
+"Why, after all, it is but to get a gentleman of rank and fortune, who
+is in trouble, carried in secret down the river, as far as the Isle of
+Dogs, or somewhere thereabout, where he may lie concealed until he can
+escape aboard. I know thou knowest every place by the river's side as
+well as the devil knows an usurer, or the beggar knows his dish."
+
+"A plague of your similes, dame," replied the apprentice; "for the devil
+gave me that knowledge, and beggary may be the end on't.--But what has
+this gentleman done, that he should need to be under hiding? No Papist,
+I hope--no Catesby and Piercy business--no Gunpowder Plot?"
+
+"Fy, fy!--what do you take me for?" said Dame Ursula. "I am as good a
+churchwoman as the parson's wife, save that necessary business will not
+allow me to go there oftener than on Christmas-day, heaven help me!--No,
+no--this is no Popish matter. The gentleman hath but struck another in
+the Park--"
+
+"Ha! what?" said Vincent, interrupting her with a start.
+
+"Ay, ay, I see you guess whom I mean. It is even he we have spoken of so
+often--just Lord Glenvarloch, and no one else."
+
+Vincent sprung from his seat, and traversed the room with rapid and
+disorderly steps.
+
+"There, there it is now--you are always ice or gunpowder. You sit in the
+great leathern armchair, as quiet as a rocket hangs upon the frame in a
+rejoicing-night till the match be fired, and then, whizz! you are in the
+third heaven, beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or brain.--When
+you have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across the room, will
+you tell me your determination, for time presses? Will you aid me in
+this matter, or not?"
+
+"No--no--no--a thousand times no," replied Jenkin. "Have you not
+confessed to me, that Margaret loves him?"
+
+"Ay," answered the dame, "that she thinks she does; but that will not
+last long."
+
+"And have I not told you but this instant," replied Jenkin, "that it was
+this same Glenvarloch that rooked me, at the ordinary, of every penny I
+had, and made a knave of me to boot, by gaining more than was my own?--O
+that cursed gold, which Shortyard, the mercer, paid me that morning on
+accompt, for mending the clock of Saint Stephen's! If I had not, by ill
+chance, had that about me, I could but have beggared my purse, without
+blemishing my honesty; and, after I had been rooked of all the rest
+amongst them, I must needs risk the last five pieces with that shark
+among the minnows!"
+
+"Granted," said Dame Ursula. "All this I know; and I own, that as Lord
+Glenvarloch was the last you played with, you have a right to charge
+your ruin on his head. Moreover, I admit, as already said, that Margaret
+has made him your rival. Yet surely, now he is in danger to lose his
+hand, it is not a time to remember all this?"
+
+"By my faith, but it is, though," said the young citizen. "Lose his
+hand, indeed? They may take his head, for what I care. Head and hand
+have made me a miserable wretch!"
+
+"Now, were it not better, my prince of flat-caps," said Dame Ursula,
+"that matters were squared between you; and that, through means of the
+same Scottish lord, who has, as you say, deprived you of your money and
+your mistress, you should in a short time recover both?"
+
+"And how can your wisdom come to that conclusion, dame?" said the
+apprentice. "My money, indeed, I can conceive--that is, if I comply with
+your proposal; but--my pretty Marget!--how serving this lord, whom
+she has set her nonsensical head upon, can do me good with her, is far
+beyond my conception."
+
+"That is because, in simple phrase," said Dame Ursula, "thou knowest no
+more of a woman's heart than doth a Norfolk gosling. Look you, man.
+Were I to report to Mistress Margaret that the young lord has miscarried
+through thy lack of courtesy in refusing to help him, why, then, thou
+wert odious to her for ever. She will loathe thee as she will loathe the
+very cook who is to strike off Glenvarloch's hand with his cleaver--and
+then she will be yet more fixed in her affections towards this lord.
+London will hear of nothing but him--speak of nothing but him--think
+of nothing but him, for three weeks at least, and all that outcry will
+serve to keep him uppermost in her mind; for nothing pleases a girl so
+much as to bear relation to any one who is the talk of the whole world
+around her. Then, if he suffer this sentence of the law, it is a chance
+if she ever forgets him. I saw that handsome, proper young gentleman
+Babington, suffer in the Queen's time myself, and though I was then but
+a girl, he was in my head for a year after he was hanged. But, above
+all, pardoned or punished, Glenvarloch will probably remain in London,
+and his presence will keep up the silly girl's nonsensical fancy about
+him. Whereas, if he escapes--"
+
+"Ay, show me how that is to avail me?" said Jenkin. "If he escapes,"
+said the dame, resuming her argument, "he must resign the Court for
+years, if not for life; and you know the old saying, 'out of sight, and
+out of mind.'"
+
+"True--most true," said Jenkin; "spoken like an oracle, most wise
+Ursula."
+
+"Ay, ay, I knew you would hear reason at last," said the wily dame; "and
+then, when this same lord is off and away for once and for ever, who, I
+pray you, is to be pretty pet's confidential person, and who is to fill
+up the void in her affections?--why, who but thou, thou pearl of
+'prentices! And then you will have overcome your own inclinations to
+comply with hers, and every woman is sensible of that--and you will have
+run some risk, too, in carrying her desires into effect--and what is it
+that woman likes better than bravery, and devotion to her will? Then you
+have her secret, and she must treat you with favour and observance, and
+repose confidence in you, and hold private intercourse with you, till
+she weeps with one eye for the absent lover whom she is never to see
+again, and blinks with the other blithely upon him who is in presence;
+and then if you know not how to improve the relation in which you stand
+with her, you are not the brisk lively lad that all the world takes you
+for--Said I well?"
+
+"You have spoken like an empress, most mighty Ursula," said Jenkin
+Vincent; "and your will shall be obeyed."
+
+"You know Alsatia well?" continued his tutoress.
+
+"Well enough, well enough," replied he with a nod; "I have heard the
+dice rattle there in my day, before I must set up for gentleman, and go
+among the gallants at the Shavaleer Bojo's, as they call him,--the worse
+rookery of the two, though the feathers are the gayest."
+
+"And they will have a respect for thee yonder, I warrant?"
+
+"Ay, ay," replied Vin, "when I am got into my fustian doublet again,
+with my bit of a trunnion under my arm, I can walk Alsatia at midnight
+as I could do that there Fleet Street in midday--they will not one of
+them swagger with the prince of 'prentices, and the king of clubs--they
+know I could bring every tall boy in the ward down upon them."
+
+"And you know all the watermen, and so forth?"
+
+"Can converse with every sculler in his own language, from Richmond to
+Gravesend, and know all the water-cocks, from John Taylor the Poet to
+little Grigg the Grinner, who never pulls but he shows all his teeth
+from ear to ear, as if he were grimacing through a horse-collar."
+
+"And you can take any dress or character upon you well, such as a
+waterman's, a butcher's, a foot-soldier's," continued Ursula, "or the
+like?"
+
+"Not such a mummer as I am within the walls, and thou knowest that
+well enough, dame," replied the apprentice. "I can touch the players
+themselves, at the Ball and at the Fortune, for presenting any thing
+except a gentleman. Take but this d--d skin of frippery off me, which
+I think the devil stuck me into, and you shall put me into nothing else
+that I will not become as if I were born to it."
+
+"Well, we will talk of your transmutation by and by," said the dame,
+"and find you clothes withal, and money besides; for it will take a good
+deal to carry the thing handsomely through."
+
+"But where is that money to come from, dame?" said Jenkin; "there is a
+question I would fain have answered before I touch it."
+
+"Why, what a fool art thou to ask such a question! Suppose I am content
+to advance it to please young madam, what is the harm then?"
+
+"I will suppose no such thing," said Jenkin, hastily; "I know that you,
+dame, have no gold to spare, and maybe would not spare it if you had--so
+that cock will not crow. It must be from Margaret herself."
+
+"Well, thou suspicious animal, and what if it were?" said Ursula.
+
+"Only this," replied Jenkin, "that I will presently to her, and learn if
+she has come fairly by so much ready money; for sooner than connive at
+her getting it by any indirection, I would hang myself at once. It is
+enough what I have done myself, no need to engage poor Margaret in such
+villainy--I'll to her, and tell her of the danger--I will, by heaven!"
+
+"You are mad to think of it," said Dame Suddlechop, considerably
+alarmed--"hear me but a moment. I know not precisely from whom she got
+the money; but sure I am that she obtained it at her godfather's."
+
+"Why, Master George Heriot is not returned from France," said Jenkin.
+
+"No," replied Ursula, "but Dame Judith is at home--and the strange lady,
+whom they call Master Heriot's ghost--she never goes abroad."
+
+"It is very true, Dame Suddlechop," said Jenkin; "and I believe you have
+guessed right--they say that lady has coin at will; and if Marget can
+get a handful of fairy-gold, why, she is free to throw it away at will."
+
+"Ah, Jin Vin," said the dame, reducing her voice almost to a whisper,
+"we should not want gold at will neither, could we but read the riddle
+of that lady!"
+
+"They may read it that list," said Jenkin, "I'll never pry into what
+concerns me not--Master George Heriot is a worthy and brave citizen, and
+an honour to London, and has a right to manage his own household as he
+likes best.--There was once a talk of rabbling him the fifth of November
+before the last, because they said he kept a nunnery in his house, like
+old Lady Foljambe; but Master George is well loved among the 'prentices,
+and we got so many brisk boys of us together as should have rabbled the
+rabble, had they had but the heart to rise."
+
+"Well, let that pass," said Ursula; "and now, tell me how you will
+manage to be absent from shop a day or two, for you must think that this
+matter will not be ended sooner."
+
+"Why, as to that, I can say nothing," said Jenkin, "I have always served
+duly and truly; I have no heart to play truant, and cheat my master of
+his time as well as his money."
+
+"Nay, but the point is to get back his money for him," said Ursula,
+"which he is not likely to see on other conditions. Could you not ask
+leave to go down to your uncle in Essex for two or three days? He may be
+ill, you know."
+
+"Why, if I must, I must," said Jenkin, with a heavy sigh; "but I will
+not be lightly caught treading these dark and crooked paths again."
+
+"Hush thee, then," said the dame, "and get leave for this very evening;
+and come back hither, and I will introduce you to another implement,
+who must be employed in the matter.--Stay, stay!--the lad is mazed--you
+would not go into your master's shop in that guise, surely? Your trunk
+is in the matted chamber, with your 'prentice things--go and put them on
+as fast as you can."
+
+"I think I am bewitched," said Jenkin, giving a glance towards his
+dress, "or that these fool's trappings have made as great an ass of
+me as of many I have seen wear them; but let line once be rid of the
+harness, and if you catch me putting it on again, I will give you leave
+to sell me to a gipsy, to carry pots, pans, and beggar's bantlings, all
+the rest of my life." So saying, he retired to change his apparel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+  Chance will not do the work--Chance sends the breeze;
+  But if the pilot slumber at the helm,
+  The very wind that wafts us towards the port
+  May dash us on the shelves.--The steersman's part is vigilance,
+  Blow it or rough or smooth.
+                               _Old Play_.
+
+We left Nigel, whose fortunes we are bound to trace by the engagement
+contracted in our title-page, sad and solitary in the mansion of
+Trapbois the usurer, having just received a letter instead of a visit
+from his friend the Templar, stating reasons why he could not at
+that time come to see him in Alsatia. So that it appeared that his
+intercourse with the better and more respectable class of society, was,
+for the present, entirely cut off. This was a melancholy, and, to a
+proud mind like that of Nigel, a degrading reflection.
+
+He went to the window of his apartment, and found the street enveloped
+in one of those thick, dingy, yellow-coloured fogs, which often invest
+the lower part of London and Westminster. Amid the darkness, dense and
+palpable, were seen to wander like phantoms a reveller or two, whom the
+morning had surprised where the evening left them; and who now, with
+tottering steps, and by an instinct which intoxication could not wholly
+overcome, were groping the way to their own homes, to convert day into
+night, for the purpose of sleeping off the debauch which had turned
+night into day. Although it was broad day in the other parts of the
+city, it was scarce dawn yet in Alsatia; and none of the sounds of
+industry or occupation were there heard, which had long before aroused
+the slumberers in any other quarter. The prospect was too tiresome and
+disagreeable to detain Lord Glenvarloch at his station, so, turning from
+the window, he examined with more interest the furniture and appearance
+of the apartment which he tenanted.
+
+Much of it had been in its time rich and curious--there was a huge
+four-post bed, with as much carved oak about it as would have made the
+head of a man-of-war, and tapestry hangings ample enough to have
+been her sails. There was a huge mirror with a massy frame of gilt
+brass-work, which was of Venetian manufacture, and must have been worth
+a considerable sum before it received the tremendous crack, which,
+traversing it from one corner to the other, bore the same proportion to
+the surface that the Nile bears to the map of Egypt. The chairs were
+of different forms and shapes, some had been carved, some gilded, some
+covered with damasked leather, some with embroidered work, but all were
+damaged and worm-eaten. There was a picture of Susanna and the Elders
+over the chimney-piece, which might have been accounted a choice piece,
+had not the rats made free with the chaste fair one's nose, and with the
+beard of one of her reverend admirers.
+
+In a word, all that Lord Glenvarloch saw, seemed to have been articles
+carried off by appraisement or distress, or bought as pennyworths at
+some obscure broker's, and huddled together in the apartment, as in a
+sale-room, without regard to taste or congruity.
+
+The place appeared to Nigel to resemble the houses near the sea-coast,
+which are too often furnished with the spoils of wrecked vessels, as
+this was probably fitted up with the relics of ruined profligates.--"My
+own skiff is among the breakers," thought Lord Glenvarloch, "though my
+wreck will add little to the profits of the spoiler."
+
+He was chiefly interested in the state of the grate, a huge assemblage
+of rusted iron bars which stood in the chimney, unequally supported
+by three brazen feet, moulded into the form of lion's claws, while the
+fourth, which had been bent by an accident, seemed proudly uplifted
+as if to paw the ground; or as if the whole article had nourished the
+ambitious purpose of pacing forth into the middle of the apartment, and
+had one foot ready raised for the journey. A smile passed over Nigel's
+face as this fantastic idea presented itself to his fancy.--"I must
+stop its march, however," he thought; "for this morning is chill and raw
+enough to demand some fire."
+
+He called accordingly from the top of a large staircase, with a heavy
+oaken balustrade, which gave access to his own and other apartments, for
+the house was old and of considerable size; but, receiving no answer to
+his repeated summons, he was compelled to go in search of some one who
+might accommodate him with what he wanted.
+
+Nigel had, according to the fashion of the old world in Scotland,
+received an education which might, in most particulars, be termed
+simple, hardy, and unostentatious; but he had, nevertheless, been
+accustomed to much personal deference, and to the constant attendance
+and ministry of one or more domestics. This was the universal custom in
+Scotland, where wages were next to nothing, and where, indeed, a man of
+title or influence might have as many attendants as he pleased, for
+the mere expense of food, clothes, and countenance. Nigel was therefore
+mortified and displeased when he found himself without notice or
+attendance; and the more dissatisfied, because he was at the same time
+angry with himself for suffering such a trifle to trouble him at all,
+amongst matters of more deep concernment. "There must surely be some
+servants in so large a house as this," said he, as he wandered over the
+place, through which he was conducted by a passage which branched
+off from the gallery. As he went on, he tried the entrance to several
+apartments, some of which he found were locked and others unfurnished,
+all apparently unoccupied; so that at length he returned to the
+staircase, and resolved to make his way down to the lower part of the
+house, where he supposed he must at least find the old gentleman, and
+his ill-favoured daughter. With this purpose he first made his entrance
+into a little low, dark parlour, containing a well-worn leathern
+easy-chair, before which stood a pair of slippers, while on the left
+side rested a crutch-handled staff; an oaken table stood before it, and
+supported a huge desk clamped with iron, and a massive pewter inkstand.
+Around the apartment were shelves, cabinets, and other places convenient
+for depositing papers. A sword, musketoon, and a pair of pistols, hung
+over the chimney, in ostentatious display, as if to intimate that the
+proprietor would be prompt in the defence of his premises.
+
+"This must be the usurer's den," thought Nigel; and he was about to
+call aloud, when the old man, awakened even by the slightest noise,
+for avarice seldom sleeps sound, soon was heard from the inner room,
+speaking in a voice of irritability, rendered more tremulous by his
+morning cough.
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh--who is there? I say--ugh, ugh--who is there? Why,
+Martha!--ugh! ugh--Martha Trapbois--here be thieves in the house, and
+they will not speak to me--why, Martha!--thieves, thieves--ugh, ugh,
+ugh!"
+
+Nigel endeavoured to explain, but the idea of thieves had taken
+possession of the old man's pineal gland, and he kept coughing and
+screaming, and screaming and coughing, until the gracious Martha entered
+the apartment; and, having first outscreamed her father, in order
+to convince him that there was no danger, and to assure him that the
+intruder was their new lodger, and having as often heard her sire
+ejaculate--"Hold him fast--ugh, ugh--hold him fast till I come," she at
+length succeeded in silencing his fears and his clamour, and then
+coldly and dryly asked Lord Glenvarloch what he wanted in her father's
+apartment.
+
+Her lodger had, in the meantime, leisure to contemplate her appearance,
+which did not by any means improve the idea he had formed of it by
+candlelight on the preceding evening. She was dressed in what was called
+a Queen Mary's ruff and farthingale; not the falling ruff with which the
+unfortunate Mary of Scotland is usually painted, but that which, with
+more than Spanish stiffness, surrounded the throat, and set off
+the morose head, of her fierce namesake, of Smithfield memory. This
+antiquated dress assorted well with the faded complexion, grey eyes,
+thin lips, and austere visage of the antiquated maiden, which was,
+moreover, enhanced by a black hood, worn as her head-gear, carefully
+disposed so as to prevent any of her hair from escaping to view,
+probably because the simplicity of the period knew no art of disguising
+the colour with which time had begun to grizzle her tresses. Her figure
+was tall, thin, and flat, with skinny arms and hands, and feet of the
+larger size, cased in huge high-heeled shoes, which added height to
+a stature already ungainly. Apparently some art had been used by
+the tailor, to conceal a slight defect of shape, occasioned by
+the accidental elevation of one shoulder above the other; but the
+praiseworthy efforts of the ingenious mechanic, had only succeeded in
+calling the attention of the observer to his benevolent purpose, without
+demonstrating that he had been able to achieve it.
+
+Such was Mrs. Martha Trapbois, whose dry "What were you seeking here,
+sir?" fell again, and with reiterated sharpness, on the ear of Nigel,
+as he gazed upon her presence, and compared it internally to one of the
+faded and grim figures in the old tapestry which adorned his bedstead.
+It was, however, necessary to reply, and he answered, that he came in
+search of the servants, as he desired to have a fire kindled in his
+apartment on account of the rawness of the morning.
+
+"The woman who does our char-work," answered Mistress Martha, "comes at
+eight o'clock-if you want fire sooner, there are fagots and a bucket of
+sea-coal in the stone-closet at the head of the stair--and there is a
+flint and steel on the upper shelf--you can light fire for yourself if
+you will."
+
+"No--no--no, Martha," ejaculated her father, who, having donned his
+rustic tunic, with his hose all ungirt, and his feet slip-shod, hastily
+came out of the inner apartment, with his mind probably full of robbers,
+for he had a naked rapier in his hand, which still looked formidable,
+though rust had somewhat marred its shine.--What he had heard at
+entrance about lighting a fire, had changed, however, the current of his
+ideas. "No--no--no," he cried, and each negative was more emphatic than
+its predecessor-"The gentleman shall not have the trouble to put on a
+fire--ugh--ugh. I'll put it on myself, for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on."
+
+This last word was a favourite expression with the old gentleman, which
+he pronounced in a peculiar manner, gasping it out syllable by syllable,
+and laying a strong emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed, a sort
+of protecting clause, by which he guarded himself against all
+inconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering service or
+civility of any kind, the which, when hastily snapped at by those to
+whom they are uttered, give the profferer sometimes room to repent his
+promptitude.
+
+"For shame, father," said Martha, "that must not be. Master Grahame will
+kindle his own fire, or wait till the char-woman comes to do it for him,
+just as likes him best."
+
+"No, child--no, child. Child Martha, no," reiterated the old miser--"no
+char-woman shall ever touch a grate in my house; they put--ugh, ugh--the
+faggot uppermost, and so the coal kindles not, and the flame goes up
+the chimney, and wood and heat are both thrown away. Now, I will lay
+it properly for the gentleman, for a consideration, so that it shall
+last--ugh, ugh--last the whole day." Here his vehemence increased his
+cough so violently, that Nigel could only, from a scattered word here
+and there, comprehend that it was a recommendation to his daughter
+to remove the poker and tongs from the stranger's fireside, with an
+assurance, that, when necessary, his landlord would be in attendance to
+adjust it himself, "for a consideration."
+
+Martha paid as little attention to the old man's injunctions as a
+predominant dame gives to those of a henpecked husband. She only
+repeated, in a deeper and more emphatic tone of censure,--"For shame,
+father--for shame!" then, turning to her guest, said, with her usual
+ungraciousness of manner--"Master Grahame--it is best to be plain with
+you at first. My father is an old, a very old man, and his wits, as you
+may see, are somewhat weakened--though I would not advise you to make
+a bargain with him, else you may find them too sharp for your own. For
+myself, I am a lone woman, and, to say truth, care little to see or
+converse with any one. If you can be satisfied with house-room, shelter,
+and safety, it will be your own fault if you have them not, and they
+are not always to be found in this unhappy quarter. But, if you seek
+deferential observance and attendance, I tell you at once you will not
+find them here."
+
+"I am not wont either to thrust myself upon acquaintance, madam, or
+to give trouble," said the guest; "nevertheless, I shall need the
+assistance of a domestic to assist me to dress--Perhaps you can
+recommend me to such?"
+
+"Yes, to twenty," answered Mistress Martha, "who will pick your purse
+while they tie your points, and cut your throat while they smooth your
+pillow."
+
+"I will be his servant, myself," said the old man, whose intellect,
+for a moment distanced, had again, in some measure, got up with
+the conversation. "I will brush his cloak--ugh, ugh--and tie his
+points--ugh, ugh--and clean his shoes--ugh--and run on his errands with
+speed and safety--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh--for a consideration."
+
+"Good-morrow to you, sir," said Martha, to Nigel, in a tone of direct
+and positive dismissal. "It cannot be agreeable to a daughter that
+a stranger should hear her father speak thus. If you be really a
+gentleman, you will retire to your own apartment."
+
+"I will not delay a moment," said Nigel, respectfully, for he was
+sensible that circumstances palliated the woman's rudeness. "I would but
+ask you, if seriously there can be danger in procuring the assistance of
+a serving-man in this place?"
+
+"Young gentleman," said Martha, "you must know little of Whitefriars to
+ask the question. We live alone in this house, and seldom has a stranger
+entered it; nor should you, to be plain, had my will been consulted.
+Look at the door--see if that of a castle can be better secured; the
+windows of the first floor are grated on the outside, and within, look
+to these shutters."
+
+She pulled one of them aside, and showed a ponderous apparatus of bolts
+and chains for securing the window-shutters, while her father, pressing
+to her side, seized her gown with a trembling hand, and said, in a low
+whisper, "Show not the trick of locking and undoing them. Show him not
+the trick on't, Martha--ugh, ugh--on _no_ consideration." Martha went
+on, without paying him any attention.
+
+"And yet, young gentleman, we have been more than once like to find all
+these defences too weak to protect our lives; such an evil effect on the
+wicked generation around us hath been made by the unhappy report of my
+poor father's wealth."
+
+"Say nothing of that, housewife," said the miser, his irritability
+increased by the very supposition of his being wealthy--"Say nothing
+of that, or I will beat thee, housewife--beat thee with my staff, for
+fetching and carrying lies that will procure our throats to be cut
+at last--ugh, ugh.--I am but a poor man," he continued, turning to
+Nigel--"a very poor man, that am willing to do any honest turn upon
+earth, for a modest consideration."
+
+"I therefore warn you of the life you must lead, young gentleman," said
+Martha; "the poor woman who does the char-work will assist you so far as
+in her power, but the wise man is his own best servant and assistant."
+
+"It is a lesson you have taught me, madam, and I thank you for it--I
+will assuredly study it at leisure."
+
+"You will do well," said Martha; "and as you seem thankful for advice,
+I, though I am no professed counsellor of others, will give you more.
+Make no intimacy with any one in Whitefriars--borrow no money, on any
+score, especially from my father, for, dotard as he seems, he will make
+an ass of you. Last, and best of all, stay here not an instant longer
+than you can help it. Farewell, sir."
+
+"A gnarled tree may bear good fruit, and a harsh nature may give good
+counsel," thought the Lord of Glenvarloch, as he retreated to his own
+apartment, where the same reflection occurred to him again and again,
+while, unable as yet to reconcile himself to the thoughts of becoming
+his own fire-maker, he walked up and down his bedroom, to warm himself
+by exercise.
+
+At length his meditations arranged themselves in the following
+soliloquy--by which expression I beg leave to observe once for all, that
+I do not mean that Nigel literally said aloud with his bodily organs,
+the words which follow in inverted commas, (while pacing the room by
+himself,) but that I myself choose to present to my dearest reader the
+picture of my hero's mind, his reflections and resolutions, in the form
+of a speech, rather than in that of a narrative. In other words, I have
+put his thoughts into language; and this I conceive to be the purpose of
+the soliloquy upon the stage as well as in the closet, being at once the
+most natural, and perhaps the only way of communicating to the spectator
+what is supposed to be passing in the bosom of the scenic personage.
+There are no such soliloquies in nature, it is true, but unless they
+were received as a conventional medium of communication betwixt the poet
+and the audience, we should reduce dramatic authors to the recipe of
+Master Puff, who makes Lord Burleigh intimate a long train of political
+reasoning to the audience, by one comprehensive shake of his noddle. In
+narrative, no doubt, the writer has the alternative of telling that his
+personages thought so and so, inferred thus and thus, and arrived at
+such and such a conclusion; but the soliloquy is a more concise and
+spirited mode of communicating the same information; and therefore thus
+communed, or thus might have communed, the Lord of Glenvarloch with his
+own mind.
+
+"She is right, and has taught me a lesson I will profit by. I have been,
+through my whole life, one who leant upon others for that assistance,
+which it is more truly noble to derive from my own exertions. I am
+ashamed of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long habit had led me
+to annex to the want of a servant's assistance--I am ashamed of that;
+but far, far more am I ashamed to have suffered the same habit of
+throwing my own burden on others, to render me, since I came to this
+city, a mere victim of those events, which I have never even
+attempted to influence--a thing never acting, but perpetually acted
+upon--protected by one friend, deceived by another; but in the advantage
+which I received from the one, and the evil I have sustained from the
+other, as passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without oar or
+rudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a courtier, because
+Heriot so advised it--a gamester, because Dalgarno so contrived it--an
+Alsatian, because Lowestoffe so willed it. Whatever of good or bad has
+befallen me, has arisen out of the agency of others, not from my own. My
+father's son must no longer hold this facile and puerile course. Live
+or die, sink or swim, Nigel Olifaunt, from this moment, shall owe his
+safety, success, and honour, to his own exertions, or shall fall with
+the credit of having at least exerted his own free agency. I will write
+it down in my tablets, in her very words,--'The wise man is his own best
+assistant.'"
+
+He had just put his tablets in his pocket when the old charwoman, who,
+to add to her efficiency, was sadly crippled by rheumatism, hobbled into
+the room, to try if she could gain a small gratification by waiting on
+the stranger. She readily undertook to get Lord Glenvarloch's breakfast,
+and as there was an eating-house at the next door, she succeeded in a
+shorter time than Nigel had augured.
+
+As his solitary meal was finished, one of the Temple porters, or
+inferior officers, was announced, as seeking Master Grahame, on the part
+of his friend, Master Lowestoffe; and, being admitted by the old woman
+to his apartment, he delivered to Nigel a small mail-trunk, with the
+clothes he had desired should be sent to him, and then, with more
+mystery, put into his hand a casket, or strong-boy, which he carefully
+concealed beneath his cloak. "I am glad to be rid on't," said the
+fellow, as he placed it on the table.
+
+"Why, it is surely not so very heavy," answered Nigel, "and you are a
+stout young man."
+
+"Ay, sir," replied the fellow; "but Samson himself would not have
+carried such a matter safely through Alsatia, had the lads of the Huff
+known what it was. Please to look into it, sir, and see all is right--I
+am an honest fellow, and it comes safe out of my hands. How long it may
+remain so afterwards, will depend on your own care. I would not my good
+name were to suffer by any after-clap."
+
+To satisfy the scruples of the messenger, Lord Glenvarloch opened the
+casket in his presence, and saw that his small stock of money, with
+two or three valuable papers which it contained, and particularly the
+original sign-manual which the king had granted in his favour, were in
+the same order in which he had left them. At the man's further instance,
+he availed himself of the writing materials which were in the casket, in
+order to send a line to Master Lowestoffe, declaring that his property
+had reached him in safety. He added some grateful acknowledgments for
+Lowestoffe's services, and, just as he was sealing and delivering his
+billet to the messenger, his aged landlord entered the apartment. His
+threadbare suit of black clothes was now somewhat better arranged than
+they had been in the dishabille of his first appearance, and his nerves
+and intellects seemed to be less fluttered; for, without much coughing
+or hesitation, he invited Nigel to partake of a morning draught of
+wholesome single ale, which he brought in a large leathern tankard, or
+black-jack, carried in the one hand, while the other stirred it round
+with a sprig of rosemary, to give it, as the old man said, a flavour.
+
+Nigel declined the courteous proffer, and intimated by his manner,
+while he did so, that he desired no intrusion on the privacy of his
+own apartment; which, indeed, he was the more entitled to maintain,
+considering the cold reception he had that morning met with when
+straying from its precincts into those of his landlord. But the open
+casket contained matter, or rather metal, so attractive to old Trapbois,
+that he remained fixed, like a setting-dog at a dead point, his nose
+advanced, and one hand expanded like the lifted forepaw, by which that
+sagacious quadruped sometimes indicates that it is a hare which he has
+in the wind. Nigel was about to break the charm which had thus arrested
+old Trapbois, by shutting the lid of the casket, when his attention was
+withdrawn from him by the question of the messenger, who, holding
+out the letter, asked whether he was to leave it at Mr. Lowestoffe's
+chambers in the Temple, or carry it to the Marshalsea?
+
+"The Marshalsea?" repeated Lord Glenvarloch; "what of the Marshalsea?"
+
+"Why, sir," said the man, "the poor gentleman is laid up there in
+lavender, because, they say, his own kind heart led him to scald his
+fingers with another man's broth."
+
+Nigel hastily snatched back the letter, broke the seal, joined to the
+contents his earnest entreaty that he might be instantly acquainted with
+the cause of his confinement, and added, that, if it arose out of his
+own unhappy affair, it would be of a brief duration, since he had, even
+before hearing of a reason which so peremptorily demanded that he should
+surrender himself, adopted the resolution to do so, as the manliest and
+most proper course which his ill fortune and imprudence had left in his
+own power. He therefore conjured Mr. Lowestoffe to have no delicacy upon
+this score, but, since his surrender was what he had determined upon as
+a sacrifice due to his own character, that he would have the frankness
+to mention in what manner it could be best arranged, so as to extricate
+him, Lowestoffe, from the restraint to which the writer could not but
+fear his friend had been subjected, on account of the generous interest
+which he had taken in his concerns. The letter concluded, that the
+writer would suffer twenty-four hours to elapse in expectation of
+hearing from him, and, at the end of that period, was determined to put
+his purpose in execution. He delivered the billet to the messenger,
+and, enforcing his request with a piece of money, urged him, without a
+moment's delay, to convey it to the hands of Master Lowestoffe.
+
+"I--I--I--will carry it to him myself," said the old usurer, "for half
+the consideration."
+
+The man who heard this attempt to take his duty and perquisites over his
+head, lost no time in pocketing the money, and departed on his errand as
+fast as he could.
+
+"Master Trapbois," said Nigel, addressing the old man somewhat
+impatiently, "had you any particular commands for me?"
+
+"I--I--came to see if you rested well," answered the old man; "and--if I
+could do anything to serve you, on any consideration."
+
+"Sir, I thank you," said Lord Glenvarloch--"I thank you;" and, ere he
+could say more, a heavy footstep was heard on the stair.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed the old man, starting up--"Why,
+Dorothy--char-woman--why, daughter,--draw bolt, I say, housewives--the
+door hath been left a-latch!"
+
+The door of the chamber opened wide, and in strutted the portly bulk
+of the military hero whom Nigel had on the preceding evening in vain
+endeavoured to recognise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+SWASH-BUCKLER. Bilboe's the word--PIERROT. It hath been spoke too often,
+The spell hath lost its charm--I tell thee, friend, The meanest cur that
+trots the street, will turn, And snarl against your proffer'd bastinado.
+SWASH-BUCKLER. 'Tis art shall do it, then--I will dose the mongrels--Or,
+in plain terms, I'll use the private knife 'Stead of the brandish'd
+falchion. _Old Play_.
+
+The noble Captain Colepepper or Peppercull, for he was known by both
+these names, and some others besides; had a martial and a swashing
+exterior, which, on the present occasion, was rendered yet more
+peculiar, by a patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek.
+The sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and shone with
+grease,--his buff gloves had huge tops, which reached almost to the
+elbow; his sword-belt of the same materials extended its breadth from
+his haunchbone to his small ribs, and supported on the one side his
+large black-hilted back-sword, on the other a dagger of like proportions
+He paid his compliments to Nigel with that air of predetermined
+effrontery, which announces that it will not be repelled by any coldness
+of reception, asked Trapbois how he did, by the familiar title of old
+Peter Pillory, and then, seizing upon the black-jack, emptied it off at
+a draught, to the health of the last and youngest freeman of Alsatia,
+the noble and loving master Nigel Grahame.
+
+When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began to
+criticise the liquor which it had lately contained.--"Sufficient single
+beer, old Pillory--and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a nutshell
+of malt to a butt of Thames--as dead as a corpse, too, and yet it
+went hissing down my throat--bubbling, by Jove, like water upon hot
+iron.--You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith, we had
+a carouse to your honour--we heard _butt_ ring hollow ere we parted;
+we were as loving as inkle-weavers--we fought, too, to finish off the
+gawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about me, you see--a note of the
+sermon or so, which should have been addressed to my ear, but missed its
+mark, and reached my left eye. The man of God bears my sign-manual too,
+but the Duke made us friends again, and it cost me more sack than I
+could carry, and all the Rhenish to boot, to pledge the seer in the way
+of love and reconciliation--But, Caracco! 'tis a vile old canting slave
+for all that, whom I will one day beat out of his devil's livery into
+all the colours of the rainbow.--Basta!--Said I well, old Trapbois?
+Where is thy daughter, man?--what says she to my suit?--'tis an honest
+one--wilt have a soldier for thy son-in-law, old Pillory, to mingle the
+soul of martial honour with thy thieving, miching, petty-larceny blood,
+as men put bold brandy into muddy ale?"
+
+"My daughter receives not company so early, noble captain," said the
+usurer, and concluded his speech with a dry, emphatical "ugh, ugh."
+
+"What, upon no con-si-de-ra-ti-on?" said the captain; "and wherefore not,
+old Truepenny? she has not much time to lose in driving her bargain,
+methinks."
+
+"Captain," said Trapbois, "I was upon some little business with our
+noble friend here, Master Nigel Green--ugh, ugh, ugh--"
+
+"And you would have me gone, I warrant you?" answered the bully; "but
+patience, old Pillory, thine hour is not yet come, man--You see," he
+said, pointing to the casket, "that noble Master Grahame, whom you call
+Green, has got the _decuses_ and the _smelt_."
+
+"Which you would willingly rid him of, ha! ha!--ugh, ugh," answered the
+usurer, "if you knew how--but, lack-a-day! thou art one of those that
+come out for wool, and art sure to go home shorn. Why now, but that I
+am sworn against laying of wagers, I would risk some consideration that
+this honest guest of mine sends thee home penniless, if thou darest
+venture with him--ugh, ugh--at any game which gentlemen play at."
+
+"Marry, thou hast me on the hip there, thou old miserly cony-catcher!"
+answered the captain, taking a bale of dice from the sleeve of his coat;
+"I must always keep company with these damnable doctors, and they have
+made me every baby's cully, and purged my purse into an atrophy; but
+never mind, it passes the time as well as aught else--How say you,
+Master Grahame?"
+
+The fellow paused; but even the extremity of his impudence could
+scarcely hardly withstand the cold look of utter contempt with which
+Nigel received his proposal, returning it with a simple, "I only play
+where I know my company, and never in the morning."
+
+"Cards may be more agreeable," said Captain Colepepper; "and, for
+knowing your company, here is honest old Pillory will tell you Jack
+Colepepper plays as truly on the square as e'er a man that trowled
+a die--Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles, topping,
+knapping, slurring, stabbing, and a hundred ways of rooking besides;
+but broil me like a rasher of bacon, if I could ever learn the trick on
+'em!"
+
+"You have got the vocabulary perfect, sir, at the least," said Nigel, in
+the same cold tone.
+
+"Yes, by mine honour have I," returned the Hector; "they are phrases
+that a gentleman learns about town.--But perhaps you would like a set at
+tennis, or a game at balloon--we have an indifferent good court hard
+by here, and a set of as gentleman-like blades as ever banged leather
+against brick and mortar."
+
+"I beg to be excused at present," said Lord Glenvarloch; "and to be
+plain, among the valuable privileges your society has conferred on me, I
+hope I may reckon that of being private in my own apartment when I have
+a mind."
+
+"Your humble servant, sir," said the captain; "and I thank you for
+your civility--Jack Colepepper can have enough of company, and thrusts
+himself on no one.--But perhaps you will like to make a match at
+skittles?"
+
+"I am by no means that way disposed," replied the young nobleman,
+
+"Or to leap a flea--run a snail--match a wherry, eh?"
+
+"No--I will do none of these," answered Nigel.
+
+Here the old man, who had been watching with his little peery eyes,
+pulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, and whispered, "Do not vapour him
+the huff, it will not pass--let the trout play, he will rise to the hook
+presently."
+
+But the bully, confiding in his own strength, and probably mistaking
+for timidity the patient scorn with which Nigel received his proposals,
+incited also by the open casket, began to assume a louder and more
+threatening tone. He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed a look of
+professional ferocity, and continued, "In Alsatia, look ye, a man must
+be neighbourly and companionable. Zouns! sir, we would slit any nose
+that was turned up at us honest fellows.--Ay, sir, we would slit it
+up to the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life but musk,
+ambergris, and court-scented water.--Rabbit me, I am a soldier, and care
+no more for a lord than a lamplighter!"
+
+"Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?" said Nigel, calmly, having in truth no
+desire to engage himself in a discreditable broil in such a place, and
+with such a character.
+
+"Quarrel, sir?" said the captain; "I am not seeking a quarrel, though I
+care not how soon I find one. Only I wish you to understand you must
+be neighbourly, that's all. What if we should go over the water to the
+garden, and see a bull hanked this fine morning--'sdeath, will you do
+nothing?"
+
+"Something I am strangely tempted to do at this moment," said Nigel.
+
+"Videlicet," said Colepepper, with a swaggering air, "let us hear the
+temptation."
+
+"I am tempted to throw you headlong from the window, unless you
+presently make the best of your way down stairs."
+
+"Throw me from the window?--hell and furies!" exclaimed the captain; "I
+have confronted twenty crooked sabres at Buda with my single rapier, and
+shall a chitty-faced, beggarly Scots lordling, speak of me and a window
+in the same breath?--Stand off, old Pillory, let me make Scotch collops
+of him--he dies the death!"
+
+"For the love of Heaven, gentlemen," exclaimed the old miser, throwing
+himself between them, "do not break the peace on any consideration!
+Noble guest, forbear the captain--he is a very Hector of
+Troy--Trusty Hector, forbear my guest, he is like to prove a very
+Achilles-ugh-ugh----"
+
+Here he was interrupted by his asthma, but, nevertheless, continued
+to interpose his person between Colepepper (who had unsheathed his
+whinyard, and was making vain passes at his antagonist) and Nigel, who
+had stepped back to take his sword, and now held it undrawn in his left
+hand.
+
+"Make an end of this foolery, you scoundrel!" said Nigel--"Do you come
+hither to vent your noisy oaths and your bottled-up valour on me? You
+seem to know me, and I am half ashamed to say I have at length been
+able to recollect you--remember the garden behind the ordinary,--you
+dastardly ruffian, and the speed with which fifty men saw you run from a
+drawn sword.--Get you gone, sir, and do not put me to the vile labour of
+cudgelling such a cowardly rascal down stairs."
+
+The bully's countenance grew dark as night at this unexpected
+recognition; for he had undoubtedly thought himself secure in his change
+of dress, and his black patch, from being discovered by a person who had
+seen him but once. He set his teeth, clenched his hands, and it seemed
+as if he was seeking for a moment's courage to fly upon his antagonist.
+But his heart failed, he sheathed his sword, turned his back in gloomy
+silence, and spoke not until he reached the door, when, turning
+round, he said, with a deep oath, "If I be not avenged of you for this
+insolence ere many days go by, I would the gallows had my body and the
+devil my spirit!"
+
+So saying, and with a look where determined spite and malice made his
+features savagely fierce, though they could not overcome his fear, he
+turned and left the house. Nigel followed him as far as the gallery at
+the head of the staircase, with the purpose of seeing him depart, and
+ere he returned was met by Mistress Martha Trapbois, whom the noise of
+the quarrel had summoned from her own apartment. He could not resist
+saying to her in his natural displeasure--"I would, madam, you could
+teach your father and his friends the lesson which you had the goodness
+to bestow on me this morning, and prevail on them to leave me the
+unmolested privacy of my own apartment."
+
+"If you came hither for quiet or retirement, young man," answered she,
+"you have been advised to an evil retreat. You might seek mercy in the
+Star-Chamber, or holiness in hell, with better success than quiet in
+Alsatia. But my father shall trouble you no longer."
+
+So saying, she entered the apartment, and, fixing her eyes on the
+casket, she said with emphasis--"If you display such a loadstone, it
+will draw many a steel knife to your throat."
+
+While Nigel hastily shut the casket, she addressed her father,
+upbraiding him, with small reverence, for keeping company with the
+cowardly, hectoring, murdering villain, John Colepepper.
+
+"Ay, ay, child," said the old man, with the cunning leer which
+intimated perfect satisfaction with his own superior address--"I know--I
+know--ugh--but I'll crossbite him--I know them all, and I can manage
+them--ay, ay--I have the trick on't--ugh-ugh."
+
+"_You_ manage, father!" said the austere damsel; "you will manage to
+have your throat cut, and that ere long. You cannot hide from them your
+gains and your gold as formerly."
+
+"My gains, wench? my gold?" said the usurer; "alack-a-day, few of these
+and hard got--few and hard got."
+
+"This will not serve you, father, any longer," said she, "and had not
+served you thus long, but that Bully Colepepper had contrived a cheaper
+way of plundering your house, even by means of my miserable self.--But
+why do I speak to him of all this," she said, checking herself, and
+shrugging her shoulders with an expression of pity which did not fall
+much short of scorn. "He hears me not--he thinks not of me.--Is it
+not strange that the love of gathering gold should survive the care to
+preserve both property and life?"
+
+"Your father," said Lord Glenvarloch, who could not help respecting the
+strong sense and feeling shown by this poor woman, even amidst all
+her rudeness and severity, "your father seems to have his faculties
+sufficiently alert when he is in the exercise of his ordinary pursuits
+and functions. I wonder he is not sensible of the weight of your
+arguments."
+
+"Nature made him a man senseless of danger, and that insensibility is
+the best thing I have derived from him," said she; "age has left him
+shrewdness enough to tread his old beaten paths, but not to seek new
+courses. The old blind horse will long continue to go its rounds in the
+mill, when it would stumble in the open meadow."
+
+"Daughter!--why, wench--why, housewife!" said the old man, awakening
+out of some dream, in which he had been sneering and chuckling in
+imagination, probably over a successful piece of roguery,--"go to
+chamber, wench--go to chamber--draw bolts and chain--look sharp to
+door--let none in or out but worshipful Master Grahame--I must take my
+cloak, and go to Duke Hildebrod--ay, ay, time has been, my own warrant
+was enough; but the lower we lie, the more are we under the wind."
+
+And, with his wonted chorus of muttering and coughing, the old man left
+the apartment. His daughter stood for a moment looking after him, with
+her usual expression of discontent and sorrow.
+
+"You ought to persuade your father," said Nigel, "to leave this evil
+neighbourhood, if you are in reality apprehensive for his safety."
+
+"He would be safe in no other quarter," said the daughter; "I would
+rather the old man were dead than publicly dishonoured. In other
+quarters he would be pelted and pursued, like an owl which ventures into
+sunshine. Here he was safe, while his comrades could avail themselves of
+his talents; he is now squeezed and fleeced by them on every pretence.
+They consider him as a vessel on the strand, from which each may snatch
+a prey; and the very jealousy which they entertain respecting him as a
+common property, may perhaps induce them to guard him from more private
+and daring assaults."
+
+"Still, methinks, you ought to leave this place," answered Nigel, "since
+you might find a safe retreat in some distant country."
+
+"In Scotland, doubtless," said she, looking at him with a sharp and
+suspicious eye, "and enrich strangers with our rescued wealth--Ha! young
+man?"
+
+"Madam, if you knew me," said Lord Glenvarloch, "you would spare the
+suspicion implied in your words."
+
+"Who shall assure me of that?" said Martha, sharply. "They say you are
+a brawler and a gamester, and I know how far these are to be trusted by
+the unhappy."
+
+"They do me wrong, by Heaven!" said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"It may be so," said Martha; "I am little interested in the degree of
+your vice or your folly; but it is plain, that the one or the other
+has conducted you hither, and that your best hope of peace, safety, and
+happiness, is to be gone, with the least possible delay, from a place
+which is always a sty for swine, and often a shambles." So saying, she
+left the apartment.
+
+There was something in the ungracious manner of this female, amounting
+almost to contempt of him she spoke to--an indignity to which
+Glenvarloch, notwithstanding his poverty, had not as yet been personally
+exposed, and which, therefore, gave him a transitory feeling of painful
+surprise. Neither did the dark hints which Martha threw out concerning
+the danger of his place of refuge, sound by any means agreeably to his
+ears. The bravest man, placed in a situation in which he is surrounded
+by suspicious persons, and removed from all counsel and assistance,
+except those afforded by a valiant heart and a strong arm, experiences
+a sinking of the spirit, a consciousness of abandonment, which for
+a moment chills his blood, and depresses his natural gallantry of
+disposition.
+
+But, if sad reflections arose in Nigel's mind, he had not time to
+indulge them; and, if he saw little prospect of finding friends in
+Alsatia, he found that he was not likely to be solitary for lack of
+visitors.
+
+He had scarcely paced his apartment for ten minutes, endeavouring to
+arrange his ideas on the course which he was to pursue on quitting
+Alsatia, when he was interrupted by the Sovereign of the quarter, the
+great Duke Hildebrod himself, before whose approach the bolts and chains
+of the miser's dwelling fell, or withdrew, as of their own accord; and
+both the folding leaves of the door were opened, that he might roll
+himself into the house like a huge butt of liquor, a vessel to which
+he bore a considerable outward resemblance, both in size, shape,
+complexion, and contents.
+
+"Good-morrow to your lordship," said the greasy puncheon, cocking his
+single eye, and rolling it upon Nigel with a singular expression of
+familiar impudence; whilst his grim bull-dog, which was close at his
+heels, made a kind of gurgling in his throat, as if saluting, in similar
+fashion, a starved cat, the only living thing in Trapbois' house which
+we have not yet enumerated, and which had flown up to the top of the
+tester, where she stood clutching and grinning at the mastiff, whose
+greeting she accepted with as much good-will as Nigel bestowed on that
+of the dog's master.
+
+"Peace, Belzie!--D--n thee, peace!" said Duke Hildebrod. "Beasts and
+fools will be meddling, my lord."
+
+"I thought, sir," answered Nigel, with as much haughtiness as was
+consistent with the cool distance which he desired to preserve, "I
+thought I had told you, my name at present was Nigel Grahame."
+
+His eminence of Whitefriars on this burst out into a loud, chuckling,
+impudent laugh, repeating the word, till his voice was almost
+inarticulate,--"Niggle Green--Niggle Green--Niggle Green!--why, my lord,
+you would be queered in the drinking of a penny pot of Malmsey, if you
+cry before you are touched. Why, you have told me the secret even now,
+had I not had a shrewd guess of it before. Why, Master Nigel, since that
+is the word, I only called you my lord, because we made you a peer
+of Alsatia last night, when the sack was predominant.--How you look
+now!--Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Nigel, indeed, conscious that he had unnecessarily betrayed himself,
+replied hastily,--"he was much obliged to him for the honours conferred,
+but did not propose to remain in the Sanctuary long enough to enjoy
+them."
+
+"Why, that may be as you will, an you will walk by wise counsel,"
+answered the ducal porpoise; and, although Nigel remained standing, in
+hopes to accelerate his guest's departure, he threw himself into one of
+the old tapestry-backed easy-chairs, which cracked under his weight, and
+began to call for old Trapbois.
+
+The crone of all work appearing instead of her master, the Duke cursed
+her for a careless jade, to let a strange gentleman, and a brave guest,
+go without his morning's draught.
+
+"I never take one, sir," said Glenvarloch.
+
+"Time to begin--time to begin," answered the Duke.--"Here, you old
+refuse of Sathan, go to our palace, and fetch Lord Green's morning
+draught. Let us see--what shall it be, my lord?--a humming double pot of
+ale, with a roasted crab dancing in it like a wherry above bridge?--or,
+hum--ay, young men are sweet-toothed--a quart of burnt sack, with sugar
+and spice?--good against the fogs. Or, what say you to sipping a gill of
+right distilled waters? Come, we will have them all, and you shall take
+your choice.--Here, you Jezebel, let Tim send the ale, and the sack, and
+the nipperkin of double-distilled, with a bit of diet-loaf, or some such
+trinket, and score it to the new comer."
+
+Glenvarloch, bethinking himself that it might be as well to endure
+this fellow's insolence for a brief season, as to get into farther
+discreditable quarrels, suffered him to take his own way, without
+interruption, only observing, "You make yourself at home, sir, in my
+apartment; but, for the time, you may use your pleasure. Meanwhile,
+I would fain know what has procured me the honour of this unexpected
+visit?"
+
+"You shall know that when old Deb has brought the liquor--I never speak
+of business dry-lipped. Why, how she drumbles--I warrant she stops to
+take a sip on the road, and then you will think you have had unchristian
+measure.--In the meanwhile, look at that dog there--look Belzebub in
+the face, and tell me if you ever saw a sweeter beast--never flew but at
+head in his life."
+
+And, after this congenial panegyric, he was proceeding with a tale of a
+dog and a bull, which threatened to be somewhat of the longest, when
+he was interrupted by the return of the old crone, and two of his own
+tapsters, bearing the various kinds of drinkables which he had demanded,
+and which probably was the only species of interruption he would have
+endured with equanimity.
+
+When the cups and cans were duly arranged upon the table, and when
+Deborah, whom the ducal generosity honoured with a penny farthing in
+the way of gratuity, had withdrawn with her satellites, the worthy
+potentate, having first slightly invited Lord Glenvarloch to partake
+of the liquor which he was to pay for, and after having observed, that,
+excepting three poached eggs, a pint of bastard, and a cup of clary, he
+was fasting from every thing but sin, set himself seriously to reinforce
+the radical moisture. Glenvarloch had seen Scottish lairds and Dutch
+burgomasters at their potations; but their exploits (though each might
+be termed a thirsty generation) were nothing to those of Duke Hildebrod,
+who seemed an absolute sandbed, capable of absorbing any given quantity
+of liquid, without being either vivified or overflowed. He drank off
+the ale to quench a thirst which, as he said, kept him in a fever from
+morning to night, and night to morning; tippled off the sack to correct
+the crudity of the ale; sent the spirits after the sack to keep all
+quiet, and then declared that, probably, he should not taste liquor till
+_post meridiem_, unless it was in compliment to some especial friend.
+Finally, he intimated that he was ready to proceed on the business
+which brought him from home so early, a proposition which Nigel readily
+received, though he could not help suspecting that the most important
+purpose of Duke Hildebrod's visit was already transacted.
+
+In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch proved to be mistaken. Hildebrod,
+before opening what he had to say, made an accurate survey of the
+apartment, laying, from time to time, his finger on his nose, and
+winking on Nigel with his single eye, while he opened and shut the
+doors, lifted the tapestry, which concealed, in one or two places, the
+dilapidation of time upon the wainscoted walls, peeped into closets,
+and, finally, looked under the bed, to assure himself that the coast
+was clear of listeners and interlopers. He then resumed his seat, and
+beckoned confidentially to Nigel to draw his chair close to him.
+
+"I am well as I am, Master Hildebrod," replied the young lord, little
+disposed to encourage the familiarity which the man endeavoured to fix
+on him; but the undismayed Duke proceeded as follows:
+
+"You shall pardon me, my lord--and I now give you the title right
+seriously--if I remind you that our waters may be watched; for though
+old Trapbois be as deaf as Saint Paul's, yet his daughter has sharp
+ears, and sharp eyes enough, and it is of them that it is my business to
+speak."
+
+"Say away, then, sir," said Nigel, edging his chair somewhat closer to
+the Quicksand, "although I cannot conceive what business I have either
+with mine host or his daughter."
+
+"We will see that in the twinkling of a quart-pot," answered the
+gracious Duke; "and first, my lord, you must not think to dance in a net
+before old Jack Hildebrod, that has thrice your years o'er his head, and
+was born, like King Richard, with all his eye-teeth ready cut."
+
+"Well, sir, go on," said Nigel.
+
+"Why, then, my lord, I presume to say, that, if you are, as I believe
+you are, that Lord Glenvarloch whom all the world talk of--the Scotch
+gallant that has spent all, to a thin cloak and a light purse--be not
+moved, my lord, it is so noised of you--men call you the sparrow-hawk,
+who will fly at all--ay, were it in the very Park--Be not moved, my
+lord."
+
+"I am ashamed, sirrah," replied Glenvarloch, "that you should have power
+to move me by your insolence--but beware--and, if you indeed guess who
+I am, consider how long I may be able to endure your tone of insolent
+familiarity."
+
+"I crave pardon, my lord," said Hildebrod, with a sullen, yet apologetic
+look; "I meant no harm in speaking my poor mind. I know not what honour
+there may be in being familiar with your lordship, but I judge there
+is little safety, for Lowestoffe is laid up in lavender only for having
+shown you the way into Alsatia; and so, what is to come of those who
+maintain you when you are here, or whether they will get most honour or
+most trouble by doing so, I leave with your lordship's better judgment."
+
+"I will bring no one into trouble on my account," said Lord Glenvarloch.
+"I will leave Whitefriars to-morrow. Nay, by Heaven, I will leave it
+this day."
+
+"You will have more wit in your anger, I trust," said Duke Hildebrod;
+"listen first to what I have to say to you, and, if honest Jack
+Hildebrod puts you not in the way of nicking them all, may he never cast
+doublets, or dull a greenhorn again! And so, my lord, in plain words,
+you must wap and win."
+
+"Your words must be still plainer before I can understand them," said
+Nigel.
+
+"What the devil--a gamester, one who deals with the devil's bones and
+the doctors, and not understand Pedlar's French! Nay, then, I must speak
+plain English, and that's the simpleton's tongue."
+
+"Speak, then, sir," said Nigel; "and I pray you be brief, for I have
+little more time to bestow on you."
+
+"Well, then, my lord, to be brief, as you and the lawyers call it--I
+understand you have an estate in the north, which changes masters for
+want of the redeeming ready.--Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in
+a net before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the frowning
+humour on you, and the Court vapours you the go-by; and the Prince
+scowls at you from under his cap; and the favourite serves you out the
+puckered brow and the cold shoulder; and the favourite's favourite--"
+
+"To go no further, sir," interrupted Nigel, "suppose all this true--and
+what follows?"
+
+"What follows?" returned Duke Hildebrod. "Marry, this follows, that you
+will owe good deed, as well as good will, to him who shall put you in
+the way to walk with your beaver cocked in the presence, as an ye were
+Earl of Kildare; bully the courtiers; meet the Prince's blighting look
+with a bold brow; confront the favourite; baffle his deputy, and--"
+
+"This is all well," said Nigel! "but how is it to be accomplished?"
+
+"By making thee a Prince of Peru, my lord of the northern latitudes;
+propping thine old castle with ingots,--fertilizing thy failing fortunes
+with gold dust--it shall but cost thee to put thy baron's coronet for a
+day or so on the brows of an old Caduca here, the man's daughter of the
+house, and thou art master of a mass of treasure that shall do all I
+have said for thee, and--"
+
+"What, you would have me marry this old gentlewoman here, the daughter
+of mine host?" said Nigel, surprised and angry, yet unable to suppress
+some desire to laugh.
+
+"Nay, my lord, I would have you marry fifty thousand good sterling
+pounds; for that, and better, hath old Trapbois hoarded; and thou shall
+do a deed of mercy in it to the old man, who will lose his golden smelts
+in some worse way--for now that he is well-nigh past his day of work,
+his day of payment is like to follow."
+
+"Truly, this is a most courteous offer," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but may
+I pray of your candour, most noble duke, to tell me why you dispose of
+a ward of so much wealth on a stranger like me, who may leave you
+to-morrow?"
+
+"In sooth, my lord," said the Duke, "that question smacks more of the
+wit of Beaujeu's ordinary, than any word I have yet heard your lordship
+speak, and reason it is you should be answered. Touching my peers, it is
+but necessary to say, that Mistress Martha Trapbois will none of them,
+whether clerical or laic. The captain hath asked her, so hath the
+parson, but she will none of them--she looks higher than either, and
+is, to say truth, a woman of sense, and so forth, too profound, and of
+spirit something too high, to put up with greasy buff or rusty prunella.
+For ourselves, we need but hint that we have a consort in the land of
+the living, and, what is more to purpose, Mrs. Martha knows it. So, as
+she will not lace her kersey hood save with a quality binding, you, my
+lord, must be the man, and must carry off fifty thousand decuses, the
+spoils of five thousand bullies, cutters, and spendthrifts,--always
+deducting from the main sum some five thousand pounds for our princely
+advice and countenance, without which, as matters stand in Alsatia, you
+would find it hard to win the plate."
+
+"But has your wisdom considered, sir," replied Glenvarloch, "how this
+wedlock can serve me in my present emergence?"
+
+"As for that, my lord," said Duke Hildebrod, "if, with forty or fifty
+thousand pounds in your pouch, you cannot save yourself, you will
+deserve to lose your head for your folly, and your hand for being
+close-fisted."
+
+"But, since your goodness has taken my matters into such serious
+consideration," continued Nigel, who conceived there was no prudence
+in breaking with a man, who, in his way, meant him favour rather than
+offence, "perhaps you may be able to tell me how my kindred will be
+likely to receive such a bride as you recommend to me?"
+
+"Touching that matter, my lord, I have always heard your countrymen knew
+as well as other folks, on which side their bread was buttered. And,
+truly, speaking from report, I know no place where fifty thousand
+pounds--fifty thousand pounds, I say--will make a woman more welcome
+than it is likely to do in your ancient kingdom. And, truly, saving the
+slight twist in her shoulder, Mrs. Martha Trapbois is a person of very
+awful and majestic appearance, and may, for aught I know, be come of
+better blood than any one wots of; for old Trapbois looks not over
+like to be her father, and her mother was a generous, liberal sort of a
+woman."
+
+"I am afraid," answered Nigel, "that chance is rather too vague to
+assure her a gracious reception into an honourable house."
+
+"Why, then, my lord," replied Hildebrod, "I think it like she will be
+even with them; for I will venture to say, she has as much ill-nature as
+will make her a match for your whole clan."
+
+"That may inconvenience me a little," replied Nigel.
+
+"Not a whit--not a whit," said the Duke, fertile in expedients; "if she
+should become rather intolerable, which is not unlikely, your honourable
+house, which I presume to be a castle, hath, doubtless, both turrets and
+dungeons, and ye may bestow your bonny bride in either the one or the
+other, and then you know you will be out of hearing of her tongue, and
+she will be either above or below the contempt of your friends."
+
+"It is sagely counselled, most equitable sir," replied Nigel, "and such
+restraint would be a fit meed for her folly that gave me any power over
+her."
+
+"You entertain the project then, my lord?" said Duke Hildebrod.
+
+"I must turn it in my mind for twenty-four hours," said Nigel; "and I
+will pray you so to order matters that I be not further interrupted by
+any visitors."
+
+"We will utter an edict to secure your privacy," said the Duke; "and you
+do not think," he added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper,
+"that ten thousand is too much to pay to the Sovereign, in name of
+wardship?"
+
+"Ten thousand!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "why, you said five thousand but
+now."
+
+"Aha! art avised of that?" said the Duke, touching the side of his
+nose with his finger; "nay, if you have marked me so closely, you are
+thinking on the case more nearly than I believed, till you trapped me.
+Well, well, we will not quarrel about the consideration, as old Trapbois
+would call it--do you win and wear the dame; it will be no hard matter
+with your face and figure, and I will take care that no one interrupts
+you. I will have an edict from the Senate as soon as they meet for their
+meridiem."
+
+So saying, Duke Hildebrod took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+  This is the time--Heaven's maiden sentinel
+  Hath quitted her high watch--the lesser spangles
+  Are paling one by one; give me the ladder
+  And the short lever--bid Anthony
+  Keep with his carabine the wicket-gate;
+  And do thou bare thy knife and follow me,
+  For we will in and do it--darkness like this
+  Is dawning of our fortunes.
+                           _Old Play._
+
+When Duke Hildebrod had withdrawn, Nigel's first impulse was an
+irresistible feeling to laugh at the sage adviser, who would have thus
+connected him with age, ugliness, and ill-temper; but his next thought
+was pity for the unfortunate father and daughter, who, being the only
+persons possessed of wealth in this unhappy district, seemed like a
+wreck on the sea-shore of a barbarous country, only secured from plunder
+for the moment by the jealousy of the tribes among whom it had been
+cast. Neither could he help being conscious that his own residence here
+was upon conditions equally precarious, and that he was considered by
+the Alsatians in the same light of a godsend on the Cornish coast, or a
+sickly but wealthy caravan travelling through the wilds of Africa, and
+emphatically termed by the nations of despoilers through whose regions
+it passes _Dummalafong_, which signifies a thing given to be devoured--a
+common prey to all men.
+
+Nigel had already formed his own plan to extricate himself, at whatever
+risk, from his perilous and degrading situation; and, in order that he
+might carry it into instant execution, he only awaited the return of
+Lowestoffe's messenger. He expected him, however, in vain, and could
+only amuse himself by looking through such parts of his baggage as had
+been sent to him from his former lodgings, in order to select a small
+packet of the most necessary articles to take with him, in the event of
+his quitting his lodgings secretly and suddenly, as speed and privacy
+would, he foresaw, be particularly necessary, if he meant to obtain
+an interview with the king, which was the course his spirit and his
+interest alike determined him to pursue.
+
+While he was thus engaged, he found, greatly to his satisfaction, that
+Master Lowestoffe had transmitted not only his rapier and poniard, but a
+pair of pistols, which he had used in travelling; of a smaller and more
+convenient size than the large petronels, or horse pistols, which were
+then in common use, as being made for wearing at the girdle or in the
+pockets. Next to having stout and friendly comrades, a man is chiefly
+emboldened by finding himself well armed in case of need, and Nigel,
+who had thought with some anxiety on the hazard of trusting his life, if
+attacked, to the protection of the clumsy weapon with which Lowestoffe
+had equipped him, in order to complete his disguise, felt an emotion
+of confidence approaching to triumph, as, drawing his own good and
+well-tried rapier, he wiped it with his handkerchief, examined its
+point, bent it once or twice against the ground to prove its well-known
+metal, and finally replaced it in the scabbard, the more hastily, that
+he heard a tap at the door of his chamber, and had no mind to be found
+vapouring in the apartment with his sword drawn.
+
+It was his old host who entered, to tell him with many cringes that the
+price of his apartment was to be a crown per diem; and that, according
+to the custom of Whitefriars, the rent was always payable per advance,
+although he never scrupled to let the money lie till a week or
+fortnight, or even a month, in the hands of any honourable guest like
+Master Grahame, always upon some reasonable consideration for the use.
+Nigel got rid of the old dotard's intrusion, by throwing down two pieces
+of gold, and requesting the accommodation of his present apartment for
+eight days, adding, however, he did not think he should tarry so long.
+
+The miser, with a sparkling eye and a trembling hand, clutched fast the
+proffered coin, and, having balanced the pieces with exquisite pleasure
+on the extremity of his withered finger, began almost instantly to
+show that not even the possession of gold can gratify for more than an
+instant the very heart that is most eager in the pursuit of it. First,
+the pieces might be light--with hasty hand he drew a small pair
+of scales from his bosom, and weighed them, first together, then
+separately, and smiled with glee as he saw them attain the due
+depression in the balance--a circumstance which might add to his
+profits, if it were true, as was currently reported, that little of the
+gold coinage was current in Alsatia in a perfect state, and that none
+ever left the Sanctuary in that condition.
+
+Another fear then occurred to trouble the old miser's pleasure. He had
+been just able to comprehend that Nigel intended to leave the Friars
+sooner than the arrival of the term for which he had deposited the rent.
+This might imply an expectation of refunding, which, as a Scotch wag
+said, of all species of funding, jumped least with the old gentleman's
+humour. He was beginning to enter a hypothetical caveat on this subject,
+and to quote several reasons why no part of the money once consigned as
+room-rent, could be repaid back on any pretence, without great hardship
+to the landlord, when Nigel, growing impatient, told him that the money
+was his absolutely, and without any intention on his part of resuming
+any of it--all he asked in return was the liberty of enjoying in private
+the apartment he had paid for. Old Trapbois, who had still at his
+tongue's end much of the smooth language, by which, in his time, he had
+hastened the ruin of many a young spendthrift, began to launch out
+upon the noble and generous disposition of his new guest, until Nigel,
+growing impatient, took the old gentleman by the hand, and gently, yet
+irresistibly, leading him to the door of the chamber, put him out, but
+with such decent and moderate exertion of his superior strength, as to
+render the action in no shape indecorous, and, fastening the door, began
+to do that for his pistols which he had done for his favourite sword,
+examining with care the flints and locks, and reviewing the state of his
+small provision of ammunition.
+
+In this operation he was a second time interrupted by a knocking at the
+door--he called upon the person to enter, having no doubt that it
+was Lowestoffe's messenger at length arrived. It was, however, the
+ungracious daughter of old Trapbois, who, muttering something about her
+father's mistake, laid down upon the table one of the pieces of gold
+which Nigel had just given to him, saying, that what she retained was
+the full rent for the term he had specified. Nigel replied, he had paid
+the money, and had no desire to receive it again.
+
+"Do as you will with it, then," replied his hostess, "for there it lies,
+and shall lie for me. If you are fool enough to pay more than is reason,
+my father shall not be knave enough to take it."
+
+"But your father, mistress," said Nigel, "your father told me--"
+
+"Oh, my father, my father," said she, interrupting him,--"my father
+managed these affairs while he was able--I manage them now, and that may
+in the long run be as well for both of us."
+
+She then looked on the table, and observed the weapons.
+
+"You have arms, I see," she said; "do you know how to use them?"
+
+"I should do so mistress," replied Nigel, "for it has been my
+occupation."
+
+"You are a soldier, then?" she demanded.
+
+"No farther as yet, than as every gentleman of my country is a soldier."
+
+"Ay, that is your point of honour--to cut the throats of the poor--a
+proper gentlemanlike occupation for those who should protect them!"
+
+"I do not deal in cutting throats, mistress," replied Nigel; "but I
+carry arms to defend myself, and my country if it needs me."
+
+"Ay," replied Martha, "it is fairly worded; but men say you are as
+prompt as others in petty brawls, where neither your safety nor your
+country is in hazard; and that had it not been so, you would not have
+been in the Sanctuary to-day."
+
+"Mistress," returned Nigel, "I should labour in vain to make you
+understand that a man's honour, which is, or should be, dearer to him
+than his life, may often call on and compel us to hazard our own
+lives, or those of others, on what would otherwise seem trifling
+contingencies."
+
+"God's law says nought of that," said the female; "I have only read
+there, that thou shall not kill. But I have neither time nor inclination
+to preach to you--you will find enough of fighting here if you like
+it, and well if it come not to seek you when you are least prepared.
+Farewell for the present--the char-woman will execute your commands for
+your meals."
+
+She left the room, just as Nigel, provoked at her assuming a superior
+tone of judgment and of censure, was about to be so superfluous as to
+enter into a dispute with an old pawnbroker's daughter on the subject of
+the point of honour. He smiled at himself for the folly into which the
+spirit of self-vindication had so nearly hurried him.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch then applied to old Deborah the char-woman, by whose
+intermediation he was provided with a tolerably decent dinner; and the
+only embarrassment which he experienced, was from the almost forcible
+entry of the old dotard his landlord, who insisted upon giving his
+assistance at laying the cloth. Nigel had some difficulty to prevent
+him from displacing his arms and some papers which were lying on a small
+table at which he had been sitting; and nothing short of a stern and
+positive injunction to the contrary could compel him to use another
+board (though there were two in the room) for the purpose of laying the
+cloth.
+
+Having at length obliged him to relinquish his purpose, he could not
+help observing that the eyes of the old dotard seemed still anxiously
+fixed upon the small table on which lay his sword and pistols; and that,
+amidst all the little duties which he seemed officiously anxious to
+render to his guest, he took every opportunity of looking towards and
+approaching these objects of his attention. At length, when Trapbois
+thought he had completely avoided the notice of his guest, Nigel,
+through the observation of one of the cracked mirrors, oh which channel
+of communication the old man had not calculated, beheld him actually
+extend his hand towards the table in question. He thought it unnecessary
+to use further ceremony, but telling his landlord, in a stern voice,
+that he permitted no one to touch his arms, he commanded him to leave
+the apartment. The old usurer commenced a maundering sort of apology, in
+which all that Nigel distinctly apprehended, was a frequent repetition
+of the word _consideration_, and which did not seem to him to require
+any other answer than a reiteration of his command to him to leave the
+apartment, upon pain of worse consequences.
+
+The ancient Hebe who acted as Lord Glenvarloch's cup-bearer, took his
+part against the intrusion of the still more antiquated Ganymede, and
+insisted on old Trapbois leaving the room instantly, menacing him at
+the same time with her mistress's displeasure if he remained there any
+longer. The old man seemed more under petticoat government than any
+other, for the threat of the char-woman produced greater effect upon him
+than the more formidable displeasure of Nigel. He withdrew grumbling and
+muttering, and Lord Glenvarloch heard him bar a large door at the nearer
+end of the gallery, which served as a division betwixt the other parts
+of the extensive mansion, and the apartment occupied by his guest,
+which, as the reader is aware, had its access from the landing-place at
+the head of the grand staircase.
+
+Nigel accepted the careful sound of the bolts and bars as they were
+severally drawn by the trembling hand of old Trapbois, as an omen
+that the senior did not mean again to revisit him in the course of
+the evening, and heartily rejoiced that he was at length to be left to
+uninterrupted solitude.
+
+The old woman asked if there was aught else to be done for his
+accommodation; and, indeed, it had hitherto seemed as if the pleasure of
+serving him, or more properly the reward which she expected, had renewed
+her youth and activity. Nigel desired to have candles, to have a fire
+lighted in his apartment, and a few fagots placed beside it, that he
+might feed it from time to time, as he began to feel the chilly effects
+of the damp and low situation of the house, close as it was to the
+Thames. But while the old woman was absent upon his errand, he began to
+think in what way he should pass the long solitary evening with which he
+was threatened.
+
+His own reflections promised to Nigel little amusement, and less
+applause. He had considered his own perilous situation in every light
+in which it could be viewed, and foresaw as little utility as comfort in
+resuming the survey. To divert the current of his ideas, books were, of
+course, the readiest resource; and although, like most of us, Nigel had,
+in his time, sauntered through large libraries, and even spent a long
+time there without greatly disturbing their learned contents, he was now
+in a situation where the possession of a volume, even of very inferior
+merit, becomes a real treasure. The old housewife returned shortly
+afterwards with fagots, and some pieces of half-burnt wax-candles, the
+perquisites, probably, real or usurped, of some experienced groom of
+the chambers, two of which she placed in large brass candlesticks, of
+different shapes and patterns, and laid the others on the table, that
+Nigel might renew them from time to time as they burnt to the socket.
+She heard with interest Lord Glenvarloch's request to have a book--any
+sort of book--to pass away the night withal, and returned for answer,
+that she knew of no other books in the house than her young mistress's
+(as she always denominated Mistress Martha Trapbois) Bible, which the
+owner would not lend; and her master's Whetstone of Witte, being the
+second part of Arithmetic, by Robert Record, with the Cossike Practice
+and Rule of Equation; which promising volume Nigel declined to borrow.
+She offered, however, to bring him some books from Duke Hildebrod--"who
+sometimes, good gentleman, gave a glance at a book when the State
+affairs of Alsatia left him as much leisure."
+
+Nigfil embraced the proposal, and his unwearied Iris scuttled away on
+this second embassy. She returned in a short time with a tattered quarto
+volume under her arm, and a bottle of sack in her hand; for the Duke,
+judging that mere reading was dry work, had sent the wine by way of
+sauce to help it down, not forgetting to add the price to the morning's
+score, which he had already run up against the stranger in the
+Sanctuary.
+
+Nigel seized on the book, and did not refuse the wine, thinking that a
+glass or two, as it really proved to be of good quality, would be no
+bad interlude to his studies. He dismissed, with thanks and assurance
+of reward, the poor old drudge who had been so zealous in his service;
+trimmed his fire and candles, and placed the easiest of the old
+arm-chairs in a convenient posture betwixt the fire and the table at
+which he had dined, and which now supported the measure of sack and the
+lights; and thus accompanying his studies with such luxurious appliances
+as were in his power, he began to examine the only volume with which the
+ducal library of Alsatia had been able to supply him.
+
+The contents, though of a kind generally interesting, were not well
+calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was
+entitled "God's Revenge against Murther;" not, as the bibliomaniacal
+reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under
+that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold
+by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much
+more than its weight in gold.[Footnote: Only three copies are known
+to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and
+cropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession
+of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN
+CLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book
+contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening.
+He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind;
+he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without
+burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat
+heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther
+inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial
+addressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his
+grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication
+would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in
+a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside.
+
+Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the
+first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and
+shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of
+sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening
+horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by
+which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for
+the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular
+ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and
+mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood
+had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals,
+had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The
+elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth
+had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen
+limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping
+lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other
+circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and
+brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to
+have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge.
+
+It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's
+hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall,
+and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by
+which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited
+and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies,
+especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was
+inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion
+that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect
+of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered
+hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this
+untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel
+sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's
+breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an
+hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered
+by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his
+life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely
+embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still
+less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation,
+he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the
+person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She
+also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming
+close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even
+attempted to take it out of his hand.
+
+"For shame," she said, "your sword on a man of eighty years and
+more!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a
+spindle of!"
+
+"Stand back," said Nigel; "I mean your father no injury--but I _will_
+know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late
+hour of night, around my arms."
+
+"Your arms!" repeated she; "alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower
+of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable
+piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young
+spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own
+purse."
+
+So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the
+table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois
+so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night,
+had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private
+passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to
+possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed,
+at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice--
+
+"It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will
+die ere I part with my property!"
+
+"It is indeed his own, mistress," said Nigel, "and I do entreat you to
+restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my
+apartment in quiet."
+
+"I will account with you for it, then,"--said the maiden, reluctantly
+giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his
+bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then
+making a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he
+has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the
+purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry,
+through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings
+were drawn apart.
+
+"This shall be properly fastened to-morrow," said the daughter to Nigel,
+speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his
+acquisition, could not hear her; "to-night I will continue to watch him
+closely.--I wish you good repose."
+
+These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet
+made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be
+accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired
+to bed.
+
+There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various
+events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his
+rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled
+stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther
+he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common
+in such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head
+was giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were
+dazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and
+creaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of
+here and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary.
+
+Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him
+at once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then
+remembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current
+among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and
+another, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was
+remote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself.
+
+Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword
+and pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard
+the screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the
+usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually excluded
+by the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager,
+but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his
+recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some
+difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the
+cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into
+silence.
+
+He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise,
+which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow
+staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices
+of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. "D--n her, strike
+her down--silence her--beat her brains out!"--while the voice of his
+hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of "murder,"
+and "help." At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave
+way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a
+cocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword
+under his arm.
+
+Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were
+on the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance
+appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with
+fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her
+life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn
+a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel,
+who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on
+the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at
+his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some
+pale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol
+without effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost
+heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his
+remaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light.
+
+"There is light in the kitchen," answered Martha Trapbois, with more
+presence of mind than could have been expected. "Stay, you know not the
+way; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew
+it would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have
+_murdered_ him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+  Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us,
+  As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,
+  From all our toys and baubles. His rough call
+  Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth;
+  And well if they are such as may be answer'd
+  In yonder world, where all is judged of truly.
+                                   _Old Play_.
+
+It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with
+a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by
+all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was
+predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired
+without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned
+all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman
+precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In
+the next moment she started up, and exclaiming--"There may be life yet!"
+strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without
+a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed
+either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly.
+
+"Fear not," she cried, "fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage
+is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended
+myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor
+father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is
+dead--dead!"
+
+While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old
+miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight
+and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a
+wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence
+of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable
+of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf,
+which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries
+for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish
+life.
+
+She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of
+Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the
+vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed
+vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown,
+(for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance
+of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and
+closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other
+the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little
+before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his
+mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as
+if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence.
+
+"It is in vain--it is in vain," said the daughter, desisting from her
+fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually
+dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the
+murderers; "It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be
+thus; and now I witness it!"
+
+She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to
+dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, "Accursed be ye both,
+for you are the causes of this deed!"
+
+Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should
+be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as
+well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him
+sharply.
+
+"Be silent," she said, "be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own
+heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this
+before me? I say, be silent," she said again, and in a yet sterner
+tone--"Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on
+her knees?"
+
+Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt
+not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged
+both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other
+assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed,
+as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily
+to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition.
+
+"You are right," she said, somewhat contemptuously, "and have ventured
+already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself,
+since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate."
+
+Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own
+room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition
+he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at
+the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings
+of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of
+such violent agitation.
+
+He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by
+the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having
+covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither
+surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly--"My
+moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever
+have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base
+villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by
+the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber
+the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward
+the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are
+awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his
+duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows
+well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly."
+
+"I would," said Nigel, "but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the
+villains may return, and--"
+
+"True, most true," answered Martha, "he may return; and, though I care
+little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most
+tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of
+importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I
+will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid."
+
+Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in
+a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he
+thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was
+but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois,
+he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in
+passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the
+watch as she recommended.
+
+It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain
+in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and
+breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour,
+suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the
+other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat,
+and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence,
+though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of
+mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he
+found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence
+of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more
+uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected
+by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also
+played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn
+damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the
+slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if
+he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and
+the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had
+lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the
+terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him,
+Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of
+several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur
+of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with
+firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his
+fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of
+bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to
+inquire into the crime and its circumstances.
+
+It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees,
+disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at
+such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work
+before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps
+over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into
+stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while
+their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk,
+they seemed like men walking in their sleep.
+
+Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned
+cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there
+occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed
+much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence,
+had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been
+supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The
+daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and
+distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of
+struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the
+more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm
+concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking
+under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury
+she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures
+disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully
+agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen
+before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until
+she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had
+escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the
+reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the
+premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the
+window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed
+singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong
+iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own
+hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of
+every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the
+slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but
+his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian
+surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him,
+had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him
+examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in
+which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances
+of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to
+all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected
+all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody
+transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until
+next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered
+man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord
+Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in
+particular of having committed the deed.
+
+"Do _you_ suspect no one?" answered Martha, looking fixedly on him.
+
+"Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to
+answer them. That's the rule of the game."
+
+"Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean?"
+
+"Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen
+Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to
+change his suits often."
+
+"Send out, then," said Martha, "and have him apprehended."
+
+"If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with
+the higher powers," answered the judge.
+
+"You would have him escape," resumed she, fixing her eyes on him
+sternly.
+
+"By cock and pie," replied Hildebrod, "did it depend on me, the
+murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me
+take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that
+should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers."
+
+"I will have revenge--I _will_ have it," repeated she; "and take heed
+you trifle not with me."
+
+"Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had
+baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him.
+I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have
+trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have
+the means to get it."
+
+"They who help me in my revenge," said Martha, "shall share those
+means."
+
+"Enough said," replied Hildebrod; "and now I would have you go to my
+house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself."
+
+"I will send for the old char-woman," replied Martha, "and we have the
+stranger gentleman, besides."
+
+"Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman!" said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom
+he drew a little apart. "I fancy the captain has made the stranger
+gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I
+can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having
+chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I
+recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better
+for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep
+conditions, I trust?"
+
+"I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd," said
+Nigel.
+
+"Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear
+in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you
+to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to
+my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has
+put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been
+asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only
+made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up
+your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master
+Nigel Grahame."
+
+A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the
+sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took
+Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise
+his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the
+apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger
+were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper
+to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to
+consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant
+from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him,
+and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of
+musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to
+resist.
+
+"And so, squire," said the aquatic emissary, "my wherry is to wait you
+at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would
+give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may."
+
+"Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me?" said Nigel.
+
+"Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as
+little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson."
+
+"Did he send any token to me?" said Nigel.
+
+"Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it," said
+the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he
+said,--"Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was
+written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall
+we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a
+twelve-oared barge?"
+
+"Where is the king just now, knowest thou?" answered Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a
+noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was
+to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and
+the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as
+minnows."
+
+"Well," replied Nigel, "I will be ready to go at five; do thou come
+hither to carry my baggage."
+
+"Ay, ay, master," replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself
+with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring.
+That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and,
+pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs
+outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he
+whispered, "Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your
+bow-string for you before you can draw it."
+
+Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the
+prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord
+Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice
+in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door
+carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope
+that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the
+kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched,
+her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a
+trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay
+before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in
+his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor,
+and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was
+in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future
+destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether
+he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her
+situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend
+his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. "He
+might mean well," she said, "but he ought to know that the miserable had
+no friends."
+
+Nigel said, "He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about
+to leave the Friars--" She interrupted him--
+
+"You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you."
+
+"You go with me!" exclaimed Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I will persuade my father to leave this murdering
+den." But, as she spoke, the more perfect recollection of what had
+passed crowded on her mind. She hid her face in her hands, and burst out
+into a dreadful fit of sobs, moans, and lamentations, which terminated
+in hysterics, violent in proportion to the uncommon strength of her body
+and mind.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch, shocked, confused, and inexperienced, was about to
+leave the house in quest of medical, or at least female assistance; but
+the patient, when the paroxysm had somewhat spent its force, held him
+fast by the sleeve with one hand, covering her face with the other,
+while a copious flood of tears came to relieve the emotions of grief by
+which she had been so violently agitated.
+
+"Do not leave me," she said--"do not leave me, and call no one. I have
+never been in this way before, and would not now," she said, sitting
+upright, and wiping her eyes with her apron,--"would not now--but
+that--but that he loved _me_. if he loved nothing else that was
+human--To die so, and by such hands!"
+
+And again the unhappy woman gave way to a paroxysm of sorrow, mingling
+her tears with sobbing, wailing, and all the abandonment of female
+grief, when at its utmost height. At length, she gradually recovered
+the austerity of her natural composure, and maintained it as if by a
+forcible exertion of resolution, repelling, as she spoke, the repeated
+returns of the hysterical affection, by such an effort as that by which
+epileptic patients are known to suspend the recurrence of their fits.
+Yet her mind, however resolved, could not so absolutely overcome the
+affection of her nerves, but that she was agitated by strong fits of
+trembling, which, for a minute or two at a time, shook her whole frame
+in a manner frightful to witness. Nigel forgot his own situation, and,
+indeed, every thing else, in the interest inspired by the unhappy woman
+before him--an interest which affected a proud spirit the more deeply,
+that she herself, with correspondent highness of mind, seemed determined
+to owe as little as possible either to the humanity or the pity of
+others.
+
+"I am not wont to be in this way," she said,--"but--but--Nature will
+have power over the frail beings it has made. Over you, sir, I have some
+right; for, without you, I had not survived this awful night. I wish
+your aid had been either earlier or later--but you have saved my life,
+and you are bound to assist in making it endurable to me."
+
+"If you will show me how it is possible," answered Nigel.
+
+"You are going hence, you say, instantly--carry me with you," said
+the unhappy woman. "By my own efforts, I shall never escape from this
+wilderness of guilt and misery."
+
+"Alas! what can I do for you?" replied Nigel. "My own way, and I must
+not deviate from it, leads me, in all probability, to a dungeon. I
+might, indeed, transport you from hence with me, if you could afterwards
+bestow yourself with any friend."
+
+"Friend!" she exclaimed--"I have no friend--they have long since
+discarded us. A spectre arising from the dead were more welcome than
+I should be at the doors of those who have disclaimed us; and, if they
+were willing to restore their friendship to me now, I would despise it,
+because they withdrew it from him--from him"--(here she underwent strong
+but suppressed agitation, and then added firmly)--"from _him_ who lies
+yonder.--I have no friend." Here she paused; and then suddenly, as if
+recollecting herself, added, "I have no friend, but I have that
+will purchase many--I have that which will purchase both friends and
+avengers.--It is well thought of; I must not leave it for a prey to
+cheats and ruffians.--Stranger, you must return to yonder room. Pass
+through it boldly to his--that is, to the sleeping apartment; push the
+bedstead aside; beneath each of the posts is a brass plate, as if to
+support the weight, but it is that upon the left, nearest to the wall,
+which must serve your turn--press the corner of the plate, and it will
+spring up and show a keyhole, which this key will open. You will then
+lift a concealed trap-door, and in a cavity of the floor you will
+discover a small chest. Bring it hither; it shall accompany our journey,
+and it will be hard if the contents cannot purchase me a place of
+refuge."
+
+"But the door communicating with the kitchen has been locked by these
+people," said Nigel.
+
+"True, I had forgot; they had their reasons for that, doubtless,"
+answered she. "But the secret passage from your apartment is open, and
+you may go that way."
+
+Lord Glenvarloch took the key, and, as he lighted a lamp to show him the
+way, she read in his countenance some unwillingness to the task imposed.
+
+"You fear?" said she--"there is no cause; the murderer and his victim
+are both at rest. Take courage, I will go with you myself--you cannot
+know the trick of the spring, and the chest will be too heavy for you."
+
+"No fear, no fear," answered Lord Glenvarloch, ashamed of the
+construction she put upon a momentary hesitation, arising from a dislike
+to look upon what is horrible, often connected with those high-wrought
+minds which are the last to fear what is merely dangerous--"I will do
+your errand as you desire; but for you, you must not--cannot go yonder."
+
+"I can--I will," she said. "I am composed. You shall see that I am so."
+She took from the table a piece of unfinished sewing-work, and, with
+steadiness and composure, passed a silken thread into the eye of a
+fine needle.--"Could I have done that," she said, with a smile yet more
+ghastly than her previous look of fixed despair, "had not my heart and
+hand been both steady?"
+
+She then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel's chamber, and proceeded
+through the secret passage with the same haste, as if she had feared her
+resolution might have failed her ere her purpose was executed. At the
+bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before entering the fatal
+apartment, then hurried through with a rapid step to the sleeping
+chamber beyond, followed closely by Lord Glenvarloch, whose reluctance
+to approach the scene of butchery was altogether lost in the anxiety
+which he felt on account of the survivor of the tragedy.
+
+Her first action was to pull aside the curtains of her father's bed. The
+bed-clothes were thrown aside in confusion, doubtless in the action of
+his starting from sleep to oppose the entrance of the villains into the
+next apartment. The hard mattress scarcely showed the slight pressure
+where the emaciated body of the old miser had been deposited. His
+daughter sank beside the bed, clasped her hands, and prayed to heaven,
+in a short and affectionate manner, for support in her affliction,
+and for vengeance on the villains who had made her fatherless. A
+low-muttered and still more brief petition recommended to Heaven the
+soul of the sufferer, and invoked pardon for his sins, in virtue of the
+great Christian atonement.
+
+This duty of piety performed, she signed to Nigel to aid her; and,
+having pushed aside the heavy bedstead, they saw the brass plate which
+Martha had described. She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate
+starting up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in lifting
+the trap-door, which, when raised, displayed the strong box, or small
+chest, she had mentioned, and which proved indeed so very weighty, that
+it might perhaps have been scarcely possible for Nigel, though a very
+strong man, to have raised it without assistance.
+
+Having replaced everything as they had found it, Nigel, with such help
+as his companion was able to afford, assumed his load, and made a shift
+to carry it into the next apartment, where lay the miserable owner,
+insensible to sounds and circumstances, which, if any thing could
+have broken his long last slumber, would certainly have done so. His
+unfortunate daughter went up to his body, and had even the courage to
+remove the sheet which had been decently disposed over it. She put her
+hand on the heart, but there was no throb--held a feather to the lips,
+but there was no motion--then kissed with deep reverence the starting
+veins of the pale forehead, and then the emaciated hand.
+
+"I would you could hear me," she said,--"Father! I would you could hear
+me swear, that, if I now save what you most valued on earth, it is only
+to assist me in obtaining vengeance for your death."
+
+She replaced the covering, and, without a tear, a sigh, or an additional
+word of any kind, renewed her efforts, until they conveyed the
+strong-box betwixt them into Lord Glenvarloch's sleeping apartment. "It
+must pass," she said, "as part of your baggage. I will be in readiness
+so soon as the waterman calls."
+
+She retired; and Lord Glenvarloch, who saw the hour of their departure
+approach, tore down a part of the old hanging to make a covering, which
+he corded upon the trunk, lest the peculiarity of its shape, and the
+care with which it was banded and counterbanded with bars of steel,
+might afford suspicions respecting the treasure which it contained.
+Having taken this measure of precaution, he changed the rascally
+disguise, which he had assumed on entering Whitefriars, into a suit
+becoming his quality, and then, unable to sleep, though exhausted
+with the events of the night, he threw himself on his bed to await the
+summons of the waterman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+  Give us good voyage, gentle stream--we stun not
+  Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry;
+  Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks
+  With voice of flute and horn--we do but seek
+  On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom
+  To glide in silent safety.
+                             _The Double Bridal._
+
+Grey, or rather yellow light, was beginning to twinkle through the
+fogs of Whitefriars, when a low tap at the door of the unhappy miser
+announced to Lord Glenvarloch the summons of the boatman. He found at
+the door the man whom he had seen the night before, with a companion.
+
+"Come, come, master, let us get afloat," said one of them, in a rough
+impressive whisper, "time and tide wait for no man."
+
+"They shall not wait for me," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but I have some
+things to carry with me."
+
+"Ay, ay--no man will take a pair of oars now, Jack, unless he means to
+load the wherry like a six-horse waggon. When they don't want to shift
+the whole kitt, they take a sculler, and be d--d to them. Come, come,
+where be your rattle-traps?"
+
+One of the men was soon sufficiently loaded, in his own estimation at
+least, with Lord Glenvarloch's mail and its accompaniments, with which
+burden he began to trudge towards the Temple Stairs. His comrade, who
+seemed the principal, began to handle the trunk which contained the
+miser's treasure, but pitched it down again in an instant, declaring,
+with a great oath, that it was as reasonable to expect a man to carry
+Paul's on his back. The daughter of Trapbois, who had by this time
+joined them, muffled up in a long dark hood and mantle, exclaimed to
+Lord Glenvarloch--"Let them leave it if they will, let them leave it
+all; let us but escape from this horrible place."
+
+We have mentioned elsewhere, that Nigel was a very athletic young man,
+and, impelled by a strong feeling of compassion and indignation, he
+showed his bodily strength singularly on this occasion, by seizing on
+the ponderous strong-box, and, by means of the rope he had cast around
+it, throwing it on his shoulders, and marching resolutely forward under
+a weight, which would have sunk to the earth three young gallants,
+at the least, of our degenerate day. The waterman followed him in
+amazement, calling out, "Why, master, master, you might as well gie me
+t'other end on't!" and anon offered his assistance to support it in some
+degree behind, which after the first minute or two Nigel was fain to
+accept. His strength was almost exhausted when he reached the wherry,
+which was lying at the Temple Stairs according to appointment; and, when
+he pitched the trunk into it, the weight sank the bow of the boat so low
+in the water as well-nigh to overset it.
+
+"We shall have as hard a fare of it," said the waterman to his
+companion, "as if we were ferrying over an honest bankrupt with all his
+secreted goods--Ho, ho! good woman, what, are you stepping in for?--our
+gunwale lies deep enough in the water without live lumber to boot."
+
+"This person comes with me," said Lord Glenvarloch; "she is for the
+present under my protection."
+
+"Come, come, master," rejoined the fellow, "that is out of my
+commission. You must not double my freight on me--she may go by
+land--and, as for protection, her face will protect her from Berwick to
+the Land's End."
+
+"You will not except at my doubling the loading, if I double the fare?"
+said Nigel, determined on no account to relinquish the protection of
+this unhappy woman, for which he had already devised some sort of plan,
+likely now to be baffled by the characteristic rudeness of the Thames
+watermen.
+
+"Ay, by G----, but I will except, though," said the fellow with the green
+plush jacket: "I will overload my wherry neither for love nor money--I
+love my boat as well as my wife, and a thought better."
+
+"Nay, nay, comrade," said his mate, "that is speaking no true water
+language. For double fare we are bound to row a witch in her eggshell if
+she bid us; and so pull away, Jack, and let us have no more prating."
+
+They got into the stream-way accordingly, and, although heavily laden,
+began to move down the river with reasonable speed.
+
+The lighter vessels which passed, overtook, or crossed them, in their
+course, failed not to assail them with their boisterous raillery, which
+was then called water-wit; for which the extreme plainness of Mistress
+Martha's features, contrasted with the youth, handsome figure, and good
+looks of Nigel, furnished the principal topics; while the circumstance
+of the boat being somewhat overloaded, did not escape their notice. They
+were hailed successively, as a grocer's wife upon a party of pleasure
+with her eldest apprentice--as an old woman carrying her grandson to
+school--and as a young strapping Irishman, conveying an ancient maiden
+to Dr. Rigmarole's, at Redriffe, who buckles beggars for a tester and
+a dram of Geneva. All this abuse was retorted in a similar strain of
+humour by Greenjacket and his companion, who maintained the war of wit
+with the same alacrity with which they were assailed.
+
+Meanwhile, Lord Glenvarloch asked his desolate companion if she had
+thought on any place where she could remain in safety with her property.
+She confessed, in more detail than formerly, that her father's character
+had left her no friends; and that, from the time he had betaken himself
+to Whitefriars, to escape certain legal consequences of his eager
+pursuit of gain, she had lived a life of total seclusion; not
+associating with the society which the place afforded, and, by her
+residence there, as well as her father's parsimony, effectually cut off
+from all other company. What she now wished, was, in the first place,
+to obtain the shelter of a decent lodging, and the countenance of honest
+people, however low in life, until she should obtain legal advice as
+to the mode of obtaining justice on her father's murderer. She had
+no hesitation to charge the guilt upon Colepepper, (commonly called
+Peppercull,) whom she knew to be as capable of any act of treacherous
+cruelty, as he was cowardly, where actual manhood was required. He
+had been strongly suspected of two robberies before, one of which
+was coupled with an atrocious murder. He had, she intimated, made
+pretensions to her hand as the easiest and safest way of obtaining
+possession of her father's wealth; and, on her refusing his addresses,
+if they could be termed so, in the most positive terms, he had thrown
+out such obscure hints of vengeance, as, joined with some imperfect
+assaults upon the house, had kept her in frequent alarm, both on her
+father's account and her own.
+
+Nigel, but that his feeling of respectful delicacy to the unfortunate
+woman forebade him to do so, could here have communicated a circumstance
+corroborative of her suspicions, which had already occurred to his own
+mind. He recollected the hint that old Hildebrod threw forth on the
+preceding night, that some communication betwixt himself and Colepepper
+had hastened the catastrophe. As this communication related to the
+plan which Hildebrod had been pleased to form, of promoting a marriage
+betwixt Nigel himself and the rich heiress of Trapbois, the fear
+of losing an opportunity not to be regained, together with the mean
+malignity of a low-bred ruffian, disappointed in a favourite scheme,
+was most likely to instigate the bravo to the deed of violence which
+had been committed. The reflection that his own name was in some
+degree implicated with the causes of this horrid tragedy, doubled Lord
+Glenvarloch's anxiety in behalf of the victim whom he had rescued, while
+at the same time he formed the tacit resolution, that, so soon as his
+own affairs were put upon some footing, he would contribute all in his
+power towards the investigation of this bloody affair.
+
+After ascertaining from his companion that she could form no better plan
+of her own, he recommended to her to take up her lodging for the time,
+at the house of his old landlord, Christie the ship-chandler, at Paul's
+Wharf, describing the decency and honesty of that worthy couple, and
+expressing his hopes that they would receive her into their own house,
+or recommend her at least to that of some person for whom they would be
+responsible, until she should have time to enter upon other arrangements
+for herself.
+
+The poor woman received advice so grateful to her in her desolate
+condition, with an expression of thanks, brief indeed, but deeper
+than any thing had yet extracted from the austerity of her natural
+disposition.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch then proceeded to inform Martha, that certain reasons,
+connected with his personal safety, called him immediately to Greenwich,
+and, therefore, it would not be in his power to accompany her to
+Christie's house, which he would otherwise have done with pleasure: but,
+tearing a leaf from his tablet, he wrote on it a few lines, addressed
+to his landlord, as a man of honesty and humanity, in which he described
+the bearer as a person who stood in singular necessity of temporary
+protection and good advice, for which her circumstances enabled her to
+make ample acknowledgment. He therefore requested John Christie, as his
+old and good friend, to afford her the shelter of his roof for a short
+time; or, if that might not be consistent with his convenience, at least
+to direct her to a proper lodging-and, finally, he imposed on him the
+additional, and somewhat more difficult commission, to recommend her to
+the counsel and services of an honest, at least a reputable and skilful
+attorney, for the transacting some law business of importance. The note
+he subscribed with his real name, and, delivering it to his _protegee_,
+who received it with another deeply uttered "I thank you," which spoke
+the sterling feelings of her gratitude better than a thousand combined
+phrases, he commanded the watermen to pull in for Paul's Wharf, which
+they were now approaching.
+
+"We have not time," said Green-jacket; "we cannot be stopping every
+instant."
+
+But, upon Nigel insisting upon his commands being obeyed, and adding,
+that it was for the purpose of putting the lady ashore, the waterman
+declared that he would rather have her room than her company, and put
+the wherry alongside the wharf accordingly. Here two of the porters, who
+ply in such places, were easily induced to undertake the charge of the
+ponderous strong-box, and at the same time to guide the owner to the
+well-known mansion of John Christie, with whom all who lived in that
+neighbourhood were perfectly acquainted.
+
+The boat, much lightened of its load, went down the Thames at a rate
+increased in proportion. But we must forbear to pursue her in her voyage
+for a few minutes, since we have previously to mention the issue of Lord
+Glenvarloch's recommendation.
+
+Mistress Martha Trapbois reached the shop in perfect safety, and was
+about to enter it, when a sickening sense of the uncertainty of her
+situation, and of the singularly painful task of telling her story, came
+over her so strongly, that she paused a moment at the very threshold
+of her proposed place of refuge, to think in what manner she could best
+second the recommendation of the friend whom Providence had raised up
+to her. Had she possessed that knowledge of the world, from which her
+habits of life had completely excluded her, she might have known
+that the large sum of money which she brought along with her, might,
+judiciously managed, have been a passport to her into the mansions
+of nobles, and the palaces of princes. But, however conscious of its
+general power, which assumes so many forms and complexions, she was so
+inexperienced as to be most unnecessarily afraid that the means by which
+the wealth had been acquired, might exclude its inheretrix from shelter
+even in the house of a humble tradesman.
+
+While she thus delayed, a more reasonable cause for hesitation arose, in
+a considerable noise and altercation within the house, which grew louder
+and louder as the disputants issued forth upon the street or lane before
+the door.
+
+The first who entered upon the scene was a tall raw-boned hard-favoured
+man, who stalked out of the shop hastily, with a gait like that of a
+Spaniard in a passion, who, disdaining to add speed to his locomotion by
+running, only condescends, in the utmost extremity of his angry haste,
+to add length to his stride. He faced about, so soon as he was out
+of the house, upon his pursuer, a decent-looking, elderly, plain
+tradesman--no other than John Christie himself, the owner of the shop
+and tenement, by whom he seemed to be followed, and who was in a state
+of agitation more than is usually expressed by such a person.
+
+"I'll hear no more on't," said the personage who first appeared on the
+scene.--"Sir, I will hear no more on it. Besides being a most false
+and impudent figment, as I can testify--it is _Scandaalum Magnaatum_,
+sir--_Scandaalum Magnaatum_" he reiterated with a broad accentuation of
+the first vowel, well known in the colleges of Edinburgh and Glasgow,
+which we can only express in print by doubling the said first of letters
+and of vowels, and which would have cheered the cockles of the reigning
+monarch had he been within hearing,--as he was a severer stickler for
+what he deemed the genuine pronunciation of the Roman tongue, than for
+any of the royal prerogatives, for which he was at times disposed to
+insist so strenuously in his speeches to Parliament.
+
+"I care not an ounce of rotten cheese," said John Christie in reply,
+"what you call it--but it is TRUE; and I am a free Englishman, and have
+right to speak the truth in my own concerns; and your master is little
+better than a villain, and you no more than a swaggering coxcomb, whose
+head I will presently break, as I have known it well broken before on
+lighter occasion."
+
+And, so saying, he flourished the paring-shovel which usually made clean
+the steps of his little shop, and which he had caught up as the readiest
+weapon of working his foeman damage, and advanced therewith upon him.
+The cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already pronounced
+him, from his language and pedantry) drew back as the enraged
+ship-chandler approached, but in a surly manner, and bearing his hand
+on his sword-hilt rather in the act of one who was losing habitual
+forbearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed by the attack of
+an antagonist inferior to himself in youth, strength, and weapons.
+
+"Bide back," he said, "Maister Christie--I say bide back, and consult
+your safety, man. I have evited striking you in your ain house under
+muckle provocation, because I am ignorant how the laws here may
+pronounce respecting burglary and hamesucken, and such matters; and,
+besides, I would not willingly hurt ye, man, e'en on the causeway, that
+is free to us baith, because I mind your kindness of lang syne, and
+partly consider ye as a poor deceived creature. But deil d--n me, sir,
+and I am not wont to swear, but if you touch my Scotch shouther with
+that shule of yours, I will make six inches of my Andrew Ferrara
+deevilish intimate with your guts, neighbour."
+
+And therewithal, though still retreating from the brandished shovel, he
+made one-third of the basket-hilled broadsword which he wore, visible
+from the sheath. The wrath of John Christie was abated, either by his
+natural temperance of disposition, or perhaps in part by the glimmer of
+cold steel, which flashed on him from his adversary's last action.
+
+"I would do well to cry clubs on thee, and have thee ducked at the
+wharf," he said, grounding his shovel, however, at the same time, "for
+a paltry swaggerer, that would draw thy bit of iron there on an honest
+citizen before his own door; but get thee gone, and reckon on a salt eel
+for thy supper, if thou shouldst ever come near my house again. I wish
+it had been at the bottom of the Thames when it first gave the use of
+its roof to smooth-faced, oily-tongued, double-minded Scots thieves!"
+
+"It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest," replied his adversary, not
+perhaps the less bold that he saw matters were taking the turn of a
+pacific debate; "and a pity it is that a kindly Scot should ever
+have married in foreign parts, and given life to a purse-proud,
+pudding-headed, fat-gutted, lean-brained Southron, e'en such as you,
+Maister Christie. But fare ye weel--fare ye weel, for ever and a day;
+and, if you quarrel wi' a Scot again, man, say as mickle ill o' himsell
+as ye like, but say nane of his patron or of his countrymen, or it will
+scarce be your flat cap that will keep your lang lugs from the sharp
+abridgement of a Highland whinger, man."
+
+"And, if you continue your insolence to me before my own door, were
+it but two minutes longer," retorted John Christie, "I will call the
+constable, and make your Scottish ankles acquainted with an English pair
+of stocks!"
+
+So saying, he turned to retire into his shop with some show of victory;
+for his enemy, whatever might be his innate valour, manifested no
+desire to drive matters to extremity--conscious, perhaps, that whatever
+advantage he might gain in single combat with Jonn Christie, would
+be more than overbalanced by incurring an affair with the constituted
+authorities of Old England, not at that time apt to be particularly
+favourable to their new fellow-subjects, in the various successive
+broils which were then constantly taking place between the individuals
+of two proud nations, who still retained a stronger sense of their
+national animosity during centuries, than of their late union for a few
+years under the government of the same prince.
+
+Mrs. Martha Trapbois had dwelt too long in Alsatia, to be either
+surprised or terrified at the altercation she had witnessed. Indeed,
+she only wondered that the debate did not end in some of those acts of
+violence by which they were usually terminated in the Sanctuary. As
+the disputants separated from each other, she, who had no idea that the
+cause of the quarrel was more deeply rooted than in the daily scenes of
+the same nature which she had heard of or witnessed, did not hesitate to
+stop Master Christie in his return to his shop, and present to him the
+letter which Lord Glenvarloch had given to her. Had she been better
+acquainted with life and its business, she would certainly have waited
+for a more temperate moment; and she had reason to repent of her
+precipitation, when, without saying a single word, or taking the trouble
+to gather more of the information contained in the letter than was
+expressed in the subscription, the incensed ship chandler threw it down
+on the ground, trampled it in high disdain, and, without addressing a
+single word to the bearer, except, indeed, something much more like
+a hearty curse than was perfectly consistent with his own grave
+appearance, he retired into his shop, and shut the hatch-door.
+
+It was with the most inexpressible anguish that the desolate, friendless
+and unhappy female, thus beheld her sole hope of succour, countenance,
+and protection, vanish at once, without being able to conceive a reason;
+for, to do her justice, the idea that her friend, whom she knew by
+the name of Nigel Grahame, had imposed on her, a solution which might
+readily have occurred to many in her situation, never once entered
+her mind. Although it was not her temper easily to bend her mind to
+entreaty, she could not help exclaiming after the ireful and retreating
+ship-chandler,--"Good Master, hear me but a moment! for mercy's sake,
+for honesty's sake!"
+
+"Mercy and honesty from him, mistress!" said the Scot, who, though he
+essayed not to interrupt the retreat of his antagonist, still kept stout
+possession of the field of action,--"ye might as weel expect brandy from
+bean-stalks, or milk from a craig of blue whunstane. The man is mad, bom
+mad, to boot."
+
+"I must have mistaken the person to whom the letter was addressed,
+then;" and, as she spoke, Mistress Martha Trapbois was in the act of
+stooping to lift the paper which had been so uncourteously received. Her
+companion, with natural civility, anticipated her purpose; but, what
+was not quite so much in etiquette, he took a sly glance at it as he was
+about to hand it to her, and his eye having caught the subscription, he
+said, with surprise, "Glenvarloch--Nigel Olifaunt of Glenvarloch! Do you
+know the Lord Glenvarloch, mistress?"
+
+"I know not of whom you speak," said Mrs. Martha, peevishly. "I had that
+paper from one Master Nigel Gram."
+
+"Nigel Grahame!--umph.-O, ay, very true--I had forgot," said the
+Scotsman. "A tall, well-set young man, about my height; bright blue
+eyes like a hawk's; a pleasant speech, something leaning to the kindly
+north-country accentuation, but not much, in respect of his having been
+resident abroad?"
+
+"All this is true--and what of it all?" said the daughter of the miser.
+
+"Hair of my complexion?"
+
+"Yours is red," replied she.
+
+"I pray you peace," said the Scotsman. "I was going to say--of my
+complexion, but with a deeper shade of the chestnut. Weel, mistress, if
+I have guessed the man aright, he is one with whom I am, and have been,
+intimate and familiar,--nay,--I may truly say I have done him much
+service in my time, and may live to do him more. I had indeed a sincere
+good-will for him, and I doubt he has been much at a loss since we
+parted; but the fault is not mine. Wherefore, as this letter will not
+avail you with him to whom it is directed, you may believe that heaven
+hath sent it to me, who have a special regard for the writer--I have,
+besides, as much mercy and honesty within me as man can weel make his
+bread with, and am willing to aid any distressed creature, that is my
+friend's friend, with my counsel, and otherwise, so that I am not put
+to much charges, being in a strange country, like a poor lamb that has
+wandered from its ain native hirsel, and leaves a tait of its woo' in
+every d--d Southron bramble that comes across it." While he spoke thus,
+he read the contents of the letter, without waiting for permission,
+and then continued,--"And so this is all that you are wanting, my dove?
+nothing more than safe and honourable lodging, and sustenance, upon your
+own charges?"
+
+"Nothing more," said she. "If you are a man and a Christian, you will
+help me to what I need so much."
+
+"A man I am," replied the formal Caledonian, "e'en sic as ye see me; and
+a Christian I may call myself, though unworthy, and though I have
+heard little pure doctrine since I came hither--a' polluted with men's
+devices--ahem! Weel, and if ye be an honest woman," (here he peeped
+under her muffler,) "as an honest woman ye seem likely to be--though,
+let me tell you, they are a kind of cattle not so rife in the streets
+of this city as I would desire them--I was almost strangled with my own
+band by twa rampallians, wha wanted yestreen, nae farther gane, to harle
+me into a change-house--however, if ye be a decent honest woman," (here
+he took another peep at features certainly bearing no beauty which
+could infer suspicion,) "as decent and honest ye seem to be, why, I
+will advise you to a decent house, where you will get douce, quiet
+entertainment, on reasonable terms, and the occasional benefit of my
+own counsel and direction--that is, from time to time, as my other
+avocations may permit."
+
+"May I venture to accept of such an offer from a stranger?" said Martha,
+with natural hesitation.
+
+"Troth, I see nothing to hinder you, mistress," replied the bonny Scot;
+"ye can but see the place, and do after as ye think best. Besides, we
+are nae such strangers, neither; for I know your friend, and you,
+it's like, know mine, whilk knowledge, on either hand, is a medium of
+communication between us, even as the middle of the string connecteth
+its twa ends or extremities. But I will enlarge on this farther as we
+pass along, gin ye list to bid your twa lazy loons of porters there lift
+up your little kist between them, whilk ae true Scotsman might carry
+under his arm. Let me tell you, mistress, ye will soon make a toom
+pock-end of it in Lon'on, if you hire twa knaves to do the work of ane."
+
+So saying, he led the way, followed by Mistress Martha Trapbois, whose
+singular destiny, though it had heaped her with wealth, had left her,
+for the moment, no wiser counsellor, or more distinguished protector,
+than honest Richie Moniplies, a discarded serving-man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+  This way lie safety and a sure retreat;
+  Yonder lie danger, shame, and punishment
+  Most welcome danger then--Nay, let me say,
+  Though spoke with swelling heart--welcome e'en shame
+  And welcome punishment--for, call me guilty,
+  I do but pay the tax that's due to justice;
+  And call me guiltless, then that punishment
+  Is shame to those alone who do inflict it,
+                              _The Tribunal_.
+
+We left Lord Glenvarloch, to whose fortunes our story chiefly attaches
+itself, gliding swiftly down the Thames. He was not, as the reader may
+have observed, very affable in his disposition, or apt to enter into
+conversation with those into whose company he was casually thrown. This
+was, indeed, an error in his conduct, arising less from pride, though
+of that feeling we do not pretend to exculpate him, than from a sort of
+bashful reluctance to mix in the conversation of those with whom he was
+not familiar. It is a fault only to be cured by experience and knowledge
+of the world, which soon teaches every sensible and acute person the
+important lesson, that amusement, and, what is of more consequence,
+that information and increase of knowledge, are to be derived from the
+conversation of every individual whatever, with whom he is thrown into
+a natural train of communication. For ourselves, we can assure the
+reader--and perhaps if we have ever been able to afford him amusement,
+it is owing in a great degree to this cause--that we never found
+ourselves in company with the stupidest of all possible companions in a
+post-chaise, or with the most arrant cumber-corner that ever occupied
+a place in the mail-coach, without finding, that, in the course of our
+conversation with him, we had some ideas suggested to us, either grave
+orgay, or some information communicated in the course of our journey,
+which we should have regretted not to have learned, and which we should
+be sorry to have immediately forgotten. But Nigel was somewhat immured
+within the Bastile of his rank, as some philosopher (Tom Paine, we
+think) has happily enough expressed that sort of shyness which men of
+dignified situations are apt to be beset with, rather from not exactly
+knowing how far, or with whom, they ought to be familiar, than from any
+real touch of aristocratic pride. Besides, the immediate pressure of
+our adventurer's own affairs was such as exclusively to engross his
+attention.
+
+He sat, therefore, wrapt in his cloak, in the stern of the boat, with
+his mind entirely bent upon the probable issue of the interview with his
+Sovereign, which it was his purpose to seek; for which abstraction of
+mind he may be fully justified, although perhaps, by questioning
+the watermen who were transporting him down the river, he might have
+discovered matters of high concernment to him.
+
+At any rate, Nigel remained silent till the wherry approached the
+town of Greenwich, when he commanded the men to put in for the nearest
+landing-place, as it was his purpose to go ashore there, and dismiss
+them from further attendance.
+
+"That is not possible," said the fellow with the green jacket, who, as
+we have already said, seemed to take on himself the charge of pilotage.
+"We must go," he continued, "to Gravesend, where a Scottish vessel,
+which dropped down the river last tide for the very purpose, lies
+with her anchor a-peak, waiting to carry you to your own dear northern
+country. Your hammock is slung, and all is ready for you, and you talk
+of going ashore at Greenwich, as seriously as if such a thing were
+possible!"
+
+"I see no impossibility," said Nigel, "in your landing me where I desire
+to be landed; but very little possibility of your carrying me anywhere I
+am not desirous of going."
+
+"Why, whether do you manage the wherry, or we, master?" asked
+Green-jacket, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest; "I take it she will go
+the way we row her."
+
+"Ay," retorted Nigel, "but I take it you will row her on the course I
+direct you, otherwise your chance of payment is but a poor one."
+
+"Suppose we are content to risk that," said the undaunted waterman, "I
+wish to know how you, who talk so big--I mean no offence, master, but
+you do talk big--would help yourself in such a case?"
+
+"Simply thus," answered Lord Glenvarloch--"You saw me, an hour since,
+bring down to the boat a trunk that neither of you could lift. If we are
+to contest the destination of our voyage, the same strength which
+tossed that chest into the wherry, will suffice to fling you out of it;
+wherefore, before we begin the scuffle, I pray you to remember, that,
+whither I would go, there I will oblige you to carry me."
+
+"Gramercy for your kindness," said Green-jacket; "and now mark me in
+return. My comrade and I are two men--and you, were you as stout as
+George-a-Green, can pass but for one; and two, you will allow, are more
+than a match for one. You mistake in your reckoning, my friend."
+
+"It is you who mistake," answered Nigel, who began to grow warm; "it is
+I who am three to two, sirrah--I carry two men's lives at my girdle."
+
+So saying, he opened his cloak and showed the two pistols which he had
+disposed at his girdle. Green-jacket was unmoved at the display.
+
+"I have got," said he, "a pair of barkers that will match yours," and he
+showed that he also was armed with pistols; "so you may begin as soon as
+you list."
+
+"Then," said Lord Glenvarloch, drawing forth and cocking a pistol,
+"the sooner the better. Take notice, I hold you as a ruffian, who have
+declared you will put force on my person; and that I will shoot you
+through the head if you do not instantly put me ashore at Greenwich."
+
+The other waterman, alarmed at Nigel's gesture, lay upon his oar; but
+Green-jacket replied coolly--"Look you, master, I should not care a
+tester to venture a life with you on this matter; but the truth is, I am
+employed to do you good, and not to do you harm."
+
+"By whom are you employed?" said the Lord Glenvarloch; "or who dare
+concern themselves in me, or my affairs, without my authority?"
+
+"As to that," answered the waterman, in the same tone of indifference,
+"I shall not show my commission. For myself, I care not, as I said,
+whether you land at Greenwich to get yourself hanged, or go down to get
+aboard the Royal Thistle, to make your escape to your own country; you
+will be equally out of my reach either way. But it is fair to put the
+choice before you."
+
+"My choice is made," said Nigel. "I have told you thrice already it is
+my pleasure to be landed at Greenwich."
+
+"Write it on a piece of paper," said the waterman, "that such is your
+positive will; I must have something to show to my employers, that the
+transgression of their orders lies with yourself, not with me."
+
+"I choose to hold this trinket in my hand for the present," said Nigel,
+showing his pistol, "and will write you the acquittance when I go
+ashore."
+
+"I would not go ashore with you for a hundred pieces," said the
+waterman. "Ill luck has ever attended you, except in small gaming; do me
+fair justice, and give me the testimony I desire. If you are afraid of
+foul play while you write it, you may hold my pistols, if you will." He
+offered the weapons to Nigel accordingly, who, while they were under
+his control, and all possibility of his being taken at disadvantage was
+excluded, no longer hesitated to give the waterman an acknowledgment, in
+the following terms:--
+
+"Jack in the Green, with his mate, belonging to the wherry called
+the Jolly Raven, have done their duty faithfully by me, landing me
+at Greenwich by my express command; and being themselves willing and
+desirous to carry me on board the Royal Thistle, presently lying at
+Gravesend." Having finished this acknowledgment, which he signed
+with the letters, N. O. G. as indicating his name and title, he again
+requested to know of the waterman, to whom he delivered it, the name of
+his employers.
+
+"Sir," replied Jack in the Green, "I have respected your secret, do not
+you seek to pry into mine. It would do you no good to know for whom I
+am taking this present trouble; and, to be brief, you shall not know
+it--and, if you will fight in the quarrel, as you said even now, the
+sooner we begin the better. Only this you may be cock-sure of, that we
+designed you no harm, and that, if you fall into any, it will be of your
+own wilful seeking." As he spoke, they approached the landing-place,
+where Nigel instantly jumped ashore. The waterman placed his small
+mail-trunk on the stairs, observing that there were plenty of spare
+hands about, to carry it where he would.
+
+"We part friends, I hope, my lads," said the young nobleman, offering at
+the same time a piece of money more than double the usual fare, to the
+boatmen.
+
+"We part as we met," answered Green-jacket; "and, for your money, I am
+paid sufficiently with this bit of paper. Only, if you owe me any love
+for the cast I have given you, I pray you not to dive so deep into the
+pockets of the next apprentice that you find fool enough to play the
+cavalier.--And you, you greedy swine," said he to his companion, who
+still had a longing eye fixed on the money which Nigel continued to
+offer, "push off, or, if I take a stretcher in hand, I'll break the
+knave's pate of thee." The fellow pushed off, as he was commanded, but
+still could not help muttering, "This was entirely out of waterman's
+rules."
+
+Glenvarloch, though without the devotion of the "injured Thales" of the
+moralist, to the memory of that great princess, had now attained
+
+     "The hallow'd soil which gave Eliza birth,"
+
+whose halls were now less respectably occupied by her successor. It was
+not, as has been well shown by a late author, that James was void either
+of parts or of good intentions; and his predecessor was at least as
+arbitrary in effect as he was in theory. But, while Elizabeth possessed
+a sternness of masculine sense and determination which rendered even her
+weaknesses, some of which were in themselves sufficiently ridiculous, in
+a certain degree respectable, James, on the other hand, was so utterly
+devoid of "firm resolve," so well called by the Scottish bard,
+
+     "The stalk of carle-hemp in man,"
+
+that even his virtues and his good meaning became laughable, from the
+whimsical uncertainty of his conduct; so that the wisest things he ever
+said, and the best actions he ever did, were often touched with a strain
+of the ludicrous and fidgety character of the man. Accordingly, though
+at different periods of his reign he contrived to acquire with his
+people a certain degree of temporary popularity, it never long outlived
+the occasion which produced it; so true it is, that the mass of mankind
+will respect a monarch stained with actual guilt, more than one whose
+foibles render him only ridiculous.
+
+To return from this digression, Lord Glenvarloch soon received, as
+Green-jacket had assured him, the offer of an idle bargeman to transport
+his baggage where he listed; but that where was a question of momentary
+doubt. At length, recollecting the necessity that his hair and beard
+should be properly arranged before he attempted to enter the royal
+presence, and desirous, at the same time, of obtaining some information
+of the motions of the Sovereign and of the Court, he desired to be
+guided to the next barber's shop, which we have already mentioned as
+the place where news of every kind circled and centred. He was speedily
+shown the way to such an emporium of intelligence, and soon found he was
+likely to hear all he desired to know, and much more, while his head was
+subjected to the art of a nimble tonsor, the glibness of whose tongue
+kept pace with the nimbleness of his fingers while he ran on, without
+stint or stop, in the following excursive manner:--
+
+"The Court here, master?--yes, master--much to the advantage of
+trade--good custom stirring. His Majesty loves Greenwich--hunts every
+morning in the Park--all decent persons admitted that have the entries
+of the Palace--no rabble--frightened the king's horse with their
+hallooing, the uncombed slaves.--Yes, sir, the beard more peaked?
+Yes, master, so it is worn. I know the last cut--dress several of the
+courtiers--one valet-of-the-chamber, two pages of the body, the clerk
+of the kitchen, three running footmen, two dog-boys, and an honourable
+Scottish knight, Sir Munko Malgrowler."
+
+"Malagrowther, I suppose?" said Nigel, thrusting in his conjectural
+emendation, with infinite difficulty, betwixt two clauses of the
+barber's text.
+
+"Yes, sir--Malcrowder, sir, as you say, sir--hard names the Scots have,
+sir, for an English mouth. Sir Munko is a handsome person, sir--perhaps
+you know him--bating the loss of his fingers, and the lameness of his
+leg, and the length of his chin. Sir, it takes me one minute, twelve
+seconds, more time to trim that chin of his, than any chin that I know
+in the town of Greenwich, sir. But he is a very comely gentleman,
+for all that; and a pleasant--a very pleasant gentleman, sir--and a
+good-humoured, saving that he is so deaf he can never hear good of
+any one, and so wise, that he can never believe it; but he is a very
+good-natured gentleman for all that, except when one speaks too low, or
+when a hair turns awry.--Did I graze you, sir? We shall put it to rights
+in a moment, with one drop of styptic--my styptic, or rather my wife's,
+sir--She makes the water herself. One drop of the styptic, sir, and a
+bit of black taffeta patch, just big enough to be the saddle to a flea,
+sir--Yes, sir, rather improves than otherwise. The Prince had a patch
+the other day, and so had the Duke: and, if you will believe me, there
+are seventeen yards three quarters of black taffeta already cut into
+patches for the courtiers."
+
+"But Sir Mungo Malagrowther?" again interjected Nigel, with difficulty.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir--Sir Munko, as you say; a pleasant, good-humoured gentleman
+as ever--To be spoken with, did you say? O ay, easily to be spoken
+withal, that is, as easily as his infirmity will permit. He will
+presently, unless some one hath asked him forth to breakfast, be taking
+his bone of broiled beef at my neighbour Ned Kilderkin's yonder,
+removed from over the way. Ned keeps an eating-house, sir, famous for
+pork-griskins; but Sir Munko cannot abide pork, no more than the
+King's most Sacred Majesty,[Footnote: The Scots, till within the last
+generation, disliked swine's flesh as an article of food as much as the
+Highlanders do at present. It was remarked as extraordinary rapacity,
+when the Border depredators condescended to make prey of the accursed
+race, whom the fiend made his habitation. Ben Jonson, in drawing James's
+character, says, he loved "no part of a swine."] nor my Lord Duke of
+Lennox, nor Lord Dalgarno,--nay, I am sure, sir, if I touched you this
+time, it was your fault, not mine.--But a single drop of the styptic,
+another little patch that would make a doublet for a flea, just under
+the left moustache; it will become you when you smile, sir, as well as
+a dimple; and if you would salute your fair mistress--but I beg pardon,
+you are a grave gentleman, very grave to be so young.--Hope I have given
+no offence; it is my duty to entertain customers--my duty, sir, and my
+pleasure--Sir Munko Malcrowther?--yes, sir, I dare say he is at this
+moment in Ned's eating-house, for few folks ask him out, now Lord
+Huntinglen is gone to London. You will get touched again--yes,
+sir--there you shall find him with his can of single ale, stirred with a
+sprig of rosemary, for he never drinks strong potations, sir, unless to
+oblige Lord Huntinglen--take heed, sir--or any other person who asks him
+forth to breakfast--but single beer he always drinks at Ned's, with his
+broiled bone of beef or mutton--or, it may be, lamb at the season--but
+not pork, though Ned is famous for his griskins. But the Scots never eat
+pork--strange that! some folk think they are a sort of Jews. There is a
+resemblance, sir,--Do you not think so? Then they call our most gracious
+Sovereign the Second Solomon, and Solomon, you know, was King of the
+Jews; so the thing bears a face, you see. I believe, sir, you will
+find yourself trimmed now to your content. I will be judged by the fair
+mistress of your affections. Crave pardon--no offence, I trust. Pray,
+consult the glass--one touch of the crisping tongs, to reduce this
+straggler.--Thank your munificence, sir--hope your custom while you stay
+in Greenwich. Would you have a tune on that ghittern, to put your temper
+in concord for the day?--Twang, twang--twang, twang, dillo. Something
+out of tune, sir--too many hands to touch it--we cannot keep these
+things like artists. Let me help you with your cloak, sir--yes,
+sir--You would not play yourself, sir, would you?--Way to Sir Munko's
+eating-house?--Yes, sir; but it is Ned's eating-house, not Sir
+Munko's.--The knight, to be sure, eats there, and makes it his
+eating-house in some sense, sir--ha, ha! Yonder it is, removed from over
+the way, new white-washed posts, and red lattice--fat man in his doublet
+at the door--Ned himself, sir--worth a thousand pounds, they say--better
+singeing pigs' faces than trimming courtiers--but ours is the less
+mechanical vocation.--Farewell, sir; hope your custom." So saying, he
+at length permitted Nigel to depart, whose ears, so long tormented with
+continued babble, tingled when it had ceased, as if a bell had been rung
+close to them for the same space of time.
+
+Upon his arrival at the eating-house, where he proposed to meet with Sir
+Mungo Malagrowther, from whom, in despair of better advice, he trusted
+to receive some information as to the best mode of introducing himself
+into the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host with whom
+he communed, the consequential taciturnity of an Englishman well to pass
+in the world. Ned Kilderkin spoke as a banker writes, only touching the
+needful. Being asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied,
+No. Being interrogated whether he was expected? he said, Yes. And being
+again required to say when he was expected, he answered, Presently.
+As Lord Glenvarloch next inquired, whether he himself could have any
+breakfast? the landlord wasted not even a syllable in reply, but,
+ushering him into a neat room where there were several tables, he placed
+one of them before an armchair, and beckoning Lord Glenvarloch to take
+possession, he set before him, in a very few minutes, a substantial
+repast of roast-beef, together with a foaming tankard, to which
+refreshment the keen air of the river disposed him, notwithstanding his
+mental embarrassments, to do much honour.
+
+While Nigel was thus engaged in discussing his commons, but raising his
+head at the same time whenever he heard the door of the apartment open,
+eagerly desiring the arrival of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, (an event which
+had seldom been expected by any one with so much anxious interest,) a
+personage, as it seemed, of at least equal importance with the knight,
+entered into the apartment, and began to hold earnest colloquy with
+the publican, who thought proper to carry on the conference on his side
+unbonneted. This important gentleman's occupation might be guessed from
+his dress. A milk-white jerkin, and hose of white kersey; a white apron
+twisted around his body in the manner of a sash, in which, instead of a
+war-like dagger, was stuck a long-bladed knife, hilted with buck's-horn;
+a white nightcap on his head, under which his hair was neatly tucked,
+sufficiently pourtrayed him as one of those priests of Comus whom the
+vulgar call cooks; and the air with which he rated the publican for
+having neglected to send some provisions to the Palace, showed that he
+ministered to royalty itself.
+
+"This will never answer," he said, "Master Kilderkin--the king twice
+asked for sweetbreads, and fricasseed coxcombs, which are a favourite
+dish of his most Sacred Majesty, and they were not to be had, because
+Master Kilderkin had not supplied them to the clerk of the kitchen, as
+by bargain bound." Here Kilderkin made some apology, brief, according
+to his own nature, and muttered in a lowly tone after the fashion of all
+who find themselves in a scrape. His superior replied, in a lofty
+strain of voice, "Do not tell me of the carrier and his wain, and of the
+hen-coops coming from Norfolk with the poultry; a loyal man would have
+sent an express--he would have gone upon his stumps, like Widdrington.
+What if the king had lost his appetite, Master Kilderkin? What if his
+most Sacred Majesty had lost his dinner? O, Master Kilderkin, if you had
+but the just sense of the dignity of our profession, which is told of
+by the witty African slave, for so the king's most excellent Majesty
+designates him, Publius Terentius, _Tanguam in specula--in patinas
+inspicerejubeo_."
+
+"You are learned, Master Linklater," replied the English publican,
+compelling, as it were with difficulty, his mouth to utter three or four
+words consecutively.
+
+"A poor smatterer," said Mr. Linklater; "but it would be a shame to us,
+who are his most excellent Majesty's countrymen, not in some sort to
+have cherished those arts wherewith he is so deeply embued--_Regis ad
+exemplar_, Master Kilderkin, _totus componitur orbis_--which is as
+much as to say, as the king quotes the cook learns. In brief, Master
+Kilderkin, having had the luck to be bred where humanities may be had
+at the matter of an English five groats by the quarter, I, like others,
+have acquired--ahem-hem!--" Here, the speaker's eye having fallen upon
+Lord Glenvarloch, he suddenly stopped in his learned harangue, with
+such symptoms of embarrassment as induced Ned Kilderkin to stretch his
+taciturnity so far as not only to ask him what he ailed, but whether he
+would take any thing.
+
+"Ail nothing," replied the learned rival of the philosophical Syrus;
+"Nothing--and yet I do feel a little giddy. I could taste a glass of
+your dame's _aqua mirabilis_."
+
+"I will fetch it," said Ned, giving a nod; and his back was no sooner
+turned, than the cook walked near the table where Lord Glenvarloch was
+seated, and regarding him with a look of significance, where more was
+meant than met the ear, said,--"You are a stranger in Greenwich, sir.
+I advise you to take the opportunity to step into the Park--the western
+wicket was ajar when I came hither; I think it will be locked presently,
+so you had better make the best of your way--that is, if you have any
+curiosity. The venison are coming into season just now, sir, and there
+is a pleasure in looking at a hart of grease. I always think when they
+are bounding so blithely past, what a pleasure it would be, to broach
+their plump haunches on a spit, and to embattle their breasts in a noble
+fortification of puff-paste, with plenty of black pepper."
+
+He said no more, as Kilderkin re-entered with the cordial, but edged off
+from Nigel without waiting any reply, only repeating the same look of
+intelligence with which he had accosted him.
+
+Nothing makes men's wits so alert as personal danger. Nigel took the
+first opportunity which his host's attention to the yeoman of the royal
+kitchen permitted, to discharge his reckoning, and readily obtained a
+direction to the wicket in question. He found it upon the latch, as
+he had been taught to expect; and perceived that it admitted him to a
+narrow footpath, which traversed a close and tangled thicket, designed
+for the cover of the does and the young fawns. Here he conjectured it
+would be proper to wait; nor had he been stationary above five minutes,
+when the cook, scalded as much with heat of motion as ever he had been
+by his huge fire-place, arrived almost breathless, and with his pass-key
+hastily locked the wicket behind him.
+
+Ere Lord Glenvarloch had time to speculate upon this action, the man
+approached with anxiety, and said--"Good lord, my Lord Glenvarloch!--why
+will you endanger yourself thus?"
+
+"You know me then, my friend?" said Nigel.
+
+"Not much of that, my lord--but I know your honour's noble house
+well.--My name is Laurie Linklater, my lord."
+
+"Linklater!" repeated Nigel. "I should recollect--'
+
+"Under your lordship's favour," he continued, "I was 'prentice, my
+lord, to old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher at the wanton West-Port of
+Edinburgh, which I wish I saw again before I died. And, your honour's
+noble father having taken Richie Moniplies into his house to wait on
+your lordship, there was a sort of connexion, your lordship sees."
+
+"Ah!" said Lord Glenvarloch, "I had almost forgot your name, but not
+your kind purpose. You tried to put Richie in the way of presenting a
+supplication to his Majesty?"
+
+"Most true, my lord," replied the king's cook. "I had like to have come
+by mischief in the job; for Richie, who was always wilful, 'wadna be
+guided by me,' as the sang says. But nobody amongst these brave English
+cooks can kittle up his Majesty's most sacred palate with our own gusty
+Scottish dishes. So I e'en betook myself to my craft, and concocted a
+mess of friar's chicken for the soup, and a savoury hachis, that made
+the whole cabal coup the crans; and, instead of disgrace, I came
+by preferment. I am one of the clerks of the kitchen now, make me
+thankful--with a finger in the purveyor's office, and may get my whole
+hand in by and by."
+
+"I am truly glad," said Nigel, "to hear that you have not suffered on my
+account,--still more so at your good fortune."
+
+"You bear a kind heart, my lord," said Linklater, "and do not forget
+poor people; and, troth, I see not why they should be forgotten, since
+the king's errand may sometimes fall in the cadger's gate. I have
+followed your lordship in the street, just to look at such a stately
+shoot of the old oak-tree; and my heart jumped into my throat, when I
+saw you sitting openly in the eating-house yonder, and knew there was
+such danger to your person."
+
+"What! there are warrants against me, then?" said Nigel.
+
+"It is even true, my lord; and there are those who are willing to
+blacken you as much as they can.--God forgive them, that would sacrifice
+an honourable house for their own base ends!"
+
+"Amen," said Nigel.
+
+"For, say your lordship may have been a little wild, like other young
+gentlemen--"
+
+"We have little time to talk of it, my friend," said Nigel. "The point
+in question is, how am I to get speech of the king?"
+
+"The king, my lord!" said Linklater in astonishment; "why, will not that
+be rushing wilfully into danger?--scalding yourself, as I may say, with
+your own ladle?"
+
+"My good friend," answered Nigel, "my experience of the Court, and
+my knowledge of the circumstances in which I stand, tell me, that the
+manliest and most direct road is, in my case, the surest and the safest.
+The king has both a head to apprehend what is just, and a heart to do
+what is kind."
+
+"It is e'en true, my lord, and so we, his old servants, know," added
+Linklater; "but, woe's me, if you knew how many folks make it their
+daily and nightly purpose to set his head against his heart, and his
+heart against his head--to make him do hard things because they are
+called just, and unjust things because they are represented as kind.
+Woe's me! it is with his Sacred Majesty, and the favourites who work
+upon him, even according to the homely proverb that men taunt my calling
+with,--'God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks.'"
+
+"It signifies not talking of it, my good friend," said Nigel, "I must
+take my risk, my honour peremptorily demands it. They may maim me, or
+beggar me, but they shall not say I fled from my accusers. My peers
+shall hear my vindication."
+
+"Your peers?" exclaimed the cook--"Alack-a-day, my lord, we are not in
+Scotland, where the nobles can bang it out bravely, were it even
+with the king himself, now and then. This mess must be cooked in the
+Star-Chamber, and that is an oven seven times heated, my lord;--and yet,
+if you are determined to see the king, I will not say but you may find
+some favour, for he likes well any thing that is appealed directly to
+his own wisdom, and sometimes, in the like cases, I have known him stick
+by his own opinion, which is always a fair one. Only mind, if you will
+forgive me, my lord--mind to spice high with Latin; a curn or two of
+Greek would not be amiss; and, if you can bring in any thing about the
+judgment of Solomon, in the original Hebrew, and season with a merry
+jest or so, the dish will be the more palatable.--Truly, I think, that,
+besides my skill in art, I owe much to the stripes of the Rector of
+the High School, who imprinted on my mind that cooking scene in
+the Heautontimorumenos."
+
+"Leaving that aside, my friend," said Lord Glenvarloch, "can you inform
+me which way I shall most readily get to the sight and speech of the
+king?"
+
+"To the sight of him readily enough," said Linklater; "he is galloping
+about these alleys, to see them strike the hart, to get him an appetite
+for a nooning--and that reminds me I should be in the kitchen. To the
+speech of the king you will not come so easily, unless you could either
+meet him alone, which rarely chances, or wait for him among the
+crowd that go to see him alight. And now, farewell, my lord, and God
+speed!--if I could do more for you, I would offer it."
+
+"You have done enough, perhaps, to endanger yourself," said Lord
+Glenvarloch. "I pray you to be gone, and leave me to my fate."
+
+The honest cook lingered, but a nearer burst of the horns apprized him
+that there was no time to lose; and, acquainting Nigel that he would
+leave the postern-door on the latch to secure his retreat in that
+direction, he bade God bless him, and farewell.
+
+In the kindness of this humble countryman, flowing partly from national
+partiality, partly from a sense of long-remembered benefits, which had
+been scarce thought on by those who had bestowed them, Lord Glenvarloch
+thought he saw the last touch of sympathy which he was to receive in
+this cold and courtly region, and felt that he must now be sufficient to
+himself, or be utterly lost.
+
+He traversed more than one alley, guided by the sounds of the chase,
+and met several of the inferior attendants upon the king's sport, who
+regarded him only as one of the spectators who were sometimes permitted
+to enter the Park by the concurrence of the officers about the Court.
+Still there was no appearance of James, or any of his principal
+courtiers, and Nigel began to think whether, at the risk of incurring
+disgrace similar to that which had attended the rash exploit of Richie
+Moniplies, he should not repair to the Palace-gate, in order to address
+the king on his return, when Fortune presented him the opportunity of
+doing so, in her own way.
+
+He was in one of those long walks by which the Park was traversed, when
+he heard, first a distant rustling, then the rapid approach of hoofs
+shaking the firm earth on which he stood; then a distant halloo, warned
+by which he stood up by the side of the avenue, leaving free room for
+the passage of the chase. The stag, reeling, covered with foam, and
+blackened with sweat, his nostrils extended as he gasped for breath,
+made a shift to come up as far as where Nigel stood, and, without
+turning to bay, was there pulled down by two tall greyhounds of the
+breed still used by the hardy deer-stalkers of the Scottish Highlands,
+but which has been long unknown in England. One dog struck at the buck's
+throat, another dashed his sharp nose and fangs, I might almost
+say, into the animal's bowels. It would have been natural for Lord
+Glenvarloch, himself persecuted as if by hunters, to have thought upon
+the occasion like the melancholy Jacques; but habit is a strange matter,
+and I fear that his feelings on the occasion were rather those of the
+practised huntsman than of the moralist. He had no time, however, to
+indulge them, for mark what befell.
+
+A single horseman followed the chase, upon a steed so thoroughly
+subjected to the rein, that it obeyed the touch of the bridle as if
+it had been a mechanical impulse operating on the nicest piece of
+machinery; so that, seated deep in his demipique saddle, and so trussed
+up there as to make falling almost impossible, the rider, without either
+fear or hesitation, might increase or diminish the speed at which he
+rode, which, even on the most animating occasions of the chase, seldom
+exceeded three-fourths of a gallop, the horse keeping his haunches
+under him, and never stretching forward beyond the managed pace of
+the academy. The security with which he chose to prosecute even this
+favourite, and, in the ordinary case, somewhat dangerous amusement, as
+well as the rest of his equipage, marked King James. No attendant was
+within sight; indeed, it was often a nice strain of flattery to permit
+the Sovereign to suppose he had outridden and distanced all the rest of
+the chase.
+
+"Weel dune, Bash--weel dune, Battie!" he exclaimed as he came up. "By
+the honour of a king, ye are a credit to the Braes of Balwhither!--Haud
+my horse, man," he called out to Nigel, without stopping to see to whom
+he had addressed himself--"Haud my naig, and help me doun out o' the
+saddle--deil ding your saul, sirrah, canna ye mak haste before these
+lazy smaiks come up?--haud the rein easy--dinna let him swerve--now,
+haud the stirrup--that will do, man, and now we are on terra firma."
+So saying, without casting an eye on his assistant, gentle King Jamie,
+unsheathing the short, sharp hanger, (_couteau de chasse_,) which was
+the only thing approaching to a sword that he could willingly endure the
+sight of, drew the blade with great satisfaction across the throat of
+the buck, and put an end at once to its struggles and its agonies.
+
+Lord Glenvarloch, who knew well the silvan duty which the occasion
+demanded, hung the bridle of the king's palfrey on the branch of a tree,
+and, kneeling duteously down, turned the slaughtered deer upon its back,
+and kept the _quarree_ in that position, while the king, too intent upon
+his sport to observe any thing else, drew his _couteau_ down the breast
+of the animal, _secundum artem_; and, having made a cross cut, so as to
+ascertain the depth of the fat upon the chest, exclaimed, in a sort of
+rapture, "Three inches of white fat on the brisket!--prime--prime--as
+I am a crowned sinner--and deil ane o' the lazy loons in but mysell!
+Seven--aught--aught tines on the antlers. By G--d, a hart of aught
+tines, and the first of the season! Bash and Battie, blessings on the
+heart's-root of ye! Buss me, my bairns, buss me." The dogs accordingly
+fawned upon him, licked him with bloody jaws, and soon put him in such
+a state that it might have seemed treason had been doing its full work
+upon his anointed body. "Bide doun, with a mischief to ye--bide doun,
+with a wanion," cried the king, almost overturned by the obstreperous
+caresses of the large stag-hounds. "But ye are just like ither folks,
+gie ye an inch and ye take an ell.--And wha may ye be, friend?" he said,
+now finding leisure to take a nearer view of Nigel, and observing what
+in his first emotion of silvan delight had escaped him,--"Ye are nane
+of our train, man. In the name of God, what the devil are ye?"
+
+"An unfortunate man, sire," replied Nigel.
+
+"I dare say that," answered the king, snappishly, "or I wad have seen
+naething of you. My lieges keep a' their happiness to themselves; but
+let bowls row wrang wi' them, and I am sure to hear of it."
+
+"And to whom else can we carry our complaints but to your Majesty, who
+is Heaven's vicegerent over us!" answered Nigel.
+
+"Right, man, right--very weel spoken," said the king; "but you should
+leave Heaven's vicegerent some quiet on earth, too."
+
+"If your Majesty will look on me," (for hitherto the king had been
+so busy, first with the dogs, and then with the mystic operation of
+_breaking_, in vulgar phrase, cutting up the deer, that he had scarce
+given his assistant above a transient glance,) "you will see whom
+necessity makes bold to avail himself of an opportunity which may never
+again occur."
+
+King James looked; his blood left his cheek, though it continued stained
+with that of the animal which lay at his feet, he dropped the knife from
+his hand, cast behind him a faltering eye, as if he either
+meditated flight or looked out for assistance, and then
+exclaimed,--"Glenvarlochides! as sure as I was christened James Stewart.
+Here is a bonny spot of work, and me alone, and on foot too!" he added,
+bustling to get upon his horse.
+
+"Forgive me that I interrupt you, my liege," said Nigel, placing himself
+between the king and his steed; "hear me but a moment!"
+
+"I'll hear ye best on horseback," said the king. "I canna hear a word
+on foot, man, not a word; and it is not seemly to stand cheek-for-chowl
+confronting us that gate. Bide out of our gate, sir, we charge you on
+your allegiance.--The deil's in them a', what can they be doing?"
+
+"By the crown that you wear, my liege," said Nigel, "and for which my
+ancestors have worthily fought, I conjure you to be composed, and to
+hear me but a moment!"
+
+That which he asked was entirely out of the monarch's power to grant.
+The timidity which he showed was not the plain downright cowardice,
+which, like a natural impulse, compels a man to flight, and which can
+excite little but pity or contempt, but a much more ludicrous, as well
+as more mingled sensation. The poor king was frightened at once and
+angry, desirous of securing his safety, and at the same time ashamed
+to compromise his dignity; so that without attending to what Lord
+Glenvarloch endeavoured to explain, he kept making at his horse, and
+repeating, "We are a free king, man,--we are a free king--we will not be
+controlled by a subject.--In the name of God, what keeps Steenie? And,
+praised be his name, they are coming--Hillo, ho--here, here--Steenie,
+Steenie!"
+
+The Duke of Buckingham galloped up, followed by several courtiers
+and attendants of the royal chase, and commenced with his usual
+familiarity,--"I see Fortune has graced our dear dad, as usual.--But
+what's this?"
+
+"What is it? It is treason for what I ken," said the king; "and a' your
+wyte, Steenie. Your dear dad and gossip might have been murdered, for
+what you care."
+
+"Murdered? Secure the villain!" exclaimed the Duke. "By Heaven, it is
+Olifaunt himself!" A dozen of the hunters dismounted at once, letting
+their horses run wild through the park. Some seized roughly on Lord
+Glenvarloch, who thought it folly to offer resistance, while others
+busied themselves with the king. "Are you wounded, my liege--are you
+wounded?"
+
+"Not that I ken of," said the king, in the paroxysm of his apprehension,
+(which, by the way, might be pardoned in one of so timorous a
+temper, and who, in his time, had been exposed to so many strange
+attempts)--"Not that I ken of--but search him--search him. I am sure I
+saw fire-arms under his cloak. I am sure I smelled powder--I am dooms
+sure of that."
+
+Lord Glenvarloch's cloak being stripped off, and his pistols discovered,
+a shout of wonder and of execration on the supposed criminal purpose,
+arose from the crowd now thickening every moment. Not that celebrated
+pistol, which, though resting on a bosom as gallant and as loyal as
+Nigel's, spread such cause less alarm among knights and dames at a late
+high solemnity--not that very pistol caused more temporary consternation
+than was so groundlessly excited by the arms which were taken from Lord
+Glenvarloch's person; and not Mhic-Allastar-More himself could repel
+with greater scorn and indignation, the insinuations that they were worn
+for any sinister purposes.
+
+"Away with the wretch--the parricide--the bloody-minded villain!" was
+echoed on all hands; and the king, who naturally enough set the same
+value on his own life, at which it was, or seemed to be, rated by
+others, cried out, louder than all the rest, "Ay, ay--away with him.
+I have had enough of him and so has the country. But do him no bodily
+harm--and, for God's sake, sirs, if ye are sure ye have thoroughly
+disarmed him, put up your swords, dirks, and skenes, for you will
+certainly do each other a mischief."
+
+There was a speedy sheathing of weapons at the king's command; for those
+who had hitherto been brandishing them in loyal bravado, began thereby
+to call to mind the extreme dislike which his Majesty nourished against
+naked steel, a foible which seemed to be as constitutional as his
+timidity, and was usually ascribed to the brutal murder of Rizzio having
+been perpetrated in his unfortunate mother's presence before he yet saw
+the light.
+
+At this moment, the Prince, who had been hunting in a different part
+of the then extensive Park, and had received some hasty and confused
+information of what was going forward, came rapidly up, with one or two
+noblemen in his train, and amongst others Lord Dalgarno. He sprung from
+his horse and asked eagerly if his father were wounded.
+
+"Not that I am sensible of, Baby Charles--but a wee matter exhausted,
+with struggling single-handed with the assassin.--Steenie, fill up a cup
+of wine--the leathern bottle is hanging at our pommel.--Buss me, then,
+Baby Charles," continued the monarch, after he had taken this cup of
+comfort; "O man, the Commonwealth and you have had a fair escape from
+the heavy and bloody loss of a dear father; for we are _pater patriae_,
+as weel as _pater familias_.-_Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tarn
+cari capitis!_-Woe is me, black cloth would have been dear in England,
+and dry een scarce!"
+
+And, at the very idea of the general grief which must have attended his
+death, the good-natured monarch cried heartily himself.
+
+"Is this possible?" said Charles, sternly; for his pride was hurt at
+his father's demeanour on the one hand, while on the other, he felt the
+resentment of a son and a subject, at the supposed attempt on the
+king's life. "Let some one speak who has seen what happened--My Lord of
+Buckingham!"
+
+"I cannot say my lord," replied the Duke, "that I saw any actual
+violence offered to his Majesty, else I should have avenged him on the
+spot."
+
+"You would have done wrong, then, in your zeal, George," answered the
+Prince; "such offenders were better left to be dealt with by the laws.
+But was the villain not struggling with his Majesty?"
+
+"I cannot term it so, my lord," said the Duke, who, with many faults,
+would have disdained an untruth; "he seemed to desire to detain his
+Majesty, who, on the contrary, appeared to wish to mount his horse; but
+they have found pistols on his person, contrary to the proclamation,
+and, as it proves to be by Nigel Olifaunt, of whose ungoverned
+disposition your Royal Highness has seen some samples, we seem to be
+justified in apprehending the worst."
+
+"Nigel Olifaunt!" said the Prince; "can that unhappy man so soon have
+engaged in a new trespass? Let me see those pistols."
+
+"Ye are not so unwise as to meddle with such snap-haunces, Baby
+Charles?" said James--"Do not give him them, Steenie--I command you
+on your allegiance! They may go off of their own accord, whilk often
+befalls.--You will do it, then?--Saw ever a man sic wilful bairns as we
+are cumbered with!--Havena we guardsmen and soldiers enow, but you must
+unload the weapons yoursell--you, the heir of our body and dignities,
+and sae mony men around that are paid for venturing life in our cause?"
+
+But without regarding his father's exclamations, Prince Charles, with
+the obstinacy which characterised him in trifles, as well as matters of
+consequence, persisted in unloading the pistols with his own hand, of
+the double bullets with which each was charged. The hands of all around
+were held up in astonishment at the horror of the crime supposed to have
+been intended, and the escape which was presumed so narrow.
+
+Nigel had not yet spoken a word--he now calmly desired to be heard.
+
+"To what purpose?" answered the Prince coldly. "You knew yourself
+accused of a heavy offence, and, instead of rendering yourself up to
+justice, in terms of the proclamation, you are here found intruding
+yourself on his Majesty's presence, and armed with unlawful weapons."
+
+"May it please you, sir," answered Nigel, "I wore these unhappy weapons
+for my own defence; and not very many hours since they were necessary to
+protect the lives of others."
+
+"Doubtless, my lord," answered the Prince, still calm and
+unmoved,--"your late mode of life, and the associates with whom you have
+lived, have made you familiar with scenes and weapons of violence. But
+it is not to me you are to plead your cause."
+
+"Hear me--hear me, noble Prince!" said Nigel, eagerly. "Hear me!
+You--even you yourself--may one day ask to be heard, and in vain."
+
+"How, sir," said the Prince, haughtily--"how am I to construe that, my
+lord?"
+
+"If not on earth, sir," replied the prisoner, "yet to Heaven we must all
+pray for patient and favourable audience."
+
+"True, my lord," said the Prince, bending his head with haughty
+acquiescence; "nor would I now refuse such audience to you, could it
+avail you. But you shall suffer no wrong. We will ourselves look into
+your case."
+
+"Ay, ay," answered the king, "he hath made _appellatio ad Casarem_--we
+will interrogate Glenvarlochides ourselves, time and place fitting; and,
+in the meanwhile, have him and his weapons away, for I am weary of the
+sight of them."
+
+In consequence of directions hastily given, Nigel was accordingly
+removed from the presence, where, however, his words had not altogether
+fallen to the ground. "This is a most strange matter, George," said
+the Prince to the favourite; "this gentleman hath a good countenance, a
+happy presence, and much calm firmness in his look and speech. I cannot
+think he would attempt a crime so desperate and useless."
+
+"I profess neither love nor favour to the young man," answered
+Buckingham, whose high-spirited ambition bore always an open character:
+"but I cannot but agree with your Highness, that our dear gossip hath
+been something hasty in apprehending personal danger from him."
+
+"By my saul, Steenie, ye are not blate, to say so!" said the king. "Do I
+not ken the smell of pouther, think ye? Who else nosed out the Fifth of
+November, save our royal selves? Cecil, and Suffolk, and all of them,
+were at fault, like sae mony mongrel tikes, when I puzzled it out:
+and trow ye that I cannot smell pouther? Why, 'sblood, man, Joannes
+Barclaius thought my ingine was in some measure inspiration, and terms
+his history of the plot, Series patefacti divinitus parricidii; and
+Spondanus, in like manner, saith of us, Divinitus evasit."
+
+"The land was happy in your Majesty's escape," said the Duke of
+Buckingham, "and not less in the quick wit which tracked that labyrinth
+of treason by so fine and almost invisible a clew."
+
+"Saul, man, Steenie, ye are right! There are few youths have sic true
+judgment as you, respecting the wisdom of their elders; and, as for this
+fause, traitorous smaik, I doubt he is a hawk of the same nest. Saw ye
+not something papistical about him? Let them look that he bears not a
+crucifix, or some sic Roman trinket, about him."
+
+"It would ill become me to attempt the exculpation of this unhappy man,"
+said Lord Dalgarno, "considering the height of his present attempt,
+which has made all true men's blood curdle in their veins. Yet I cannot
+avoid intimating, with all due submission to his Majesty's infallible
+judgment, in justice to one who showed himself formerly only my enemy,
+though he now displays himself in much blacker colours, that this
+Olifaunt always appeared to me more as a Puritan than as a Papist."
+
+"Ah, Dalgarno, art thou there, man?" said the king. "And ye behoved to
+keep back, too, and leave us to our own natural strength and the care of
+Providence, when we were in grips with the villain!"
+
+"Providence, may it please your most Gracious Majesty, would not fail
+to aid, in such a strait, the care of three weeping kingdoms," said Lord
+Dalgarno.
+
+"Surely, man--surely," replied the king--"but a sight of your father,
+with his long whinyard, would have been a blithe matter a short while
+syne; and in future we will aid the ends of Providence in our favour,
+by keeping near us two stout beef-eaters of the guard.--And so this
+Olifaunt is a Puritan?--not the less like to be a Papist, for all
+that--for extremities meet, as the scholiast proveth. There are, as I
+have proved in my book, Puritans of papistical principles--it is just a
+new tout on an old horn."
+
+Here the king was reminded by the Prince, who dreaded perhaps that he
+was going to recite the whole Basilicon Doron, that it would be best to
+move towards the Palace, and consider what was to be done for satisfying
+the public mind, in whom the morning's adventure was likely to excite
+much speculation. As they entered the gate of the Palace, a female bowed
+and presented a paper, which the king received, and, with a sort
+of groan, thrust it into his side pocket. The Prince expressed some
+curiosity to know its contents. "The valet in waiting will tell you
+them," said the king, "when I strip off my cassock. D'ye think, Baby,
+that I can read all that is thrust into my hands? See to me, man"--(he
+pointed to the pockets of his great trunk breeches, which were stuffed
+with papers)--"We are like an ass--that we should so speak--stooping
+betwixt two burdens. Ay, ay, Asinus fortis accumbens inter terminos, as
+the Vulgate hath it--Ay, ay, Vidi terrain quod esset optima, et supposui
+humerum ad portandum, et factus sum tributis serviens--I saw this land
+of England, and became an overburdened king thereof."
+
+"You are indeed well loaded, my dear dad and gossip," said the Duke of
+Buckingham, receiving the papers which King James emptied out of his
+pockets.
+
+"Ay, ay," continued the monarch; "take them to you per aversionem,
+bairns--the one pouch stuffed with petitions, t'other with pasquinadoes;
+a fine time we have on't. On my conscience, I believe the tale of Cadmus
+was hieroglyphical, and that the dragon's teeth whilk he sowed were
+the letters he invented. Ye are laughing, Baby Charles?--Mind what I
+say.--When I came here first frae our ain country, where the men are
+as rude as the weather, by my conscience, England was a bieldy bit;
+one would have thought the king had little to do but to walk by quiet
+waters, per aquam refectionis. But, I kenna how or why, the place is
+sair changed--read that libel upon us and on our regimen. The dragon's
+teeth are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their armed harvest
+in your day, if I suld not live to see it. God forbid I should, for
+there will be an awful day's kemping at the shearing of them."
+
+"I shall know how to stifle the crop in the blade,--ha, George?" said
+the Prince, turning to the favourite with a look expressive of some
+contempt for his father's apprehensions, and full of confidence in the
+superior firmness and decision of his own counsels.
+
+While this discourse was passing, Nigel, in charge of a
+pursuivant-at-arms, was pushed and dragged through the small town, all
+the inhabitants of which, having been alarmed by the report of an attack
+on the king's life, now pressed forward to see the supposed traitor.
+Amid the confusion of the moment, he could descry the face of the
+victualler, arrested into a stare of stolid wonder, and that of the
+barber grinning betwixt horror and eager curiosity. He thought that he
+also had a glimpse of his waterman in the green jacket.
+
+He had no time for remarks, being placed in a boat with the pursuivant
+and two yeomen of the guard, and rowed up the river as fast as the
+arms of six stout watermen could pull against the tide. They passed
+the groves of masts which even then astonished the stranger with the
+extended commerce of London, and now approached those low and blackened
+walls of curtain and bastion, which exhibit here and there a piece of
+ordnance, and here and there a solitary sentinel under arms, but have
+otherwise so little of the military terrors of a citadel. A projecting
+low-browed arch, which had loured over many an innocent, and many a
+guilty head, in similar circumstances, now spread its dark frowns over
+that of Nigel. The boat was put close up to the broad steps against
+which the tide was lapping its lazy wave. The warder on duty looked from
+the wicket, and spoke to the pursuivant in whispers. In a few minutes
+the Lieutenant of the Tower appeared, received, and granted an
+acknowledgment for the body of Nigel, Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+  Ye towers of Julius! London's lasting shame;
+  With many a foul and midnight murder fed!
+                           _Gray._
+
+Such is the exclamation of Gray. Bandello, long before him, has said
+something like it; and the same sentiment must, in some shape or other,
+have frequently occurred to those, who, remembering the fate of other
+captives in that memorable state-prison, may have had but too much
+reason to anticipate their own. The dark and low arch, which seemed,
+like the entrance to Dante's Hell, to forbid hope of regress--the
+muttered sounds of the warders, and petty formalities observed in
+opening and shutting the grated wicket--the cold and constrained
+salutation of the Lieutenant of the fortress, who showed his prisoner
+that distant and measured respect which authority pays as a tax to
+decorum, all struck upon Nigel's heart, impressing on him the cruel
+consciousness of captivity.
+
+"I am a prisoner," he said, the words escaping from him almost unawares;
+"I am a prisoner, and in the Tower!"
+
+The Lieutenant bowed--"And it is my duty," he said, "to show your
+lordship your chamber, where, I am compelled to say, my orders are
+to place you under some restraint. I will make it as easy as my duty
+permits."
+
+Nigel only bowed in return to this compliment, and followed the
+Lieutenant to the ancient buildings on the western side of the parade,
+and adjoining to the chapel, used in those days as a state-prison, but
+in ours as the mess-room of the officers of the guard upon duty at the
+fortress. The double doors were unlocked, the prisoner ascended a few
+steps, followed by the Lieutenant, and a warder of the higher class.
+They entered a large, but irregular, low-roofed, and dark apartment,
+exhibiting a very scanty proportion of furniture. The warder had orders
+to light a fire, and attend to Lord Glenvarloch's commands in all things
+consistent with his duty; and the Lieutenant, having made his reverence
+with the customary compliment, that he trusted his lordship would not
+long remain under his guardianship, took his leave.
+
+Nigel would have asked some questions of the warder, who remained to
+put the apartment into order, but the man had caught the spirit of his
+office. He seemed not to hear some of the prisoner's questions, though
+of the most ordinary kind, did not reply to others, and when he did
+speak, it was in a short and sullen tone, which, though not
+positively disrespectful, was such as at least to encourage no farther
+communication.
+
+Nigel left him, therefore, to do his work in silence, and proceeded
+to amuse himself with the melancholy task of deciphering the names,
+mottoes, verses, and hieroglyphics, with which his predecessors in
+captivity had covered the walls of their prison-house. There he saw
+the names of many a forgotten sufferer mingled with others which will
+continue in remembrance until English history shall perish. There were
+the pious effusions of the devout Catholic, poured forth on the eve of
+his sealing his profession at Tyburn, mingled with those of the firm
+Protestant, about to feed the fires of Smithfield. There the slender
+hand of the unfortunate Jane Grey, whose fate was to draw tears from
+future generations, might be contrasted with the bolder touch which
+impressed deep on the walls the Bear and Ragged Staff, the proud emblem
+of the proud Dudleys. It was like the roll of the prophet, a record of
+lamentation and mourning, and yet not unmixed with brief
+interjections of resignation, and sentences expressive of the firmest
+resolution.[Footnote: These memorials of illustrious criminals, or of
+innocent persons who had the fate of such, are still preserved, though
+at one time, in the course of repairing the rooms, they were in some
+danger of being whitewashed. They are preserved at present with becoming
+respect, and have most of them been engraved.--_See_ BAYLEY'S _History
+and Antiquities of the Tower of London._]
+
+In the sad task of examining the miseries of his predecessors in
+captivity, Lord Glenvarloch was interrupted by the sudden opening of
+the door of his prison-room. It was the warder, who came to inform him,
+that, by order of the Lieutenant of the Tower, his lordship was to
+have the society and attendance of a fellow-prisoner in his place of
+confinement. Nigel replied hastily, that he wished no attendance, and
+would rather be left alone; but the warder gave him to understand, with
+a kind of grumbling civility, that the Lieutenant was the best judge how
+his prisoners should be accommodated, and that he would have no trouble
+with the boy, who was such a slip of a thing as was scarce worth turning
+a key upon.--"There, Giles," he said, "bring the child in."
+
+Another warder put the "lad before him" into the room, and, both
+withdrawing, bolt crashed and chain clanged, as they replaced these
+ponderous obstacles to freedom. The boy was clad in a grey suit of the
+finest cloth, laid down with silver lace, with a buff-coloured cloak
+of the same pattern. His cap, which was a Montero of black velvet, was
+pulled over his brows, and, with the profusion of his long ringlets,
+almost concealed his face. He stood on the very spot where the warder
+had quitted his collar, about two steps from the door of the apartment,
+his eyes fixed on the ground, and every joint trembling with confusion
+and terror. Nigel could well have dispensed with his society, but it was
+not in his nature to behold distress, whether of body or mind, without
+endeavouring to relieve it.
+
+"Cheer up," he said, "my pretty lad. We are to be companions, it seems,
+for a little time--at least I trust your confinement will be short,
+since you are too young to have done aught to deserve long restraint.
+Come, come--do not be discouraged. Your hand is cold and trembles? the
+air is warm too--but it may be the damp of this darksome room. Place you
+by the fire.--What! weeping-ripe, my little man? I pray you, do not be
+a child. You have no beard yet, to be dishonoured by your tears, but yet
+you should not cry like a girl. Think you are only shut up for playing
+truant, and you can pass a day without weeping, surely."
+
+The boy suffered himself to be led and seated by the fire, but, after
+retaining for a long time the very posture which he assumed in sitting
+down, he suddenly changed it in order to wring his hands with an air of
+the bitterest distress, and then, spreading them before his face, wept
+so plentifully, that the tears found their way in floods through his
+slender fingers.
+
+Nigel was in some degree rendered insensible to his own situation, by
+his feelings for the intense agony by which so young and beautiful
+a creature seemed to be utterly overwhelmed; and, sitting down close
+beside the boy, he applied the most soothing terms which occurred,
+to endeavour to alleviate his distress; and, with an action which the
+difference of their age rendered natural, drew his hand kindly along the
+long hair of the disconsolate child. The lad appeared so shy as even
+to shrink from this slight approach to familiarity--yet, when Lord
+Glenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, sat down on the
+farther side of the fire, he appeared to be more at his ease, and to
+hearken with some apparent interest to the arguments which from time to
+time Nigel used, to induce him to moderate, at least, the violence of
+his grief. As the boy listened, his tears, though they continued to flow
+freely, seemed to escape from their source more easily, his sobs were
+less convulsive, and became gradually changed into low sighs, which
+succeeded each other, indicating as much sorrow, perhaps, but less
+alarm, than his first transports had shown.
+
+"Tell me who and what you are, my pretty boy," said Nigel.--"Consider
+me, child, as a companion, who wishes to be kind to you, would you but
+teach him how he can be so."
+
+"Sir--my lord, I mean," answered the boy, very timidly, and in a voice
+which could scarce be heard even across the brief distance which divided
+them, "you are very good--and I--am very unhappy--"
+
+A second fit of tears interrupted what else he had intended to say, and
+it required a renewal of Lord Glenvarloch's good-natured expostulations
+and encouragements, to bring him once more to such composure as rendered
+the lad capable of expressing himself intelligibly. At length, however,
+he was able to say--"I am sensible of your goodness, my lord--and
+grateful for it--but I am a poor unhappy creature, and, what is worse,
+have myself only to thank for my misfortunes."
+
+"We are seldom absolutely miserable, my young acquaintance," said Nigel,
+"without being ourselves more or less responsible for it--I may well say
+so, otherwise I had not been here to-day--but you are very young, and
+can have but little to answer for."
+
+"O sir! I wish I could say so--I have been self-willed and
+obstinate--and rash and ungovernable--and now--now, how dearly do I pay
+the price of it!"
+
+"Pshaw, my boy," replied Nigel; "this must be some childish frolic--some
+breaking out of bounds--some truant trick--And yet how should any of
+these have brought you to the Tower?--There is something mysterious
+about you, young man, which I must inquire into."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, my lord, there is no harm about me," said the boy, more
+moved it would seem to confession by the last words, by which he seemed
+considerably alarmed, than by all the kind expostulations and arguments
+which Nigel had previously used. "I am innocent--that is, I have done
+wrong, but nothing to deserve being in this frightful place."
+
+"Tell me the truth, then," said Nigel, in a tone in which command
+mingled with encouragement; "you have nothing to fear from me, and as
+little to hope, perhaps--yet, placed as I am, I would know with whom I
+speak."
+
+"With an unhappy--boy, sir--and idle and truantly disposed, as your
+lordship said," answered the lad, looking up, and showing a countenance
+in which paleness and blushes succeeded each other, as fear and
+shamefacedness alternately had influence. "I left my father's house
+without leave, to see the king hunt in the Park at Greenwich; there came
+a cry of treason, and all the gates were shut--I was frightened, and
+hid myself in a thicket, and I was found by some of the rangers and
+examined--and they said I gave no good account of myself--and so I was
+sent hither."
+
+"I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being," said Lord Glenvarloch, rising
+and walking through the apartment; "nothing approaches me but shares my
+own bad fate! Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all who
+are found near me. Yet this boy's story sounds strangely.--You say you
+were examined, my young friend--Let me pray you to say whether you told
+your name, and your means of gaining admission into the Park--if so,
+they surely would not have detained you?"
+
+"O, my lord," said the boy, "I took care not to tell them the name of
+the friend that let me in; and as to my father--I would not he knew
+where I now am for all the wealth in London!"
+
+"But do you not expect," said Nigel, "that they will dismiss you till
+you let them know who and what you are?"
+
+"What good will it do them to keep so useless a creature as myself?"
+said the boy; "they must let me go, were it but out of shame."
+
+"Do not trust to that--tell me your name and station--I will communicate
+them to the Lieutenant--he is a man of quality and honour, and will not
+only be willing to procure your liberation, but also, I have no doubt,
+will intercede with your father. I am partly answerable for such poor
+aid as I can afford, to get you out of this embarrassment, since I
+occasioned the alarm owing to which you were arrested; so tell me your
+name, and your father's name."
+
+"My name to you? O never, never!" answered the boy, in a tone of deep
+emotion, the cause of which Nigel could not comprehend.
+
+"Are you so much afraid of me, young man," he replied, "because I am
+here accused and a prisoner? Consider, a man may be both, and deserve
+neither suspicion nor restraint. Why should you distrust me? You seem
+friendless, and I am myself so much in the same circumstances, that I
+cannot but pity your situation when I reflect on my own. Be wise; I have
+spoken kindly to you--I mean as kindly as I speak."
+
+"O, I doubt it not, I doubt it not, my lord," said the boy, "and I could
+tell you all--that is, almost all."
+
+"Tell me nothing, my young friend, excepting what may assist me in being
+useful to you," said Nigel.
+
+"You are generous, my lord," said the boy; "and I am sure--O sure,
+I might safely trust to your honour--But yet--but yet--I am so sore
+beset--I have been so rash, so unguarded--I can never tell you of
+my folly. Besides, I have already told too much to one whose heart I
+thought I had moved--yet I find myself here."
+
+"To whom did you make this disclosure?" said Nigel.
+
+"I dare not tell," replied the youth.
+
+"There is something singular about you, my young friend," said Lord
+Glenvarloch, withdrawing with a gentle degree of compulsion the hand
+with which the boy had again covered his eyes; "do not pain yourself
+with thinking on your situation just at present--your pulse is high, and
+your hand feverish--lay yourself on yonder pallet, and try to compose
+yourself to sleep. It is the readiest and best remedy for the fancies
+with which you are worrying yourself."
+
+"I thank you for your considerate kindness, my lord," said the boy;
+"with your leave I will remain for a little space quiet in this chair--I
+am better thus than on the couch. I can think undisturbedly on what I
+have done, and have still to do; and if God sends slumber to a creature
+so exhausted, it shall be most welcome."
+
+So saying, the boy drew his hand from Lord Nigel's, and, drawing around
+him and partly over his face the folds of his ample cloak, he resigned
+himself to sleep or meditation, while his companion, notwithstanding the
+exhausting scenes of this and the preceding day, continued his pensive
+walk up and down the apartment.
+
+Every reader has experienced, that times occur, when far from being lord
+of external circumstances, man is unable to rule even the wayward realm
+of his own thoughts. It was Nigel's natural wish to consider his own
+situation coolly, and fix on the course which it became him as a man
+of sense and courage to adopt; and yet, in spite of himself, and
+notwithstanding the deep interest of the critical state in which he was
+placed, it did so happen that his fellow-prisoner's situation occupied
+more of his thoughts than did his own. There was no accounting for this
+wandering of the imagination, but also there was no striving with it.
+The pleading tones of one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard,
+still rung in his ear, though it seemed that sleep had now fettered the
+tongue of the speaker. He drew near on tiptoe to satisfy himself whether
+it were so. The folds of the cloak hid the lower part of his face
+entirely; but the bonnet, which had fallen a little aside, permitted him
+to see the forehead streaked with blue veins, the closed eyes, and the
+long silken eyelashes.
+
+"Poor child," said Nigel to himself, as he looked on him, nestled up as
+it were in the folds of his mantle, "the dew is yet on thy eyelashes,
+and thou hast fairly wept thyself asleep. Sorrow is a rough nurse to one
+so young and delicate as thou art. Peace be to thy slumbers, I will
+not disturb them. My own misfortunes require my attention, and it is to
+their contemplation that I must resign myself."
+
+He attempted to do so, but was crossed at every turn by conjectures
+which intruded themselves as before, and which all regarded the sleeper
+rather than himself. He was angry and vexed, and expostulated with
+himself concerning the overweening interest which he took in the
+concerns of one of whom he knew nothing, saving that the boy was forced
+into his company, perhaps as a spy, by those to whose custody he was
+committed--but the spell could not be broken, and the thoughts which he
+struggled to dismiss, continued to haunt him.
+
+Thus passed half an hour, or more; at the conclusion of which, the
+harsh sound of the revolving bolts was again heard, and the voice of the
+warder announced that a man desired to speak with Lord Glenvarloch. "A
+man to speak with me, under my present circumstances!--Who can it be?"
+And John Christie, his landlord of Paul's Wharf, resolved his doubts, by
+entering the apartment. "Welcome--most welcome, mine honest landlord!"
+said Lord Glenvarloch. "How could I have dreamt of seeing you in my
+present close lodgings?" And at the same time, with the frankness of
+old kindness, he walked up to Christie and offered his hand; but John
+started back as from the look of a basilisk.
+
+"Keep your courtesies to yourself, my lord," said he, gruffly; "I have
+had as many of them already as may serve me for my life."
+
+"Why, Master Christie," said Nigel, "what means this? I trust I have not
+offended you?"
+
+"Ask me no questions, my lord," said Christie, bluntly. "I am a man of
+peace--I came not hither to wrangle with you at this place and season.
+Just suppose that I am well informed of all the obligements from your
+honour's nobleness, and then acquaint me, in as few words as may be,
+where is the unhappy woman--What have you done with her?"
+
+"What have I done with her!" said Lord Glenvarloch--"Done with whom? I
+know not what you are speaking of."
+
+"Oh, yes, my lord," said Christie; "play surprise as well as you will,
+you must have some guess that I am speaking of the poor fool that was my
+wife, till she became your lordship's light-o'-love."
+
+"Your wife! Has your wife left you? and, if she has, do you come to ask
+her of me?"
+
+"Yes, my lord, singular as it may seem," returned Christie, in a tone
+of bitter irony, and with a sort of grin widely discording from the
+discomposure of his features, the gleam of his eye, and the froth which
+stood on his lip, "I do come to make that demand of your lordship.
+Doubtless, you are surprised I should take the trouble; but, I cannot
+tell, great men and little men think differently. She has lain in
+my bosom, and drunk of my cup; and, such as she is, I cannot forget
+that--though I will never see her again--she must not starve, my lord,
+or do worse, to gain bread, though I reckon your lordship may think I am
+robbing the public in trying to change her courses."
+
+"By my faith as a Christian, by my honour as a gentleman," said Lord
+Glenvarloch, "if aught amiss has chanced with your wife, I know nothing
+of it. I trust in Heaven you are as much mistaken in imputing guilt to
+her, as in supposing me her partner in it."
+
+"Fie! fie! my lord," said Christie, "why will you make it so tough? She
+is but the wife of a clod-pated old chandler, who was idiot enough to
+marry a wench twenty years younger than himself. Your lordship cannot
+have more glory by it than you have had already; and, as for
+advantage and solace, I take it Dame Nelly is now unnecessary to
+your gratification. I should be sorry to interrupt the course of your
+pleasure; an old wittol should have more consideration of his condition.
+But, your precious lordship being mewed up here among other choice
+jewels of the kingdom, Dame Nelly cannot, I take it, be admitted
+to share the hours of dalliance which"--Here the incensed husband
+stammered, broke off his tone of irony, and proceeded, striking his
+staff against the ground--"O that these false limbs of yours, which I
+wish had been hamstrung when they first crossed my honest threshold,
+were free from the fetters they have well deserved! I would give you the
+odds of your youth, and your weapon, and would bequeath my soul to
+the foul fiend if I, with this piece of oak, did not make you such an
+example to all ungrateful, pick-thank courtiers, that it should be a
+proverb to the end of time, how John Christie swaddled his wife's fine
+leman!"
+
+"I understand not your insolence," said Nigel, "but I forgive it,
+because you labour under some strange delusion. In so far as I can
+comprehend your vehement charge, it is entirely undeserved on my part.
+You seem to impute to me the seduction of your wife--I trust she is
+innocent. For me, at least, she is as innocent as an angel in bliss.
+I never thought of her--never touched her hand or cheek, save in
+honourable courtesy."
+
+"O, ay--courtesy!--that is the very word. She always praised your
+lordship's honourable courtesy. Ye have cozened me between ye, with your
+courtesy. My lord--my lord, you came to us no very wealthy man--you know
+it. It was for no lucre of gain I took you and your swash-buckler, your
+Don Diego yonder, under my poor roof. I never cared if the little room
+were let or no; I could live without it. If you could not have paid for
+it, you should never have been asked. All the wharf knows John Christie
+has the means and spirit to do a kindness. When you first darkened my
+honest doorway, I was as happy as a man need to be, who is no youngster,
+and has the rheumatism. Nelly was the kindest and best-humoured
+wench--we might have a word now and then about a gown or a ribbon, but
+a kinder soul on the whole, and a more careful, considering her years,
+till you come--and what is she now!--But I will not be a fool to cry, if
+I can help it. _What_ she is, is not the question, but where she is; and
+that I must learn, sir, of you."
+
+"How can you, when I tell you," replied Nigel, "that I am as ignorant as
+yourself, or rather much more so? Till this moment, I never heard of any
+disagreement betwixt your dame and you."
+
+"That is a lie," said John Christie, bluntly.
+
+"How, you base villain!" said Lord Glenvarloch--"do you presume on my
+situation? If it were not that I hold you mad, and perhaps made so
+by some wrong sustained, you should find my being weaponless were no
+protection, I would beat your brains out against the wall."
+
+"Ay, ay," answered Christie, "bully as ye list. Ye have been at the
+ordinaries, and in Alsatia, and learned the ruffian's rant, I doubt not.
+But I repeat, you have spoken an untruth, when you said you knew not of
+my wife's falsehood; for, when you were twitted with it among your gay
+mates, it was a common jest among you, and your lordship took all the
+credit they would give you for your gallantry and gratitude."
+
+There was a mixture of truth in this part of the charge which
+disconcerted Lord Glenvarloch exceedingly; for he could not, as a man
+of honour, deny that Lord Dalgarno, and others, had occasionally jested
+with him on the subject of Dame Nelly, and that, though he had not
+played exactly _le fanfaron des vices qu'il n'avoit pas_, he had not
+at least been sufficiently anxious to clear himself of the suspicion of
+such a crime to men who considered it as a merit. It was therefore with
+some hesitation, and in a sort of qualifying tone, that he admitted that
+some idle jests had passed upon such a supposition, although without
+the least foundation in truth. John Christie would not listen to his
+vindication any longer. "By your own account," he said, "you permitted
+lies to be told of you injest. How do I know you are speaking truth,
+now you are serious? You thought it, I suppose, a fine thing to wear the
+reputation of having dishonoured an honest family,--who will not think
+that you had real grounds for your base bravado to rest upon? I will not
+believe otherwise for one, and therefore, my lord, mark what I have to
+say. You are now yourself in trouble--As you hope to come through
+it safely, and without loss of life and property, tell me where this
+unhappy woman is. Tell me, if you hope for heaven--tell me, if you fear
+hell--tell me, as you would not have the curse of an utterly ruined
+woman, and a broken-hearted man, attend you through life, and bear
+witness against you at the Great Day, which shall come after death. You
+are moved, my lord, I see it. I cannot forget the wrong you have done
+me. I cannot even promise to forgive it--but--tell me, and you shall
+never see me again, or hear more of my reproaches."
+
+"Unfortunate man," said Lord Glenvarloch, "you have said more, far more
+than enough, to move me deeply. Were I at liberty, I would lend you my
+best aid to search out him who has wronged you, the rather that I do
+suspect my having been your lodger has been in some degree the remote
+cause of bringing the spoiler into the sheepfold."
+
+"I am glad your lordship grants me so much," said John Christie,
+resuming the tone of embittered irony with which he had opened
+the singular conversation; "I will spare you farther reproach and
+remonstrance--your mind is made up, and so is mine.--So, ho, warder!"
+The warder entered, and John went on,--"I want to get out, brother. Look
+well to your charge--it were better that half the wild beasts in their
+dens yonder were turned loose upon Tower Hill, than that this same
+smooth-faced, civil-spoken gentleman, were again returned to honest
+men's company!"
+
+So saying, he hastily left the apartment; and Nigel had full leisure
+to lament the waywardness of his fate, which seemed never to tire of
+persecuting him for crimes of which he was innocent, and investing him
+with the appearances of guilt which his mind abhorred. He could not,
+however, help acknowledging to himself, that all the pain which he
+might sustain from the present accusation of John Christie, was so far
+deserved, from his having suffered himself, out of vanity, or rather an
+unwillingness to encounter ridicule, to be supposed capable of a
+base inhospitable crime, merely because fools called it an affair of
+gallantry; and it was no balsam to the wound, when he recollected what
+Richie had told him of his having been ridiculed behind his back by the
+gallants of the ordinary, for affecting the reputation of an intrigue
+which he had not in reality spirit enough to have carried on. His
+simulation had, in a word, placed him in the unlucky predicament of
+being rallied as a braggart amongst the dissipated youths, with whom the
+reality of the amour would have given him credit; whilst, on the other
+hand, he was branded as an inhospitable seducer by the injured husband,
+who was obstinately persuaded of his guilt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+  How fares the man on whom good men would look
+  With eyes where scorn and censure combated,
+  But that kind Christian love hath taught the lesson--
+  That they who merit most contempt and hate,
+  Do most deserve our pity.--
+                              _Old Play_.
+
+It might have seemed natural that the visit of John Christie should have
+entirely diverted Nigel's attention from his slumbering companion, and,
+for a time, such was the immediate effect of the chain of new ideas
+which the incident introduced; yet, soon after the injured man had
+departed, Lord Glenvarloch began to think it extraordinary that the boy
+should have slept so soundly, while they talked loudly in his vicinity.
+Yet he certainly did not appear to have stirred. Was he well--was he
+only feigning sleep? He went close to him to make his observations, and
+perceived that he had wept, and was still weeping, though his eyes were
+closed. He touched him gently on the shoulder--the boy shrunk from his
+touch, but did not awake. He pulled him harder, and asked him if he was
+sleeping.
+
+"Do they waken folk in your country to know whether they are asleep or
+no?" said the boy, in a peevish tone.
+
+"No, my young sir," answered Nigel; "but when they weep in the manner
+you do in your sleep, they awaken them to see what ails them."
+
+"It signifies little to any one what ails me," said the boy.
+
+"True," replied Lord Glenvarloch; "but you knew before you went to
+sleep how little I could assist you in your difficulties, and you seemed
+disposed, notwithstanding, to put some confidence in me."
+
+"If I did, I have changed my mind," said the lad.
+
+"And what may have occasioned this change of mind, I trow?" said Lord
+Glenvarloch. "Some men speak through their sleep--perhaps you have the
+gift of hearing in it?"
+
+"No, but the Patriarch Joseph never dreamt truer dreams than I do."
+
+"Indeed!" said Lord Glenvarloch. "And, pray, what dream have you had
+that has deprived me of your good opinion; for that, I think, seems the
+moral of the matter?"
+
+"You shall judge yourself," answered the boy. "I dreamed I was in a wild
+forest, where there was a cry of hounds, and winding of horns, exactly
+as I heard in Greenwich Park."
+
+"That was because you were in the Park this morning, you simple child,"
+said Nigel.
+
+"Stay, my lord," said the youth. "I went on in my dream, till, at the
+top of a broad green alley, I saw a noble stag which had fallen into the
+toils; and methought I knew that he was the very stag which the whole
+party were hunting, and that if the chase came up, the dogs would tear
+him to pieces, or the hunters would cut his throat; and I had pity on
+the gallant stag, and though I was of a different kind from him, and
+though I was somewhat afraid of him, I thought I would venture something
+to free so stately a creature; and I pulled out my knife, and just as I
+was beginning to cut the meshes of the net, the animal started up in my
+face in the likeness of a tiger, much larger and fiercer than any you
+may have seen in the ward of the wild beasts yonder, and was just about
+to tear me limb from limb, when you awaked me."
+
+"Methinks," said Nigel, "I deserve more thanks than I have got, for
+rescuing you from such a danger by waking you. But, my pretty master,
+methinks all this tale of a tiger and a stag has little to do with your
+change of temper towards me."
+
+"I know not whether it has or no," said the lad; "but I will not tell
+you who I am."
+
+"You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish boy," said Nigel,
+turning from him, and resuming his walk through the room; then stopping
+suddenly, he said--"And yet you shall not escape from me without knowing
+that I penetrate your mystery."
+
+"My mystery!" said the youth, at once alarmed and irritated--"what mean
+you, my lord?"
+
+"Only that I can read your dream without the assistance of a Chaldean
+interpreter, and my exposition is--that my fair companion does not wear
+the dress of her sex."
+
+"And if I do not, my lord," said his companion, hastily starting up, and
+folding her cloak tight around her, "my dress, such as it is, covers one
+who will not disgrace it."
+
+"Many would call that speech a fair challenge," said Lord Glenvarloch,
+looking on her fixedly; "women do not masquerade in men's clothes, to
+make use of men's weapons."
+
+"I have no such purpose," said the seeming boy; "I have other means
+of protection, and powerful--but I would first know what is _your_
+purpose."
+
+"An honourable and a most respectful one," said Lord Glenvarloch;
+"whatever you are--whatever motive may have brought you into this
+ambiguous situation, I am sensible--every look, word, and action of
+yours, makes me sensible, that you are no proper subject of importunity,
+far less of ill usage. What circumstances can have forced you into so
+doubtful a situation, I know not; but I feel assured there is, and can
+be, nothing in them of premeditated wrong, which should expose you to
+cold-blooded insult. From me you have nothing to dread."
+
+"I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my lord," answered the
+female; "my adventure, though I feel it was both desperate and foolish,
+is not so very foolish, nor my safety here so utterly unprotected, as
+at first sight--and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I have
+suffered enough, and more than enough, by the degradation of having been
+seen in this unfeminine attire, and the comments you must necessarily
+have made on my conduct--but I thank God that I am so far protected,
+that I could not have been subjected to insult unavenged." When this
+extraordinary explanation had proceeded thus far, the warder appeared,
+to place before Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present
+situation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not equal to
+the cookery of the celebrated Chevalier Beaujeu, was much superior in
+neatness and cleanliness to that of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the
+honours of the table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise
+and assist him in his functions. But Nigel, declaring that he knew the
+youth's parents, interfered, and caused his companion to eat along with
+him. She consented with a sort of embarrassment, which rendered her
+pretty features yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a natural
+grace that sort of good-breeding which belongs to the table; and
+it seemed to Nigel, whether already prejudiced in her favour by the
+extraordinary circumstances of their meeting, or whether really judging
+from what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a young person
+comport herself with more decorous propriety, mixed with ingenuous
+simplicity; while the consciousness of the peculiarity of her situation
+threw a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which could be
+neither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embarrassed, but was compounded
+of, and shaded with, an interchange of all these three characteristics.
+Wine was placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed on
+to taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, limited by the
+presence of the warder to the business of the table: but Nigel had, long
+ere the cloth was removed, formed the resolution, if possible, of making
+himself master of this young person's history, the more especially as he
+now began to think that the tones of her voice and her features were not
+so strange to him as he had originally supposed. This, however, was a
+conviction which he adopted slowly, and only as it dawned upon him from
+particular circumstances during the course of the repast.
+
+At length the prison-meal was finished, and Lord Glenvarloch began to
+think how he might most easily enter upon the topic he meditated, when
+the warder announced a visitor.
+
+"Soh!" said Nigel, something displeased, "I find even a prison does not
+save one from importunate visitations."
+
+He prepared to receive his guest, however, while his alarmed companion
+flew to the large cradle-shaped chair, which had first served her as a
+place of refuge, drew her cloak around her, and disposed herself as much
+as she could to avoid observation. She had scarce made her arrangements
+for that purpose when the door opened, and the worthy citizen, George
+Heriot, entered the prison-chamber.
+
+He cast around the apartment his usual sharp, quick glance of
+observation, and, advancing to Nigel, said--"My lord, I wish I could say
+I was happy to see you."
+
+"The sight of those who are unhappy themselves, Master Heriot, seldom
+produces happiness to their friends--I, however, am glad to see you."
+
+He extended his hand, but Heriot bowed with much formal complaisance,
+instead of accepting the courtesy, which in those times, when the
+distinction of ranks was much guarded by etiquette and ceremony, was
+considered as a distinguished favour.
+
+"You are displeased with me, Master Heriot," said Lord Glenvarloch,
+reddening, for he was not deceived by the worthy citizen's affectation
+of extreme reverence and respect.
+
+"By no means, my lord," replied Heriot; "but I have been in France, and
+have thought it is well to import, along with other more substantial
+articles, a small sample of that good-breeding which the French are so
+renowned for."
+
+"It is not kind of you," said Nigel, "to bestow the first use of it on
+an old and obliged friend."
+
+Heriot only answered to this observation with a short dry cough, and
+then proceeded.
+
+"Hem! hem! I say, ahem! My lord, as my French politeness may not carry
+me far, I would willingly know whether I am to speak as a friend, since
+your lordship is pleased to term me such; or whether I am, as befits
+my condition, to confine myself to the needful business which must be
+treated of between us."
+
+"Speak as a friend by all means, Master Heriot," said Nigel; "I perceive
+you have adopted some of the numerous prejudices against me, if not
+all of them. Speak out, and frankly--what I cannot deny I will at least
+confess."
+
+"And I trust, my lord, redress," said Heriot.
+
+"So far as in my power, certainly," answered Nigel.
+
+"Ah I my lord," continued Heriot, "that is a melancholy though a
+necessary restriction; for how lightly may any one do an hundred times
+more than the degree of evil which it may be within his power to repair
+to the sufferers and to society! But we are not alone here," he said,
+stopping, and darting his shrewd eye towards the muffled figure of the
+disguised maiden, whose utmost efforts had not enabled her so to adjust
+her position as altogether to escape observation. More anxious to
+prevent her being discovered than to keep his own affairs private, Nigel
+hastily answered--"'Tis a page of mine; you may speak freely before him.
+He is of France, and knows no English."
+
+"I am then to speak freely," said Heriot, after a second glance at the
+chair; "perhaps my words may be more free than welcome."
+
+"Go on, sir," said Nigel, "I have told you I can bear reproof."
+
+"In one word, then, my lord--why do I find you in this place, and
+whelmed with charges which must blacken a name rendered famous by ages
+of virtue?"
+
+"Simply, then, you find me here," said Nigel, "because, to begin from my
+original error, I would be wiser than my father."
+
+"It was a difficult task, my lord," replied Heriot; "your father was
+voiced generally as the wisest and one of the bravest men of Scotland."
+
+"He commanded me," continued Nigel, "to avoid all gambling; and I took
+upon me to modify this injunction into regulating my play according to
+my skill, means, and the course of my luck."
+
+"Ay, self opinion, acting on a desire of acquisition, my lord--you hoped
+to touch pitch and not to be defiled," answered Heriot. "Well, my
+lord, you need not say, for I have heard with much regret, how far
+this conduct diminished your reputation. Your next error I may without
+scruple remind you of--My lord, my lord, in whatever degree Lord
+Dalgarno may have failed towards you, the son of his father should have
+been sacred from your violence."
+
+"You speak in cold blood, Master Heriot, and I was smarting under a
+thousand wrongs inflicted on me under the mask of friendship."
+
+"That is, he gave your lordship bad advice, and you," said Heriot--
+
+"Was fool enough to follow his counsel," answered Nigel--"But we will
+pass this, Master Heriot, if you please. Old men and young men, men of
+the sword and men of peaceful occupation, always have thought, always
+will think, differently on such subjects."
+
+"I grant," answered Heriot, "the distinction between the old goldsmith
+and the young nobleman--still you should have had patience for Lord
+Huntinglen's sake, and prudence for your own. Supposing your quarrel
+just--"
+
+"I pray you to pass on to some other charge," said Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, that your own
+heart has already accused you bitterly on the inhospitable wrong which
+your late landlord has sustained at your hand."
+
+"Had I been guilty of what you allude to," said Lord Glenvarloch,--"had
+a moment of temptation hurried me away, I had long ere now most bitterly
+repented it. But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, it was not
+I--I never heard of her folly until within this hour."
+
+"Come, my lord," said Heriot, with some severity, "this sounds too much
+like affectation. I know there is among our modern youth a new creed
+respecting adultery as well as homicide--I would rather hear you speak
+of a revision of the Decalogue, with mitigated penalties in favour of
+the privileged orders--I would rather hear you do this than deny a fact
+in which you have been known to glory."
+
+"Glory!--I never did, never would have taken honour to myself from
+such a cause," said Lord Glenvarloch. "I could not prevent other idle
+tongues, and idle brains, from making false inferences."
+
+"You would have known well enough how to stop their mouths, my lord,"
+replied Heriot, "had they spoke of you what was unpleasing to your
+ears, and what the truth did not warrant.--Come, my lord, remember your
+promise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, in
+some slight sort to redress. I will grant you are young--the woman
+handsome--and, as I myself have observed, light-headed enough. Let me
+know where she is. Her foolish husband has still some compassion for
+her--will save her from infamy--perhaps, in time, receive her back; for
+we are a good-natured generation we traders. Do not, my lord, emulate
+those who work mischief merely for the pleasure of doing so--it is the
+very devil's worst quality."
+
+"Your grave remonstrances will drive me mad," said Nigel. "There is
+a show of sense and reason in what you say; and yet, it is positively
+insisting on my telling the retreat of a fugitive of whom I know nothing
+earthly."
+
+"It is well, my lord," answered Heriot, coldly. "You have a right, such
+as it is, to keep your own secrets; but, since my discourse on these
+points seems so totally unavailing, we had better proceed to business.
+Yet your father's image rises before me, and seems to plead that I
+should go on."
+
+"Be it as you will, sir," said Glenvarloch; "he who doubts my word shall
+have no additional security for it."
+
+"Well, my lord.--In the Sanctuary at Whitefriars--a place of refuge so
+unsuitable to a young man of quality and character--I am told a murder
+was committed."
+
+"And you believe that I did the deed, I suppose?"
+
+"God forbid, my lord!" said Heriot. "The coroner's inquest hath sat,
+and it appeared that your lordship, under your assumed name of Grahame,
+behaved with the utmost bravery."
+
+"No compliment, I pray you," said Nigel; "I am only too happy to find,
+that I did not murder, or am not believed to have murdered, the old
+man."
+
+"True, my lord," said Heriot; "but even in this affair there lacks
+explanation. Your lordship embarked this morning in a wherry with a
+female, and, it is said, an immense sum of money, in specie and other
+valuables--but the woman has not since been heard of."
+
+"I parted with her at Paul's Wharf," said Nigel, "where she went ashore
+with her charge. I gave her a letter to that very man, John Christie."
+
+"Ay, that is the waterman's story; but John Christie denies that he
+remembers anything of the matter."
+
+"I am sorry to hear this," said the young nobleman; "I hope in Heaven
+she has not been trepanned, for the treasure she had with her."
+
+"I hope not, my lord," replied Heriot; "but men's minds are much
+disturbed about it. Our national character suffers on all hands. Men
+remember the fatal case of Lord Sanquhar, hanged for the murder of a
+fencing-master; and exclaim, they will not have their wives whored, and
+their property stolen, by the nobility of Scotland."
+
+"And all this is laid to my door!" said Nigel; "my exculpation is easy."
+
+"I trust so, my lord," said Heriot;--"nay, in this particular, I do not
+doubt it.--But why did you leave Whitefriars under such circumstances?"
+
+"Master Reginald Lowestoffe sent a boat for me, with intimation to
+provide for my safety."
+
+"I am sorry to say," replied Heriot, "that he denies all knowledge of
+your lordship's motions, after having dispatched a messenger to you with
+some baggage."
+
+"The watermen told me they were employed by him."
+
+"Watermen!" said Heriot; "one of these proves to be an idle apprentice,
+an old acquaintance of mine--the other has escaped; but the fellow who
+is in custody persists in saying he was employed by your lordship, and
+you only."
+
+"He lies!" said Lord Glenvarloch, hastily;--"He told me Master
+Lowestoffe had sent him.--I hope that kind-hearted gentleman is at
+liberty?"
+
+"He is," answered Heriot; "and has escaped with a rebuke from the
+benchers, for interfering in such a matter as your lordship's. The Court
+desire to keep well with the young Templars in these times of commotion,
+or he had not come off so well."
+
+"That is the only word of comfort I have heard from you," replied Nigel.
+"But this poor woman,--she and her trunk were committed to the charge of
+two porters."
+
+"So said the pretended waterman; but none of the fellows who ply at the
+wharf will acknowledge the employment.--I see the idea makes you uneasy,
+my lord; but every effort is made to discover the poor woman's place
+of retreat--if, indeed, she yet lives.--And now, my lord, my errand is
+spoken, so far as it relates exclusively to your lordship; what remains,
+is matter of business of a more formal kind."
+
+"Let us proceed to it without delay," said Lord Glenvarloch. "I would
+hear of the affairs of any one rather than of my own."
+
+"You cannot have forgotten, my lord," said Heriot, "the transaction
+which took place some weeks since at Lord Huntinglen's--by which a large
+sum of money was advanced for the redemption of your lordship's estate?"
+
+"I remember it perfectly," said Nigel; "and your present austerity
+cannot make me forget your kindness on the occasion."
+
+Heriot bowed gravely, and went on.--"That money was advanced under the
+expectation and hope that it might be replaced by the contents of a
+grant to your lordship, under the royal sign-manual, in payment of
+certain monies due by the crown to your father.--I trust your lordship
+understood the transaction at the time--I trust you now understand my
+resumption of its import, and hold it to be correct?"
+
+"Undeniably correct," answered Lord Glenvarloch. "If the sums contained
+in the warrant cannot be recovered, my lands become the property of
+those who paid off the original holders of the mortgage, and now stand
+in their right."
+
+"Even so, my lord," said Heriot. "And your lordship's unhappy
+circumstances having, it would seem, alarmed these creditors, they
+are now, I am sorry to say, pressing for one or other of these
+alternatives--possession of the land, or payment of their debt."
+
+"They have a right to one or other," answered Lord Glenvarloch; "and as
+I cannot do the last in my present condition, I suppose they must enter
+on possession."
+
+"Stay, my lord," replied Heriot; "if you have ceased to call me a friend
+to your person, at least you shall see I am willing to be such to your
+father's house, were it but for the sake of your father's memory. If
+you will trust me with the warrant under the sign-manual, I believe
+circumstances do now so stand at Court, that I may be able to recover
+the money for you."
+
+"I would do so gladly," said Lord Glenvarloch, "but the casket which
+contains it is not in my possession. It was seized when I was arrested
+at Greenwich."
+
+"It will be no longer withheld from you," said Heriot; "for, I
+understand, my Master's natural good sense, and some information which
+he has procured, I know not how, has induced him to contradict the whole
+charge of the attempt on his person. It is entirely hushed up; and
+you will only be proceeded against for your violence on Lord Dalgarno,
+committed within the verge of the Palace--and that you will find heavy
+enough to answer."
+
+"I will not shrink under the weight," said Lord Glenvarloch. "But that
+is not the present point.--If I had that casket--"
+
+"Your baggage stood in the little ante-room, as I passed," said the
+citizen; "the casket caught my eye. I think you had it of me. It was my
+old friend Sir Faithful Frugal's. Ay; he, too, had a son--"
+
+Here he stopped short.
+
+"A son who, like Lord Glenvarloch's, did no credit to his father.--Was
+it not so you would have ended the sentence, Master Heriot?" asked the
+young nobleman.
+
+"My lord, it was a word spoken rashly," answered Heriot. "God may
+mend all in his own good time. This, however, I will say, that I have
+sometimes envied my friends their fair and flourishing families; and yet
+have I seen such changes when death has removed the head, so many rich
+men's sons penniless, the heirs of so many knights and nobles acreless,
+that I think mine own estate and memory, as I shall order it, has a fair
+chance of outliving those of greater men, though God has given me no
+heir of my name. But this is from the purpose.--Ho! warder, bring in
+Lord Glenvarloch's baggage." The officer obeyed. Seals had been placed
+upon the trunk and casket, but were now removed, the warder said, in
+consequence of the subsequent orders from Court, and the whole was
+placed at the prisoner's free disposal.
+
+Desirous to bring this painful visit to a conclusion, Lord Glenvarloch
+opened the casket, and looked through the papers which it contained,
+first hastily, and then more slowly and accurately; but it was all in
+vain. The Sovereign's signed warrant had disappeared.
+
+"I thought and expected nothing better," said George Heriot, bitterly.
+"The beginning of evil is the letting out of water. Here is a fair
+heritage lost, I dare say, on a foul cast at dice, or a conjuring trick
+at cards!--My lord, your surprise is well played. I give you full joy
+of your accomplishments. I have seen many as young brawlers and
+spendthrifts, but never as young and accomplished a dissembler.--Nay,
+man, never bend your angry brows on me. I speak in bitterness of heart,
+from what I remember of your worthy father; and if his son hears of his
+degeneracy from no one else, he shall hear it from the old goldsmith."
+
+This new suspicion drove Nigel to the very extremity of his patience;
+yet the motives and zeal of the good old man, as well as the
+circumstances of suspicion which created his displeasure, were so
+excellent an excuse for it, that they formed an absolute curb on the
+resentment of Lord Glenvarloch, and constrained him, after two or three
+hasty exclamations, to observe a proud and sullen silence. At length,
+Master Heriot resumed his lecture.
+
+"Hark you, my lord," he said, "it is scarce possible that this most
+important paper can be absolutely assigned away. Let me know in what
+obscure corner, and for what petty sum, it lies pledged--something may
+yet be done."
+
+"Your efforts in my favour are the more generous," said Lord
+Glenvarloch, "as you offer them to one whom you believe you have cause
+to think hardly of--but they are altogether unavailing. Fortune has
+taken the field against me at every point. Even let her win the battle."
+
+"Zouns!" exclaimed Heriot, impatiently,--"you would make a saint swear!
+Why, I tell you, if this paper, the loss of which seems to sit so
+light on you, be not found, farewell to the fair lordship of
+Glenvarloch--firth and forest--lea and furrow--lake and stream--all that
+has been in the house of Olifaunt since the days of William the Lion!"
+
+"Farewell to them, then," said Nigel,--"and that moan is soon made."
+
+"'Sdeath! my lord, you will make more moan for it ere you die," said
+Heriot, in the same tone of angry impatience.
+
+"Not I, my old friend," said Nigel. "If I mourn, Master Heriot, it will
+be for having lost the good opinion of a worthy man, and lost it, as I
+must say, most undeservedly."
+
+"Ay, ay, young man," said Heriot, shaking his head, "make me believe
+that if you can.--To sum the matter up," he said, rising from his seat,
+and walking towards that occupied by the disguised female, "for our
+matters are now drawn into small compass, you shall as soon make me
+believe that this masquerading mummer, on whom I now lay the hand of
+paternal authority, is a French page, who understands no English."
+
+So saying, he took hold of the supposed page's cloak, and, not without
+some gentle degree of violence, led into the middle of the apartment the
+disguised fair one, who in vain attempted to cover her face, first with
+her mantle, and afterwards with her hands; both which impediments Master
+Heriot removed something unceremoniously, and gave to view the detected
+daughter of the old chronologist, his own fair god-daughter, Margaret
+Ramsay.
+
+"Here is goodly gear!" he said; and, as he spoke, he could not prevent
+himself from giving her a slight shake, for we have elsewhere noticed
+that he was a severe disciplinarian.--"How comes it, minion, that I
+find you in so shameless a dress, and so unworthy a situation? Nay, your
+modesty is now mistimed--it should have come sooner. Speak, or I will--"
+
+"Master Heriot," said Lord Glenvarloch, "whatever right you may have
+over this maiden elsewhere, while in my apartment she is under my
+protection."
+
+"Your protection, my lord!--a proper protector!--and how long, mistress,
+have you been under my lord's protection? Speak out forsooth!"
+
+"For the matter of two hours, godfather," answered the maiden, with a
+countenance bent to the ground, and covered with blushes, "but it was
+against my will."
+
+"Two hours!" repeated Heriot,--"space enough for mischief.--My lord,
+this is, I suppose, another victim offered to your character of
+gallantry--another adventure to be boasted of at Beaujeu's ordinary?
+Methinks the roof under which you first met this silly maiden should
+have secured _her_, at least, from such a fate."
+
+"On my honour, Master Heriot," said Lord Glenvarloch, "you remind me
+now, for the first time, that I saw this young lady in your family.
+Her features are not easily forgotten, and yet I was trying in vain to
+recollect where I had last looked on them. For your suspicions, they are
+as false as they are injurious both to her and me. I had but discovered
+her disguise as you entered. I am satisfied, from her whole behaviour,
+that her presence here in this dress was involuntary; and God forbid
+that I have been capable of taking advantage of it to her prejudice."
+
+"It is well mouthed, my lord," said Master Heriot; "but a cunning clerk
+can read the Apocrypha as loud as the Scripture. Frankly, my lord, you
+are come to that pass, where your words will not be received without a
+warrant."
+
+"I should not speak, perhaps," said Margaret, the natural vivacity of
+whose temper could never be long suppressed by any situation, however
+disadvantageous, "but I cannot be silent. Godfather, you do me
+wrong--and no less wrong to this young nobleman. You say his words want
+a warrant. I know where to find a warrant for some of them, and the rest
+I deeply and devoutly believe without one."
+
+"And I thank you, maiden," replied Nigel, "for the good opinion you have
+expressed. I am at that point, it seems, though how I have been driven
+to it I know not, where every fair construction of my actions and
+motives is refused me. I am the more obliged to her who grants me that
+right which the world denies me. For you, lady, were I at liberty, I
+have a sword and arm should know how to guard your reputation."
+
+"Upon my word, a perfect Amadis and Oriana!" said George Heriot. "I
+should soon get my throat cut betwixt the knight and the princess, I
+suppose, but that the beef-eaters are happily within halloo.--Come,
+come, Lady Light-o'-Love--if you mean to make your way with me, it must
+be by plain facts, not by speeches from romaunts and play-books. How, in
+Heaven's name, came you here?"
+
+"Sir," answered Margaret, "since I must speak, I went to Greenwich this
+morning with Monna Paula, to present a petition to the king on the part
+of the Lady Hermione."
+
+"Mercy-a-gad!" exclaimed Heriot, "is she in the dance, too? Could she
+not have waited my return to stir in her affairs? But I suppose the
+intelligence I sent her had rendered her restless. Ah! woman, woman--he
+that goes partner with you, had need of a double share of patience, for
+you will bring none into the common stock.--Well, but what on earth had
+this embassy of Monna Paula's to do with your absurd disguise? Speak
+out."
+
+"Monna Paula was frightened," answered Margaret, "and did not know
+how to set about the errand, for you know she scarce ever goes out of
+doors--and so--and so--I agreed to go with her to give her courage; and,
+for the dress, I am sure you remember I wore it at a Christmas mumming,
+and you thought it not unbeseeming."
+
+"Yes, for a Christmas parlour," said Heriot, "but not to go a-masking
+through the country in. I do remember it, minion, and I knew it even
+now; that and your little shoe there, linked with a hint I had in the
+morning from a friend, or one who called himself such, led to your
+detection."--Here Lord Glenvarloch could not help giving a glance at the
+pretty foot, which even the staid citizen thought worth recollection--it
+was but a glance, for he saw how much the least degree of observation
+added to Margaret's distress and confusion. "And tell me, maiden,"
+continued Master Heriot, for what we have observed was by-play,--"did
+the Lady Hermione know of this fair work?"
+
+"I dared not have told her for the world," said Margaret--"she thought
+one of our apprentices went with Monna Paula."
+
+It may be here noticed, that the words, "our apprentices," seemed to
+have in them something of a charm to break the fascination with which
+Lord Glenvarloch had hitherto listened to the broken, yet interesting
+details of Margaret's history.
+
+"And wherefore went he not?--he had been a fitter companion for Monna
+Paula than you, I wot," said the citizen.
+
+"He was otherwise employed," said Margaret, in a voice scarce audible.
+
+Master George darted a hasty glance at Nigel, and when he saw his
+features betoken no consciousness, he muttered to himself,--"It must be
+better than I feared.--And so this cursed Spaniard, with her head full,
+as they all have, of disguises, trap-doors, rope-ladders, and masks,
+was jade and fool enough to take you with her on this wild goose
+errand?--And how sped you, I pray?"
+
+"Just as we reached the gate of the Park," replied Margaret, "the cry
+of treason was raised. I know not what became of Monna, but I ran till I
+fell into the arms of a very decent serving-man, called Linklater; and I
+was fain to tell him I was your god-daughter, and so he kept the rest of
+them from me, and got me to speech of his Majesty, as I entreated him to
+do."
+
+"It is the only sign you showed in the whole matter that common sense
+had not utterly deserted your little skull," said Heriot.
+
+"His Majesty," continued the damsel, "was so gracious as to receive me
+alone, though the courtiers cried out against the danger to his person,
+and would have searched me for arms, God help me, but the king forbade
+it. I fancy he had a hint from Linklater how the truth stood with me."
+
+"Well, maiden, I ask not what passed," said Heriot; "it becomes not
+me to pry into my Master's secrets. Had you been closeted with his
+grandfather the Red Tod of Saint Andrews, as Davie Lindsay used to call
+him, by my faith, I should have had my own thoughts of the matter; but
+our Master, God bless him, is douce and temperate, and Solomon in every
+thing, save in the chapter of wives and concubines."
+
+"I know not what you mean, sir," answered Margaret. "His Majesty was
+most kind and compassionate, but said I must be sent hither, and that
+the Lieutenant's lady, the Lady Mansel, would have a charge of me, and
+see that I sustained no wrong; and the king promised to send me in a
+tilted barge, and under conduct of a person well known to you; and thus
+I come to be in the Tower."
+
+"But how, or why, in this apartment, nymph?" said George
+Heriot--"Expound that to me, for I think the riddle needs reading."
+
+"I cannot explain it, sir, further, than that the Lady Mansel sent me
+here, in spite of my earnest prayers, tears, and entreaties. I was not
+afraid of any thing, for I knew I should be protected. But I could have
+died then--could die now--for very shame and confusion!"
+
+"Well, well, if your tears are genuine," said Heriot, "they may the
+sooner wash out the memory of your fault--Knows your father aught of
+this escape of yours?"
+
+"I would not for the world he did," replied she; "he believes me with
+the Lady Hermione."
+
+"Ay, honest Davy can regulate his horologes better than his
+family.--Come, damsel, now I will escort you back to the Lady Mansel,
+and pray her, of her kindness, that when she is again trusted with a
+goose, she will not give it to the fox to keep.--The warders will let us
+pass to my lady's lodgings, I trust."
+
+"Stay but one moment," said Lord Glenvarloch. "Whatever hard opinion you
+may have formed of me, I forgive you, for time will show that you do
+me wrong; and you yourself, I think, will be the first to regret the
+injustice you have done me. But involve not in your suspicions this
+young person, for whose purity of thought angels themselves should be
+vouchers. I have marked every look, every gesture; and whilst I can draw
+breath, I shall ever think of her with--"
+
+"Think not at all of her, my lord," answered George Heriot, interrupting
+him; "it is, I have a notion, the best favour you can do her;--or think
+of her as the daughter of Davy Ramsay, the clockmaker, no proper
+subject for fine speeches, romantic adventures, or high-flown Arcadian
+compliments. I give you god-den, my lord. I think not altogether so
+harshly as my speech may have spoken. If I can help--that is, if I saw
+my way clearly through this labyrinth--but it avails not talking now. I
+give your lordship god-den.--Here, warder! Permit us to pass to the
+Lady Hansel's apartment." The warder said he must have orders from the
+Lieutenant; and as he retired to procure them, the parties remained
+standing near each other, but without speaking, and scarce looking at
+each other save by stealth, a situation which, in two of the party at
+least, was sufficiently embarrassing. The difference of rank, though in
+that age a consideration so serious, could not prevent Lord Glenvarloch
+from seeing that Margaret Ramsay was one of the prettiest young women
+he had ever beheld--from suspecting, he could scarce tell why, that he
+himself was not indifferent to her--from feeling assured that he had
+been the cause of much of her present distress--admiration, self-love,
+and generosity, acting in favour of the same object; and when the yeoman
+returned with permission to his guests to withdraw, Nigel's obeisance
+to the beautiful daughter of the mechanic was marked with an expression,
+which called up in her cheeks as much colour as any incident of the
+eventful day had hitherto excited. She returned the courtesy timidly
+and irresolutely--clung to her godfather's arm, and left the apartment,
+which, dark as it was, had never yet appeared so obscure to Nigel, as
+when the door closed behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+  Yet though thou shouldst be dragg'd in scorn
+  To yonder ignominious tree,
+  Thou shall not want one faithful friend
+  To share the cruel fates' decree.
+                   _Ballad of Jemmy Dawson._
+
+Master George Heriot and his ward, as she might justly be termed, for
+his affection to Margaret imposed on him all the cares of a guardian,
+were ushered by the yeoman of the guard to the lodging of the
+Lieutenant, where they found him seated with his lady. They were
+received by both with that decorous civility which Master Heriot's
+character and supposed influence demanded, even at the hand of a
+punctilious old soldier and courtier like Sir Edward Mansel. Lady Mansel
+received Margaret with like courtesy, and informed Master George that
+she was now only her guest, and no longer her prisoner.
+
+"She is at liberty," she said, "to return to her friends under your
+charge--such is his Majesty's pleasure."
+
+"I am glad of it, madam," answered Heriot, "but only I could have wished
+her freedom had taken place before her foolish interview with that
+singular young man; and I marvel your ladyship permitted it."
+
+"My good Master Heriot," said Sir Edward, "we act according to the
+commands of one better and wiser than ourselves--our orders from his
+Majesty must be strictly and literally obeyed; and I need not say that
+the wisdom of his Majesty doth more than ensure--"
+
+"I know his Majesty's wisdom well," said Heriot; "yet there is an old
+proverb about fire and flax--well, let it pass."
+
+"I see Sir Mungo Malagrowther stalking towards the door of the lodging,"
+said the Lady Mansel, "with the gait of a lame crane--it is his second
+visit this morning."
+
+"He brought the warrant for discharging Lord Glenvarloch of the charge
+of treason," said Sir Edward.
+
+"And from him," said Heriot, "I heard much of what had befallen; for I
+came from France only late last evening, and somewhat unexpectedly."
+
+As they spoke, Sir Mungo entered the apartment--saluted the Lieutenant
+of the Tower and his lady with ceremonious civility--honoured George
+Heriot with a patronising nod of acknowledgment, and accosted Margaret
+with--"Hey! my young charge, you have not doffed your masculine attire
+yet?"
+
+"She does not mean to lay it aside, Sir Mungo," said Heriot, speaking
+loud, "until she has had satisfaction from you, for betraying her
+disguise to me, like a false knight--and in very deed, Sir Mungo, I
+think when you told me she was rambling about in so strange a dress, you
+might have said also that she was under Lady Mansel's protection."
+
+"That was the king's secret, Master Heriot," said Sir Mungo, throwing
+himself into a chair with an air of atrabilarious importance; "the other
+was a well-meaning hint to yourself, as the girl's friend."
+
+"Yes," replied Heriot, "it was done like yourself--enough told to make
+me unhappy about her--not a word which could relieve my uneasiness."
+
+"Sir Mungo will not hear that remark," said the lady; "we must change
+the subject.--Is there any news from Court, Sir Mungo? you have been to
+Greenwich?"
+
+"You might as well ask me, madam," answered the Knight, "whether there
+is any news from hell."
+
+"How, Sir Mungo, how!" said Sir Edward, "measure your words something
+better--You speak of the Court of King James."
+
+"Sir Edward, if I spoke of the court of the twelve Kaisers, I would say
+it is as confused for the present as the infernal regions. Courtiers of
+forty years' standing, and such I may write myself, are as far to seek
+in the matter as a minnow in the Maelstrom. Some folk say the king has
+frowned on the Prince--some that the Prince has looked grave on the
+duke--some that Lord Glenvarloch will be hanged for high treason--and
+some that there is matter against Lord Dalgarno that may cost him as
+much as his head's worth."
+
+"And what do you, that are a courtier of forty years' standing, think of
+it all?" said Sir Edward Mansel.
+
+"Nay, nay, do not ask him, Sir Edward," said the lady, with an
+expressive look to her husband.
+
+"Sir Mungo is too witty," added Master Heriot, "to remember that he who
+says aught that may be repeated to his own prejudice, does but load a
+piece for any of the company to shoot him dead with, at their pleasure
+and convenience."
+
+"What!" said the bold Knight, "you think I am afraid of the trepan? Why
+now, what if I should say that Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,--the
+duke more sail than ballast,--the Prince more pride than prudence,--and
+that the king--" The Lady Mansel held up her finger in a warning
+manner--"that the king is my very good master, who has given me, for
+forty years and more, dog's wages, videlicit, bones and beating.--Why
+now, all this is said, and Archie Armstrong [Footnote: The celebrated
+Court jester.] says worse than this of the best of them every day."
+
+"The more fool he," said George Heriot; "yet he is not so utterly wrong,
+for folly is his best wisdom. But do not you, Sir Mungo, set your wit
+against a fool's, though he be a court fool."
+
+"A fool, said you?" replied Sir Mungo, not having fully heard what
+Master Heriot said, or not choosing to have it thought so,--"I have
+been a fool indeed, to hang on at a close-fisted Court here, when men of
+understanding and men of action have been making fortunes in every other
+place of Europe. But here a man comes indifferently off unless he gets a
+great key to turn," (looking at Sir Edward,) "or can beat tattoo with a
+hammer on a pewter plate.--Well, sirs, I must make as much haste back on
+mine errand as if I were a fee'd messenger.--Sir Edward and my lady,
+I leave my commendations with you--and my good-will with you, Master
+Heriot--and for this breaker of bounds, if you will act by my counsel,
+some maceration by fasting, and a gentle use of the rod, is the best
+cure for her giddy fits."
+
+"If you propose for Greenwich, Sir Mungo," said the Lieutenant, "I can
+spare you the labour--the king comes immediately to Whitehall."
+
+"And that must be the reason the council are summoned to meet in such
+hurry," said Sir Mungo. "Well--I will, with your permission, go to the
+poor lad Glenvarloch, and bestow some comfort on him."
+
+The Lieutenant seemed to look up, and pause for a moment as if in doubt.
+
+"The lad will want a pleasant companion, who can tell him the nature of
+the punishment which he is to suffer, and other matters of concernment.
+I will not leave him until I show him how absolutely he hath ruined
+himself from feather to spur, how deplorable is his present state, and
+how small his chance of mending it."
+
+"Well, Sir Mungo," replied the Lieutenant, "if you really think all
+this likely to be very consolatory to the party concerned, I will send a
+warder to conduct you."
+
+"And I," said George Heriot, "will humbly pray of Lady Mansel, that she
+will lend some of her handmaiden's apparel to this giddy-brained girl;
+for I shall forfeit my reputation if I walk up Tower Hill with her
+in that mad guise--and yet the silly lassie looks not so ill in it
+neither."
+
+"I will send my coach with you instantly," said the obliging lady.
+
+"Faith, madam, and if you will honour us by such courtesy, I will gladly
+accept it at your hands," said the citizen, "for business presses hard
+on me, and the forenoon is already lost, to little purpose."
+
+The coach being ordered accordingly, transported the worthy citizen and
+his charge to his mansion in Lombard Street. There he found his presence
+was anxiously expected by the Lady Hermione, who had just received an
+order to be in readiness to attend upon the Royal Privy Council in the
+course of an hour; and upon whom, in her inexperience of business, and
+long retirement from society and the world, the intimation had made as
+deep an impression as if it had not been the necessary consequence of
+the petition which she had presented to the king by Monna Paula. George
+Heriot gently blamed her for taking any steps in an affair so important
+until his return from France, especially as he had requested her
+to remain quiet, in a letter which accompanied the evidence he had
+transmitted to her from Paris. She could only plead in answer the
+influence which her immediately stirring in the matter was likely to
+have on the affair of her kinsman Lord Glenvarloch, for she was ashamed
+to acknowledge how much she had been gained on by the eager importunity
+of her youthful companion. The motive of Margaret's eagerness was, of
+course, the safety of Nigel; but we must leave it to time to show in
+what particulars that came to be connected with the petition of the
+Lady Hermione. Meanwhile, we return to the visit with which Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther favoured the afflicted young nobleman in his place of
+captivity.
+
+The Knight, after the usual salutations, and having prefaced his
+discourse with a great deal of professed regret for Nigel's situation,
+sat down beside him, and composing his grotesque features into the most
+lugubrious despondence, began his raven song as follows:--
+
+"I bless God, my lord, that I was the person who had the pleasure to
+bring his Majesty's mild message to the Lieutenant, discharging the
+higher prosecution against ye, for any thing meditated against his
+Majesty's sacred person; for, admit you be prosecuted on the lesser
+offence, or breach of privilege of the Palace and its precincts, _usque
+ad mutilationem_, even to dismemberation, as it is most likely you will,
+yet the loss of a member is nothing to being hanged and drawn quick,
+after the fashion of a traitor."
+
+"I should feel the shame of having deserved such a punishment," answered
+Nigel, "more than the pain of undergoing it."
+
+"Doubtless, my lord, the having, as you say, deserved it, must be an
+excruciation to your own mind," replied his tormentor; "a kind of mental
+and metaphysical hanging, drawing, and quartering, which may be in some
+measure equipollent with the external application of hemp, iron, fire,
+and the like, to the outer man."
+
+"I say, Sir Mungo," repeated Nigel, "and beg you to understand my words,
+that I am unconscious of any error, save that of having arms on my
+person when I chanced to approach that of my Sovereign."
+
+"Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing," said Sir Mungo. "We
+have an old proverb,--Confess, and--so forth. And indeed, as to the
+weapons, his Majesty has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever, and
+more especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that matter.
+[Footnote: Wilson informs us that when Colonel Grey, a Scotsman who
+affected the buff dress even in the time of peace, appeared in that
+military garb at Court, the king, seeing him with a case of pistols at
+his girdle, which he never greatly liked, told him, merrily, "he was
+now so fortified, that, if he were but well victualled, he would be
+impregnable."--WILSON'S _Life and Reign of James VI._, _apud_ KENNET'S
+_History of England_, vol. ii. p. 389. In 1612, the tenth year
+of James's reign, there was a rumour abroad that a shipload of
+pocket-pistols had been exported from Spain, with a view to a general
+massacre of the Protestants. Proclamations were of consequence sent
+forth, prohibiting all persons from carrying pistols under a foot long
+in the barrel. _Ibid_. p. 690.] I wish you as well through the next,
+which is altogether unlikely."
+
+"Surely, Sir Mungo," answered Nigel, "you yourself might say something
+in my favour concerning the affair in the Park. None knows better
+than you that I was at that moment urged by wrongs of the most heinous
+nature, offered to me by Lord Dalgarno, many of which were reported to
+me by yourself, much to the inflammation of my passion."
+
+"Alack-a-day!-Alack-a-day!" replied Sir Mungo, "I remember but too well
+how much your choler was inflamed, in spite of the various remonstrances
+which I made to you respecting the sacred nature of the place. Alas!
+alas! you cannot say you leaped into the mire for want of warning."
+
+"I see, Sir Mungo, you are determined to remember nothing which can do
+me service," said Nigel.
+
+"Blithely would I do ye service," said the Knight; "and the best whilk I
+can think of is, to tell you the process of the punishment to the whilk
+you will be indubitably subjected, I having had the good fortune to
+behold it performed in the Queen's time, on a chield that had written
+a pasquinado. I was then in my Lord Gray's train, who lay leaguer here,
+and being always covetous of pleasing and profitable sights, I could not
+dispense with being present on the occasion."
+
+"I should be surprised, indeed," said Lord Glenvarloch, "if you had so
+far put restraint upon your benevolence, as to stay away from such an
+exhibition."
+
+"Hey! was your lordship praying me to be present at your own execution?"
+answered the Knight. "Troth, my lord, it will be a painful sight to a
+friend, but I will rather punish myself than baulk you. It is a pretty
+pageant, in the main--a very pretty pageant. The fallow came on with
+such a bold face, it was a pleasure to look on him. He was dressed all
+in white, to signify harmlessness and innocence. The thing was done on a
+scaffold at Westminster--most likely yours will be at the Charing. There
+were the Sheriffs and the Marshal's men, and what not--the executioner,
+with his cleaver and mallet, and his man, with a pan of hot charcoal,
+and the irons for cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This
+man Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might be worth
+your lordship's while to have the loon sent to a barber-surgeon's, to
+learn some needful scantling of anatomy--it may be for the benefit of
+yourself and other unhappy sufferers, and also a kindness to Gregory."
+
+"I will not take the trouble," said Nigel.--"If the laws will demand my
+hand, the executioner may get it off as he best can. If the king leaves
+it where it is, it may chance to do him better service."
+
+"Vera noble--vera grand, indeed, my lord," said Sir Mungo; "it is
+pleasant to see a brave man suffer. This fallow whom I spoke of--This
+Tubbs, or Stubbs, or whatever the plebeian was called, came forward as
+bold as an emperor, and said to the people, 'Good friends, I come
+to leave here the hand of a true Englishman,' and clapped it on
+the dressing-block with as much ease as if he had laid it on his
+sweetheart's shoulder; whereupon Derrick the hangman, adjusting, d'ye
+mind me, the edge of his cleaver on the very joint, hit it with the
+mallet with such force, that the hand flew off as far from the owner as
+a gauntlet which the challenger casts down in the tilt-yard. Well, sir,
+Stubbs, or Tubbs, lost no whit of countenance, until the fallow clapped
+the hissing-hot iron on his raw stump. My lord, it fizzed like a rasher
+of bacon, and the fallow set up an elritch screech, which made some
+think his courage was abated; but not a whit, for he plucked off his
+hat with his left hand, and waved it, crying, 'God save the Queen, and
+confound all evil counsellors!' The people gave him three cheers, which
+he deserved for his stout heart; and, truly, I hope to see your lordship
+suffer with the same magnanimity."
+
+"I thank you, Sir Mungo," said Nigel, who had not been able to forbear
+some natural feelings of an unpleasant nature during this lively
+detail,--"I have no doubt the exhibition will be a very engaging one
+to you and the other spectators, whatever it may prove to the party
+principally concerned."
+
+"Vera engaging," answered Sir Mungo, "vera interesting--vera interesting
+indeed, though not altogether so much so as an execution for high
+treason. I saw Digby, the Winters, Fawkes, and the rest of the gunpowder
+gang, suffer for that treason, whilk was a vera grand spectacle, as well
+in regard to their sufferings, as to their constancy in enduring."
+
+"I am the more obliged to your goodness, Sir Mungo," replied Nigel,
+"that has induced you, although you have lost the sight, to congratulate
+me on my escape from the hazard of making the same edifying appearance."
+
+"As you say, my lord," answered Sir Mungo, "the loss is chiefly
+in appearance. Nature has been very bountiful to us, and has given
+duplicates of some organs, that we may endure the loss of one of them,
+should some such circumstance chance in our pilgrimage. See my poor
+dexter, abridged to one thumb, one finger, and a stump,--by the blow of
+my adversary's weapon, however, and not by any carnificial knife. Weel,
+sir, this poor maimed hand doth me, in some sort, as much service as
+ever; and, admit yours to be taken off by the wrist, you have still your
+left hand for your service, and are better off than the little Dutch
+dwarf here about town, who threads a needle, limns, writes, and tosses a
+pike, merely by means of his feet, without ever a hand to help him."
+
+"Well, Sir Mungo," said Lord Glenvarloch, "this is all no doubt very
+consolatory; but I hope the king will spare my hand to fight for him
+in battle, where, notwithstanding all your kind encouragement, I could
+spend my blood much more cheerfully than on a scaffold."
+
+"It is even a sad truth," replied Sir Mungo, "that your lordship was
+but too like to have died on a scaffold--not a soul to speak for you but
+that deluded lassie Maggie Ramsay."
+
+"Whom mean you?" said Nigel, with more interest than he had hitherto
+shown in the Knight's communications.
+
+"Nay, who should I mean, but that travestied lassie whom we dined with
+when we honoured Heriot the goldsmith? Ye ken best how you have made
+interest with her, but I saw her on her knees to the king for you. She
+was committed to my charge, to bring her up hither in honour and safety.
+Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the
+wild blood out of her--a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches,
+and not so much as married yet!"
+
+"Hark ye, Sir Mungo Malagrowther," answered Nigel, "I would have you
+talk of that young person with fitting respect."
+
+"With all the respect that befits your lordship's paramour, and Davy
+Ramsay's daughter, I shall certainly speak of her, my lord," said Sir
+Mungo, assuming a dry tone of irony.
+
+Nigel was greatly disposed to have made a serious quarrel of it, but
+with Sir Mungo such an affair would have been ridiculous; he smothered
+his resentment, therefore, and conjured him to tell what he had heard
+and seen respecting this young person.
+
+"Simply, that I was in the ante-room when she had audience, and heard
+the king say, to my great perplexity, '_Pulchra sane puella;_' and
+Maxwell, who hath but indifferent Latin ears, thought that his Majesty
+called on him by his own name of Sawney, and thrust into the presence,
+and there I saw our Sovereign James, with his own hand, raising up the
+lassie, who, as I said heretofore, was travestied in man's attire. I
+should have had my own thoughts of it, but our gracious Master is auld,
+and was nae great gillravager amang the queans even in his youth; and
+he was comforting her in his own way and saying,--'Ye needna greet about
+it, my bonnie woman, Glenvarlochides shall have fair play; and, indeed,
+when the hurry was off our spirits, we could not believe that he had
+any design on our person. And touching his other offences, we will look
+wisely and closely into the matter.' So I got charge to take the young
+fence-louper to the Tower here, and deliver her to the charge of Lady
+Mansel; and his Majesty charged me to say not a word to her about your
+offences, for, said he, the poor thing is breaking her heart for him."
+
+"And on this you have charitably founded the opinion to the prejudice
+of this young lady, which you have now thought proper to express?" said
+Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"In honest truth, my lord," replied Sir Mungo, "what opinion would you
+have me form of a wench who gets into male habiliments, and goes on
+her knees to the king for a wild young nobleman? I wot not what the
+fashionable word may be, for the phrase changes, though the custom
+abides. But truly I must needs think this young leddy--if you call
+Watchie Ramsay's daughter a young leddy--demeans herself more like a
+leddy of pleasure than a leddy of honour."
+
+"You do her egregious wrong, Sir Mungo," said Nigel; "or rather you have
+been misled by appearances."
+
+"So will all the world be misled, my lord," replied the satirist,
+"unless you were doing that to disabuse them which your father's son
+will hardly judge it fit to do."
+
+"And what may that be, I pray you?"
+
+"E'en marry the lass--make her Leddy Glenvarloch.--Ay, ay, ye may
+start--but it's the course you are driving on. Rather marry than do
+worse, if the worst be not done already."
+
+"Sir Mungo," said Nigel, "I pray you to forbear this subject, and rather
+return to that of the mutilation, upon which it pleased you to enlarge a
+short while since."
+
+"I have not time at present," said Sir Mungo, hearing the clock strike
+four; "but so soon as you shall have received sentence, my lord, you may
+rely on my giving you the fullest detail of the whole solemnity; and I
+give you my word, as a knight and a gentleman, that I will myself attend
+you on the scaffold, whoever may cast sour looks on me for doing so. I
+bear a heart, to stand by a friend in the worst of times."
+
+So saying, he wished Lord Glenvarloch farewell; who felt as heartily
+rejoiced at his departure, though it may be a bold word, as any person
+who had ever undergone his society.
+
+But, when left to his own reflections, Nigel could not help feeling
+solitude nearly as irksome as the company of Sir Mungo Malagrowther. The
+total wreck of his fortune,--which seemed now to be rendered unavoidable
+by the loss of the royal warrant, that had afforded him the means of
+redeeming his paternal estate,--was an unexpected and additional blow.
+When he had seen the warrant he could not precisely remember; but was
+inclined to think, it was in the casket when he took out money to pay
+the miser for his lodgings at Whitefriars. Since then, the casket had
+been almost constantly under his own eye, except during the short time
+he was separated from his baggage by the arrest in Greenwich Park. It
+might, indeed, have been taken out at that time, for he had no reason
+to think either his person or his property was in the hands of those who
+wished him well; but, on the other hand, the locks of the strong-box had
+sustained no violence that he could observe, and, being of a particular
+and complicated construction, he thought they could scarce be opened
+without an instrument made on purpose, adapted to their peculiarities,
+and for this there had been no time. But, speculate as he would on the
+matter, it was clear that this important document was gone, and probable
+that it had passed into no friendly hands. "Let it be so," said Nigel
+to himself; "I am scarcely worse off respecting my prospects of fortune,
+than when I first reached this accursed city. But to be hampered with
+cruel accusations, and stained with foul suspicions-to be the object
+of pity of the most degrading kind to yonder honest citizen, and of the
+malignity of that envious and atrabilarious courtier, who can endure
+the good fortune and good qualities of another no more than the mole
+can brook sunshine--this is indeed a deplorable reflection; and the
+consequences must stick to my future life, and impede whatever my head,
+or my hand, if it is left me, might be able to execute in my favour."
+
+The feeling, that he is the object of general dislike and dereliction,
+seems to be one of the most unendurably painful to which a human being
+can be subjected. The most atrocious criminals, whose nerves have not
+shrunk from perpetrating the most horrid cruelty, endure more from the
+consciousness that no man will sympathise with their sufferings, than
+from apprehension of the personal agony of their impending punishment;
+and are known often to attempt to palliate their enormities, and
+sometimes altogether to deny what is established by the clearest proof,
+rather than to leave life under the general ban of humanity. It was no
+wonder that Nigel, labouring under the sense of general, though unjust
+suspicion, should, while pondering on so painful a theme, recollect that
+one, at least, had not only believed him innocent, but hazarded herself,
+with all her feeble power, to interpose in his behalf.
+
+"Poor girl!" he repeated; "poor, rash, but generous maiden! your fate is
+that of her in Scottish story, who thrust her arm into the staple of
+the door, to oppose it as a bar against the assassins who threatened the
+murder of her sovereign. The deed of devotion was useless; save to give
+an immortal name to her by whom it was done, and whose blood flows, it
+is said, in the veins of my house."
+
+I cannot explain to the reader, whether the recollection of this
+historical deed of devotion, and the lively effect which the comparison,
+a little overstrained perhaps, was likely to produce in favour of
+Margaret Ramsay, was not qualified by the concomitant ideas of ancestry
+and ancient descent with which that recollection was mingled. But the
+contending feelings suggested a new train of ideas.--"Ancestry," he
+thought, "and ancient descent, what are they to me?--My patrimony
+alienated--my title become a reproach--for what can be so absurd as
+titled beggary?--my character subjected to suspicion,--I will not remain
+in this country; and should I, at leaving it, procure the society of one
+so lovely, so brave, and so faithful, who should say that I derogated
+from the rank which I am virtually renouncing?"
+
+There was something romantic and pleasing, as he pursued this picture of
+an attached and faithful pair, becoming all the world to each other,
+and stemming the tide of fate arm in arm; and to be linked thus with a
+creature so beautiful, and who had taken such devoted and disinterested
+concern in his fortunes, formed itself into such a vision as romantic
+youth loves best to dwell upon.
+
+Suddenly his dream was painfully dispelled, by the recollection, that
+its very basis rested upon the most selfish ingratitude on his own part.
+Lord of his castle and his towers, his forests and fields, his fair
+patrimony and noble name, his mind would have rejected, as a sort of
+impossibility, the idea of elevating to his rank the daughter of a
+mechanic; but, when degraded from his nobility, and plunged into poverty
+and difficulties, he was ashamed to feel himself not unwilling, that
+this poor girl, in the blindness of her affection, should abandon
+all the better prospects of her own settled condition, to embrace the
+precarious and doubtful course which he himself was condemned to. The
+generosity of Nigel's mind recoiled from the selfishness of the plan of
+happiness which he projected; and he made a strong effort to expel from
+his thoughts for the rest of the evening this fascinating female, or, at
+least, not to permit them to dwell upon the perilous circumstance, that
+she was at present the only creature living who seemed to consider him
+as an object of kindness.
+
+He could not, however, succeed in banishing her from his slumbers, when,
+after having spent a weary day, he betook himself to a perturbed couch.
+The form of Margaret mingled with the wild mass of dreams which his late
+adventures had suggested; and even when, copying the lively narrative of
+Sir Mungo, fancy presented to him the blood bubbling and hissing on
+the heated iron, Margaret stood behind him like a spirit of light, to
+breathe healing on the wound. At length nature was exhausted by these
+fantastic creations, and Nigel slept, and slept soundly, until awakened
+in the morning by the sound of a well-known voice, which had often
+broken his slumbers about the same hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+  Many, come up, sir, with your gentle blood!
+  Here's a red stream beneath this coarse blue doublet,
+  That warms the heart as kindly as if drawn
+  From the far source of old Assyrian kings.
+  Who first made mankind subject to their sway.
+                           _Old Play_.
+
+The sounds to which we alluded in our last, were no other than the
+grumbling tones of Richie Moniplies's voice.
+
+This worthy, like some other persons who rank high in their own opinion,
+was very apt, when he could have no other auditor, to hold conversation
+with one who was sure to be a willing listener--I mean with himself. He
+was now brushing and arranging Lord Glenvarloch's clothes, with as
+much composure and quiet assiduity as if he had never been out of
+his service, and grumbling betwixt whiles to the following
+purpose:--"Hump--ay, time cloak and jerkin were through my hands--I
+question if horsehair has been passed over them since they and I last
+parted. The embroidery finely frayed too--and the gold buttons of the
+cloak--By my conscience, and as I am an honest man, there is a round
+dozen of them gane! This comes of Alsatian frolics--God keep us with
+his grace, and not give us over to our own devices!--I see no sword--but
+that will be in respect of present circumstances."
+
+Nigel for some time could not help believing that he was still in a
+dream, so improbable did it seem that his domestic, whom he supposed to
+be in Scotland, should have found him out, and obtained access to him,
+in his present circumstances. Looking through the curtains, however,
+he became well assured of the fact, when he beheld the stiff and bony
+length of Richie, with a visage charged with nearly double its ordinary
+degree of importance, employed sedulously in brushing his master's
+cloak, and refreshing himself with whistling or humming, from interval
+to interval, some snatch of an old melancholy Scottish ballad-tune.
+Although sufficiently convinced of the identity of the party, Lord
+Glenvarloch could not help expressing his surprise in the superfluous
+question--"In the name of Heaven, Richie, is this you?"
+
+"And wha else suld it be, my lord?" answered Richie; "I dreamna that
+your lordship's levee in this place is like to be attended by ony that
+are not bounded thereto by duty."
+
+"I am rather surprised," answered Nigel, "that it should be attended by
+any one at all--especially by you, Richie; for you know that we parted,
+and I thought you had reached Scotland long since."
+
+"I crave your lordship's pardon, but we have not parted yet, nor are
+soon likely so to do; for there gang twa folk's votes to the unmaking
+of a bargain, as to the making of ane. Though it was your lordship's
+pleasure so to conduct yourself that we were like to have parted, yet
+it was not, on reflection, my will to be gone. To be plain, if your
+lordship does not ken when you have a good servant, I ken when I have a
+kind master; and to say truth, you will be easier served now than ever,
+for there is not much chance of your getting out of bounds."
+
+"I am indeed bound over to good behaviour," said Lord Glenvarloch, with
+a smile; "but I hope you will not take advantage of my situation to be
+too severe on my follies, Richie?"
+
+"God forbid, my lord--God forbid!" replied Richie, with an expression
+betwixt a conceited consciousness of superior wisdom and real
+feeling--"especially in consideration of your lordship's having a due
+sense of them. I did indeed remonstrate, as was my humble duty, but
+I scorn to cast that up to your lordship now--Na, na, I am myself an
+erring creature--very conscious of some small weaknesses--there is no
+perfection in man."
+
+"But, Richie," said Lord Glenvarloch, "although I am much obliged to you
+for your proffered service, it can be of little use to me here, and may
+be of prejudice to yourself."
+
+"Your lordship shall pardon me again," said Richie, whom the relative
+situation of the parties had invested with ten times his ordinary
+dogmatism; "but as I will manage the matter, your lordship shall be
+greatly benefited by my service, and I myself no whit prejudiced."
+
+"I see not how that can be, my friend," said Lord Glenvarloch, "since
+even as to your pecuniary affairs--"
+
+"Touching my pecuniars, my lord," replied Richie, "I am indifferently
+weel provided; and, as it chances, my living here will be no burden to
+your lordship, or distress to myself. Only I crave permission to annex
+certain conditions to my servitude with your lordship."
+
+"Annex what you will," said Lord Glenvarloch, "for you are pretty sure
+to take your own way, whether you make any conditions or not. Since you
+will not leave me, which were, I think, your wisest course, you must,
+and I suppose will, serve me only on such terms as you like yourself."
+
+"All that I ask, my lord," said Richie, gravely, and with a tone of
+great moderation, "is to have the uninterrupted command of my own
+motions, for certain important purposes which I have now in hand, always
+giving your lordship the solace of my company and attendance, at such
+times as may be at once convenient for me, and necessary for your
+service."
+
+"Of which, I suppose, you constitute yourself sole judge," replied
+Nigel, smiling.
+
+"Unquestionably, my lord," answered Richie, gravely; "for your lordship
+can only know what yourself want; whereas I, who see both sides of the
+picture, ken both what is the best for your affairs, and what is the
+most needful for my own."
+
+"Richie, my good friend," said Nigel, "I fear this arrangement, which
+places the master much under the disposal of the servant, would scarce
+suit us if we were both at large; but a prisoner as I am, I may be as
+well at your disposal as I am at that of so many other persons; and
+so you may come and go as you list, for I suppose you will not take my
+advice, to return to your own country, and leave me to my fate."
+
+"The deil be in my feet if I do," said Moniplies,--"I am not the lad to
+leave your lordship in foul weather, when I followed you and fed upon
+you through the whole summer day, And besides, there may be brave days
+behind, for a' that has come and gane yet; for
+
+"It's hame, and it's hame, and it's hame we fain would be, Though the
+cloud is in the lift, and the wind is on the lea; For the sun through
+the mirk blinks blithe on mine ee, Says,--'I'll shine on ye yet in our
+ain country!"
+
+Having sung this stanza in the manner of a ballad-singer, whose voice
+has been cracked by matching his windpipe against the bugle of the north
+blast, Richie Moniplies aided Lord Glenvarloch to rise, attended his
+toilet with every possible mark of the most solemn and deferential
+respect, then waited upon him at breakfast, and finally withdrew,
+pleading that he had business of importance, which would detain him for
+some hours.
+
+Although Lord Glenvarloch necessarily expected to be occasionally
+annoyed by the self-conceit and dogmatism of Richie Moniplies's
+character, yet he could not but feel the greatest pleasure from the firm
+and devoted attachment which this faithful follower had displayed in
+the present instance, and indeed promised himself an alleviation of the
+ennui of his imprisonment, in having the advantage of his services. It
+was, therefore, with pleasure that he learned from the warder, that
+his servant's attendance would be allowed at all times when the general
+rules of the fortress permitted the entrance of strangers.
+
+In the meanwhile, the magnanimous Richie Moniplies had already reached
+Tower Wharf. Here, after looking with contempt on several scullers by
+whom he was plied, and whose services he rejected with a wave of his
+hand, he called with dignity, "First oars!" and stirred into activity
+several lounging Tritons of the higher order, who had not, on his
+first appearance, thought it worth while to accost him with proffers of
+service. He now took possession of a wherry, folded his arms within his
+ample cloak, and sitting down in the stern with an air of importance,
+commanded them to row to Whitehall Stairs. Having reached the Palace
+in safety, he demanded to see Master Linklater, the under-clerk of his
+Majesty's kitchen. The reply was, that he was not to be spoken withal,
+being then employed in cooking a mess of cock-a-leekie for the king's
+own mouth.
+
+"Tell him," said Moniplies, "that it is a dear countryman of his, who
+seeks to converse with him on matter of high import."
+
+"A dear countryman?" said Linklater, when this pressing message was
+delivered to him. "Well, let him come in and be d--d, that I should say
+sae! This now is some red-headed, long-legged, gillie-white-foot
+frae the West Port, that, hearing of my promotion, is come up to be
+a turn-broche, or deputy scullion, through my interest. It is a great
+hinderance to any man who would rise in the world, to have such friends
+to hang by his skirts, in hope of being towed up along with him.--Ha!
+Richie Moniplies, man, is it thou? And what has brought ye here? If they
+should ken thee for the loon that scared the horse the other day!--"
+
+"No more o' that, neighbour," said Richie,--"I am just here on the auld
+errand--I maun speak with the king."
+
+"The king? Ye are red wud," said Linklater; then shouted to his
+assistant in the kitchen, "Look to the broches, ye knaves--_pisces
+purga_--_Salsamenta fac macerentur pulchre_--I will make you understand
+Latin, ye knaves, as becomes the scullions of King James." Then in a
+cautious tone, to Richie's private ear, he continued, "Know ye not how
+ill your master came off the other day?--I can tell you that job made
+some folk shake for their office."
+
+"Weel, but, Laurie, ye maun befriend me this time, and get this wee
+bit sifflication slipped into his Majesty's ain most gracious hand. I
+promise you the contents will be most grateful to him."
+
+"Richie," answered Linklater, "you have certainly sworn to say your
+prayers in the porter's lodge, with your back bare; and twa grooms, with
+dog-whips, to cry amen to you."
+
+"Na, na, Laurie, lad," said Richie, "I ken better what belangs to
+sifflications than I did yon day; and ye will say that yoursell, if ye
+will but get that bit note to the king's hand."
+
+"I will have neither hand nor foot in the matter," said the cautious
+Clerk of the Kitchen; "but there is his Majesty's mess of cock-a-leekie
+just going to be served to him in his closet--I cannot prevent you from
+putting the letter between the gilt bowl and the platter; his sacred
+Majesty will see it when he lifts the bowl, for he aye drinks out the
+broth."
+
+"Enough said," replied Richie, and deposited the paper accordingly, just
+before a page entered to carry away the mess to his Majesty.
+
+"Aweel, aweel, neighbour," said Laurence, when the mess was taken
+away, "if ye have done ony thing to bring yoursell to the withy, or the
+scourging post, it is your ain wilful deed."
+
+"I will blame no other for it," said Richie; and with that undismayed
+pertinacity of conceit, which made a fundamental part of his character,
+he abode the issue, which was not long of arriving.
+
+In a few minutes Maxwell himself arrived in the apartment, and demanded
+hastily who had placed a writing on the king's trencher, Linklater
+denied all knowledge of it; but Richie Moniplies, stepping boldly forth,
+pronounced the emphatical confession, "I am the man."
+
+"Follow me, then," said Maxwell, after regarding him with a look of
+great curiosity.
+
+They went up a private staircase,--even that private staircase, the
+privilege of which at Court is accounted a nearer road to power than the
+_grandes entrees_ themselves. Arriving in what Richie described as an
+"ill redd-up" ante-room, the usher made a sign to him to stop, while he
+went into the king's closet. Their conference was short, and as Maxwell
+opened the door to retire, Richie heard the conclusion of it.
+
+"Ye are sure he is not dangerous?--I was caught once.--Bide within call,
+but not nearer the door than within three geometrical cubits. If I speak
+loud, start to me like a falcon--If I speak loun, keep your lang lugs
+out of ear-shot--and now let him come in."
+
+Richie passed forward at Maxwell's mute signal, and in a moment found
+himself in the presence of the king. Most men of Richie's birth and
+breeding, and many others, would have been abashed at finding themselves
+alone with their Sovereign. But Richie Moniplies had an opinion of
+himself too high to be controlled by any such ideas; and having made his
+stiff reverence, he arose once more into his perpendicular height, and
+stood before James as stiff as a hedge-stake.
+
+"Have ye gotten them, man? have ye gotten them?" said the king, in
+a fluttered state, betwixt hope and eagerness, and some touch of
+suspicious fear. "Gie me them--gie me them--before ye speak a word, I
+charge you, on your allegiance."
+
+Richie took a box from his bosom, and, stooping on one knee, presented
+it to his Majesty, who hastily opened it, and having ascertained that
+it contained a certain carcanet of rubies, with which the reader was
+formerly made acquainted, he could not resist falling into a sort of
+rapture, kissing the gems, as if they had been capable of feeling,
+and repeating again and again with childish delight, "_Onyx cum prole,
+silexque_---_Onyx cum prole!_ Ah, my bright and bonny sparklers, my
+heart loups light to see you again." He then turned to Richie, upon
+whose stoical countenance his Majesty's demeanour had excited something
+like a grim smile, which James interrupted his rejoicing to reprehend,
+saying, "Take heed, sir, you are not to laugh at us--we are your
+anointed Sovereign."
+
+"God forbid that I should laugh!" said Richie, composing his countenance
+into its natural rigidity. "I did but smile, to bring my visage into
+coincidence and conformity with your Majesty's physiognomy."
+
+"Ye speak as a dutiful subject, and an honest man," said the king; "but
+what deil's your name, man?"
+
+"Even Richie Moniplies, the son of auld Mungo Moniplies, at the West
+Port of Edinburgh, who had the honour to supply your Majesty's mother's
+royal table, as weel as your Majesty's, with flesh and other vivers,
+when time was."
+
+"Aha!" said the king, laughing,--for he possessed, as a useful attribute
+of his situation, a tenacious memory, which recollected every one with
+whom he was brought into casual contact,--"Ye are the self-same traitor
+who had weelnigh coupit us endlang on the causey of our ain courtyard?
+but we stuck by our mare. _Equam memento rebus in arduis servare_. Weel,
+be not dismayed, Richie; for, as many men have turned traitors, it
+is but fair that a traitor, now and then, suld prove to be, contra
+expectanda, a true man. How cam ye by our jewels, man?--cam ye on the
+part of George Heriot?"
+
+"In no sort," said Richie. "May it please your Majesty, I come as
+Harry Wynd fought, utterly for my own hand, and on no man's errand; as,
+indeed, I call no one master, save Him that made me, your most
+gracious Majesty who governs me, and the noble Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of
+Glenvarloch, who maintained me as lang as he could maintain himself,
+poor nobleman!"
+
+"Glenvarlochides again!" exclaimed the king; "by my honour, he lies in
+ambush for us at every corner!--Maxwell knocks at the door. It is George
+Heriot come to tell us he cannot find these jewels.--Get thee behind
+the arras, Richie--stand close, man--sneeze not--cough not--breathe
+not!--Jingling Geordie is so damnably ready with his gold-ends of
+wisdom, and sae accursedly backward with his gold-ends of siller, that,
+by our royal saul, we are glad to get a hair in his neck."
+
+Richie got behind the arras, in obedience to the commands of the
+good-natured king, while the Monarch, who never allowed his dignity to
+stand in the way of a frolic, having adjusted, with his own hand, the
+tapestry, so as to complete the ambush, commanded Maxwell to tell him
+what was the matter without. Maxwell's reply was so low as to be lost by
+Richie Moniplies, the peculiarity of whose situation by no means abated
+his curiosity and desire to gratify it to the uttermost.
+
+"Let Geordie Heriot come in," said the king; and, as Richie could
+observe through a slit in the tapestry, the honest citizen, if not
+actually agitated, was at least discomposed. The king, whose talent for
+wit, or humour, was precisely of a kind to be gratified by such a scene
+as ensued, received his homage with coldness, and began to talk to him
+with an air of serious dignity, very different from the usual indecorous
+levity of his behaviour. "Master Heriot," he said, "if we aright
+remember, we opignorated in your hands certain jewels of the Crown, for
+a certain sum of money--Did we, or did we not?"
+
+"My most gracious Sovereign," said Heriot, "indisputably your Majesty
+was pleased to do so."
+
+"The property of which jewels and _cimelia_ remained with us," continued
+the king, in the same solemn tone, "subject only to your claim of
+advance thereupon; which advance being repaid, gives us right to
+repossession of the thing opignorated, or pledged, or laid in wad.
+Voetius, Vinnius, Groenwigeneus, Pagenstecherus,--all who have treated
+_de Contractu Opignerationis, consentiunt in eundem_,--gree on the same
+point. The Roman law, the English common law, and the municipal law
+of our ain ancient kingdom of Scotland, though they split in mair
+particulars than I could desire, unite as strictly in this as the three
+strands of a twisted rope."
+
+"May it please your Majesty," replied Heriot, "it requires not so many
+learned authorities to prove to any honest man, that his interest in a
+pledge is determined when the money lent is restored."
+
+"Weel, sir, I proffer restoration of the sum lent, and I demand to be
+repossessed of the jewels pledged with you. I gave ye a hint, brief
+while since, that this would be essential to my service, for, as
+approaching events are like to call us into public, it would seem
+strange if we did not appear with those ornaments, which are heirlooms
+of the Crown, and the absence whereof is like to place us in contempt
+and suspicion with our liege subjects."
+
+Master George Heriot seemed much moved by this address of his Sovereign,
+and replied with emotion, "I call Heaven to witness, that I am totally
+harmless in this matter, and that I would willingly lose the sum
+advanced, so that I could restore those jewels, the absence of which
+your Majesty so justly laments. Had the jewels remained with me, the
+account of them would be easily rendered; but your Majesty will do me
+the justice to remember, that, by your express order, I transferred them
+to another person, who advanced a large sum, just about the time of my
+departure for Paris. The money was pressingly wanted, and no other means
+to come by it occurred to me. I told your Majesty, when I brought the
+needful supply, that the man from whom the monies were obtained, was
+of no good repute; and your most princely answer was, smelling to the
+gold--_Non olet_, it smells not of the means that have gotten it."
+
+"Weel, man," said the king, "but what needs a' this din? If ye gave my
+jewels in pledge to such a one, suld ye not, as a liege subject, have
+taken care that the redemption was in our power? And are we to suffer
+the loss of our _cimelia_ by your neglect, besides being exposed to the
+scorn and censure of our lieges, and of the foreign ambassadors?"
+
+"My lord and liege king," said Heriot, "God knows, if my bearing blame
+or shame in this matter would keep it from your Majesty, it were my duty
+to endure both, as a servant grateful for many benefits; but when
+your Majesty considers the violent death of the man himself, the
+disappearance of his daughter, and of his wealth, I trust you will
+remember that I warned your Majesty, in humble duty, of the possibility
+of such casualties, and prayed you not to urge me to deal with him on
+your behalf."
+
+"But you brought me nae better means," said the king--"Geordie, ye
+brought me nae better means. I was like a deserted man; what could I do
+but grip to the first siller that offered, as a drowning man grasps to
+the willow-wand that comes readiest?--And now, man, what for have ye not
+brought back the jewels? they are surely above ground, if ye wad make
+strict search."
+
+"All strict search has been made, may it please your Majesty," replied
+the citizen; "hue and cry has been sent out everywhere, and it has been
+found impossible to recover them."
+
+"Difficult, ye mean, Geordie, not impossible," replied the king; "for
+that whilk is impossible, is either naturally so, _exempli gratia_, to
+make two into three; or morally so, as to make what is truth falsehood;
+but what is only difficult may come to pass, with assistance of wisdom
+and patience; as, for example, Jingling Geordie, look here!" And he
+displayed the recovered treasure to the eyes of the astonished jeweller,
+exclaiming, with great triumph, "What say ye to that, Jingler?--By my
+sceptre and crown, the man stares as if he took his native prince for a
+warlock! us that are the very _malleus maleficarum_, the contunding
+and contriturating hammer of all witches, sorcerers, magicians, and the
+like; he thinks we are taking a touch of the black art outsells!--But
+gang thy way, honest Geordie; thou art a good plain man, but nane of the
+seven sages of Greece; gang thy way, and mind the soothfast word which
+you spoke, small time syne, that there is one in this land that comes
+near to Solomon, King of Israel, in all his gifts, except in his love to
+strange women, forby the daughter of Pharaoh."
+
+If Heriot was surprised at seeing the jewels so unexpectedly produced
+at the moment the king was upbraiding him for the loss of them, this
+allusion to the reflection which had escaped him while conversing with
+Lord Glenvarloch, altogether completed his astonishment; and the king
+was so delighted with the superiority which it gave him at the moment,
+that he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and finally, his sense of dignity
+giving way to the full feeling of triumph, he threw himself into his
+easy-chair, and laughed with unconstrained violence till he lost his
+breath, and the tears ran plentifully down his cheeks as he strove
+to recover it. Meanwhile, the royal cachinnation was echoed out by a
+discordant and portentous laugh from behind the arras, like that of one
+who, little accustomed to give way to such emotions, feels himself
+at some particular impulse unable either to control or to modify his
+obstreperous mirth. Heriot turned his head with new surprise towards the
+place, from which sounds so unfitting the presence of a monarch seemed
+to burst with such emphatic clamour.
+
+The king, too, somewhat sensible of the indecorum, rose up, wiped his
+eyes, and calling,--"Todlowrie, come out o' your den," he produced from
+behind the arras the length of Richie Moniplies, still laughing with as
+unrestrained mirth as ever did gossip at a country christening. "Whisht,
+man, whisht, man," said the king; "ye needna nicher that gait, like a
+cusser at a caup o' corn, e'en though it was a pleasing jest, and our
+ain framing. And yet to see Jingling Geordie, that bauds himself so
+much the wiser than other folk--to see him, ha! ha! ha!--in the vein of
+Euclio apud Plautum, distressing himself to recover what was lying at
+his elbow--'Peril, interii, occidi--quo curram? quo non curram?--Tene,
+tene--quem? quis? nescio--nihil video."
+
+"Ah! Geordie, your een are sharp enough to look after gowd and silver,
+gems, rubies, and the like of that, and yet ye kenna how to come by them
+when they are lost.--Ay, ay--look at them, man--look at them--they are
+a' right and tight, sound and round, not a doublet crept in amongst
+them."
+
+George Heriot, when his first surprise was over, was too old a courtier
+to interrupt the king's imaginary triumph, although he darted a look
+of some displeasure at honest Richie, who still continued on what is
+usually termed the broad grin. He quietly examined the stones, and
+finding them all perfect, he honestly and sincerely congratulated his
+Majesty on the recovery of a treasure which could not have been lost
+without some dishonour to the crown; and asked to whom he himself was to
+pay the sums for which they had been pledged, observing, that he had the
+money by him in readiness.
+
+"Ye are in a deevil of a hurry, when there is paying in the case,
+Geordie," said the king.--"What's a' the haste, man? The jewels were
+restored by an honest, kindly countryman of ours. There he stands, and
+wha kens if he wants the money on the nail, or if he might not be as
+weel pleased wi' a bit rescript on our treasury some six months hence?
+Ye ken that our Exchequer is even at a low ebb just now, and ye cry pay,
+pay, pay, as if we had all the mines of Ophir."
+
+"Please your Majesty," said Heriot, "if this man has the real right to
+these monies, it is doubtless at his will to grant forbearance, if he
+will. But when I remember the guise in which I first saw him, with a
+tattered cloak and a broken head, I can hardly conceive it.--Are not you
+Richie Moniplies, with the king's favour?"
+
+"Even sae, Master Heriot--of the ancient and honourable house of Castle
+Collop, near to the West Port of Edinburgh," answered Richie.
+
+"Why, please your Majesty, he is a poor serving-man," said Heriot. "This
+money can never be honestly at his disposal."
+
+"What for no?" said the king. "Wad ye have naebody spraickle up the brae
+but yoursell, Geordie? Your ain cloak was thin enough when ye cam here,
+though ye have lined it gay and weel. And for serving-men, there has
+mony a red-shank cam over the Tweed wi' his master's wallet on his
+shoulders, that now rustles it wi' his six followers behind him. There
+stands the man himsell; speer at him, Geordie."
+
+"His may not be the best authority in the case," answered the cautious
+citizen.
+
+"Tut, tut, man," said the king, "ye are over scrupulous. The knave
+deer-stealers have an apt phrase, _Non est inquirendum unde venit_
+VENISON. He that brings the gudes hath surely a right to dispose of
+the gear.--Hark ye, friend, speak the truth and shame the deil. Have
+ye plenary powers to dispose on the redemption-money as to delay of
+payments, or the like, ay or no?"
+
+"Full power, an it like your gracious Majesty," answered Richie
+Moniplies; "and I am maist willing to subscrive to whatsoever may in ony
+wise accommodate your Majesty anent the redemption-money, trusting your
+Majesty's grace will be kind to me in one sma' favour."
+
+"Ey, man," said the king, "come ye to me there? I thought ye wad e'en
+be like the rest of them.--One would think our subjects' lives and goods
+were all our ain, and holden of us at our free will; but when we stand
+in need of ony matter of siller from them, which chances more frequently
+than we would it did, deil a boddle is to be had, save on the auld terms
+of giff-gaff. It is just niffer for niffer.--Aweel, neighbour, what
+is it that ye want--some monopoly, I reckon? Or it may be a grant
+of kirk-lands and teinds, or a knighthood, or the like? Ye maun be
+reasonable, unless ye propose to advance more money for our present
+occasions."
+
+"My liege," answered Richie Moniplies, "the owner of these monies places
+them at your Majesty's command, free of all pledge or usage as long as
+it is your royal pleasure, providing your Majesty will condescend to
+show some favour to the noble Lord Glenvarloch, presently prisoner in
+your royal Tower of London."
+
+"How, man--how,--man--how, man!" exclaimed the king, reddening and
+stammering, but with emotions more noble than those by which he was
+sometimes agitated--"What is that you dare to say to us?--Sell our
+justice!--sell our mercy!--and we a crowned king, sworn to do justice
+to our subjects in the gate, and responsible for our stewardship to
+Him that is over all kings?"--Here he reverently looked up, touched his
+bonnet, and continued, with some sharpness,--"We dare not traffic in
+such commodities, sir; and, but that ye are a poor ignorant creature,
+that have done us this day some not unpleasant service, we wad have a
+red iron driven through your tongue, _in terrorem_ of others.--Awa with
+him, Geordie,--pay him, plack and bawbee, out of our monies in your
+hands, and let them care that come ahint."
+
+Richie, who had counted with the utmost certainty upon the success
+of this master-stroke of policy, was like an architect whose whole
+scaffolding at once gives way under him. He caught, however, at what
+he thought might break his fall. "Not only the sum for which the jewels
+were pledged," he said, "but the double of it, if required, should be
+placed at his Majesty's command, and even without hope or condition of
+repayment, if only--"
+
+But the king did not allow him to complete the sentence, crying out with
+greater vehemence than before, as if he dreaded the stability of his own
+good resolutions,--"Awa wi' him--swith awa wi' him! It is time he
+were gane, if he doubles his bode that gate. And, for your life, letna
+Steenie, or ony of them, hear a word from his mouth; for wha kens what
+trouble that might bring me into! _Ne inducas in tentationem_--_Vade
+retro, Sathanas!--Amen_."
+
+In obedience to the royal mandate, George Heriot hurried the abashed
+petitioner out of the presence and out of the Palace; and, when they
+were in the Palace-yard, the citizen, remembering with some resentment
+the airs of equality which Richie had assumed towards him in the
+commencement of the scene which had just taken place, could not forbear
+to retaliate, by congratulating him with an ironical smile on his favour
+at Court, and his improved grace in presenting a supplication.
+
+"Never fash your beard about that, Master George Heriot," said Richie,
+totally undismayed; "but tell me when and where I am to sifflicate
+you for eight hundred pounds sterling, for which these jewels stood
+engaged?"
+
+"The instant that you bring with you the real owner of the money,"
+replied Heriot; "whom it is important that I should see on more accounts
+than one."
+
+"Then will I back to his Majesty," said Richie Moniplies, stoutly, "and
+get either the money or the pledge back again. I am fully commissionate
+to act in that matter."
+
+"It may be so, Richie," said the citizen, "and perchance it may _not_
+be so neither, for your tales are not all gospel; and, therefore, be
+assured I will see that it _is_ so, ere I pay you that large sum of
+money. I shall give you an acknowledgment for it, and I will keep it
+prestable at a moment's warning. But, my good Richard Moniplies, of
+Castle Collop, near the West Port of Edinburgh, in the meantime I am
+bound to return to his Majesty on matters of weight." So speaking, and
+mounting the stair to re-enter the Palace, he added, by way of summing
+up the whole,--"George Heriot is over old a cock to be caught with
+chaff."
+
+Richie stood petrified when he beheld him re-enter the Palace, and found
+himself, as he supposed, left in the lurch.--"Now, plague on ye," he
+muttered, "for a cunning auld skinflint! that, because ye are an honest
+man yoursell, forsooth, must needs deal with all the world as if they
+were knaves. But deil be in me if ye beat me yet!--Gude guide us!
+yonder comes Laurie Linklater next, and he will be on me about the
+sifflication.--I winna stand him, by Saint Andrew!"
+
+So saying, and changing the haughty stride with which he had that
+morning entered the precincts of the Palace, into a skulking shamble, he
+retreated for his wherry, which was in attendance, with speed which, to
+use the approved phrase on such occasions, greatly resembled a flight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+_Benedict_. This looks not like a nuptial. _Much Ado About Nothing._
+
+Master George Heriot had no sooner returned to the king's apartment,
+than James inquired of Maxwell if the Earl of Huntinglen was in
+attendance, and, receiving an answer in the affirmative, desired that he
+should be admitted. The old Scottish Lord having made his reverence
+in the usual manner, the king extended his hand to be kissed, and then
+began to address him in a tone of great sympathy.
+
+"We told your lordship in our secret epistle of this morning, written
+with our ain hand, in testimony we have neither pretermitted nor
+forgotten your faithful service, that we had that to communicate to you
+that would require both patience and fortitude to endure, and therefore
+exhorted you to peruse some of the most pithy passages of Seneca, and of
+Boethius _de Consolatione_, that the back may be, as we say, fitted for
+the burden--This we commend to you from our ain experience.
+
+     'Non ignara mail, miseris succurrere disco,'
+
+sayeth Dido, and I might say in my own person, _non ignarus_; but
+to change the gender would affect the prosody, whereof our southern
+subjects are tenacious. So, my Lord of Huntinglen, I trust you have
+acted by our advice, and studied patience before ye need it--_venienti
+occurrite morbo_--mix the medicament when the disease is coming on."
+
+"May it please your Majesty," answered Lord Huntinglen, "I am more of an
+old soldier than a scholar--and if my own rough nature will not bear
+me out in any calamity, I hope I shall have grace to try a text of
+Scripture to boot."
+
+"Ay, man, are you there with your bears?" said the king; "The Bible,
+man," (touching his cap,) "is indeed _principium et fons_--but it is
+pity your lordship cannot peruse it in the original. For although we did
+ourselves promote that work of translation,--since ye may read, at the
+beginning of every Bible, that when some palpable clouds of darkness
+were thought like to have overshadowed the land, after the setting of
+that bright occidental star, Queen Elizabeth; yet our appearance, like
+that of the sun in his strength, instantly dispelled these surmised
+mists,--I say, that although, as therein mentioned, we countenanced
+the preaching of the gospel, and especially the translation of the
+Scriptures out of the original sacred tongues; yet nevertheless, we
+ourselves confess to have found a comfort in consulting them in the
+original Hebrew, whilk we do not perceive even in the Latin version of
+the Septuagint, much less in the English traduction."
+
+"Please your Majesty," said Lord Huntinglen, "if your Majesty delays
+communicating the bad news with which your honoured letter threatens me,
+until I am capable to read Hebrew like your Majesty, I fear I shall
+die in ignorance of the misfortune which hath befallen, or is about to
+befall, my house."
+
+"You will learn it but too soon, my lord," replied the king. "I grieve
+to say it, but your son Dalgarno, whom I thought a very saint, as he was
+so much with Steenie and Baby Charles, hath turned out a very villain."
+
+"Villain!" repeated Lord Huntinglen; and though he instantly checked
+himself, and added, "but it is your Majesty speaks the word," the effect
+of his first tone made the king step back as if he had received a blow.
+He also recovered himself again, and said in the pettish way which
+usually indicated his displeasure--"Yes, my lord, it was we that said
+it--_non surdo canis_--we are not deaf--we pray you not to raise your
+voice in speech with us--there is the bonny memorial--read, and judge
+for yourself."
+
+The king then thrust into the old nobleman's hand a paper, containing
+the story of the Lady Hermione, with the evidence by which it was
+supported, detailed so briefly and clearly, that the infamy of Lord
+Dalgarno, the lover by whom she had been so shamefully deceived, seemed
+undeniable. But a father yields not up so easily the cause of his son.
+
+"May it please your Majesty," he said, "why was this tale not sooner
+told? This woman hath been here for years--wherefore was the claim on my
+son not made the instant she touched English ground?"
+
+"Tell him how that came about, Geordie," said the king, dressing Heriot.
+
+"I grieve to distress my Lord Huntinglen," said Heriot; "but I must speak
+the truth. For a long time the Lady Hermione could not brook the idea
+of making her situation public; and when her mind became changed in
+that particular, it was necessary to recover the evidence of the false
+marriage, and letters and papers connected with it, which, when she
+came to Paris, and just before I saw her, she had deposited with a
+correspondent of her father in that city. He became afterwards bankrupt,
+and in consequence of that misfortune the lady's papers passed into
+other hands, and it was only a few days since I traced and recovered
+them. Without these documents of evidence, it would have been imprudent
+for her to have preferred her complaint, favoured as Lord Dalgarno is by
+powerful friends."
+
+"Ye are saucy to say sae," said the king; "I ken what ye mean weel
+eneugh--ye think Steenie wad hae putten the weight of his foot into
+the scales of justice, and garr'd them whomle the bucket--ye forget,
+Geordie, wha it is whose hand uphaulds them. And ye do poor Steenie the
+mair wrang, for he confessed it ance before us and our privy council,
+that Dalgarno would have put the quean aff on him, the puir simple
+bairn, making him trow that she was a light-o'-love; in whilk mind he
+remained assured even when he parted from her, albeit Steenie might hae
+weel thought ane of thae cattle wadna hae resisted the like of him."
+
+"The Lady Hermione," said George Heriot, "has always done the utmost
+justice to the conduct of the duke, who, although strongly possessed
+with prejudice against her character, yet scorned to avail himself
+of her distress, and on the contrary supplied her with the means of
+extricating herself from her difficulties."
+
+"It was e'en like himsell--blessings on his bonny face!" said the king;
+"and I believed this lady's tale the mair readily, my Lord Huntinglen,
+that she spake nae ill of Steenie--and to make a lang tale short, my
+lord, it is the opinion of our council and ourself, as weel as of Baby
+Charles and Steenie, that your son maun amend his wrong by wedding this
+lady, or undergo such disgrace and discountenance as we can bestow."
+
+The person to whom he spoke was incapable of answering him. He stood
+before the king motionless, and glaring with eyes of which even the lids
+seemed immovable, as if suddenly converted into an ancient statue of the
+times of chivalry, so instantly had his hard features and strong limbs
+been arrested into rigidity by the blow he had received--And in a second
+afterwards, like the same statue when the lightning breaks upon it,
+he sunk at once to the ground with a heavy groan. The king was in the
+utmost alarm, called upon Heriot and Maxwell for help, and, presence
+of mind not being his _forte_, ran to and fro in his cabinet,
+exclaiming--"My ancient and beloved servant--who saved our anointed
+self! _vae atque dolor!_ My Lord of Huntinglen, look up--look up, man,
+and your son may marry the Queen of Sheba if he will."
+
+By this time Maxwell and Heriot had raised the old nobleman, and placed
+him on a chair; while the king, observing that he began to recover
+himself, continued his consolations more methodically.
+
+"Haud up your head--haud up your head, and listen to your ain kind
+native Prince. If there is shame, man, it comesna empty-handed--there
+is siller to gild it--a gude tocher, and no that bad a pedigree;--if she
+has been a loon, it was your son made her sae, and he can make her an
+honest woman again."
+
+These suggestions, however reasonable in the common case, gave no
+comfort to Lord Huntinglen, if indeed he fully comprehended them; but
+the blubbering of his good-natured old master, which began to accompany
+and interrupt his royal speech, produced more rapid effect. The large
+tear gushed reluctantly from his eye, as he kissed the withered hands,
+which the king, weeping with less dignity and restraint, abandoned to
+him, first alternately and then both together, until the feelings of the
+man getting entirely the better of the Sovereign's sense of dignity, he
+grasped and shook Lord Huntinglen's hands with the sympathy of an equal
+and a familiar friend.
+
+"_Compone lachrymas_," said the Monarch; "be patient, man, be patient;
+the council, and Baby Charles, and Steenie, may a' gang to the
+deevil--he shall not marry her since it moves you so deeply."
+
+"He _shall_ marry her, by God!" answered the earl, drawing himself
+up, dashing the tear from his eyes, and endeavouring to recover his
+composure. "I pray your Majesty's pardon, but he shall marry her, with
+her dishonour for her dowry, were she the veriest courtezan in all
+Spain--If he gave his word, he shall make his word good, were it to
+the meanest creature that haunts the streets--he shall do it, or my own
+dagger shall take the life that I gave him. If he could stoop to use so
+base a fraud, though to deceive infamy, let him wed infamy."
+
+"No, no!" the Monarch continued to insinuate, "things are not so bad as
+that--Steenie himself never thought of her being a streetwalker, even
+when he thought the worst of her."
+
+"If it can at all console my Lord of Huntinglen," said the citizen, "I
+can assure him of this lady's good birth, and most fair and unspotted
+fame."
+
+"I am sorry for it," said Lord Huntinglen--then interrupting himself, he
+said--"Heaven forgive me for being ungrateful for such comfort!--but I
+am well-nigh sorry she should be as you represent her, so much better
+than the villain deserves. To be condemned to wed beauty and innocence
+and honest birth--"
+
+"Ay, and wealth, my lord--wealth," insinuated the king, "is a better
+sentence than his perfidy has deserved."
+
+"It is long," said the embittered father, "since I saw he was selfish
+and hardhearted; but to be a perjured liar--I never dreaded that such a
+blot would have fallen on my race! I will never look on him again."
+
+"Hoot ay, my lord, hoot ay," said the king; "ye maun tak him to task
+roundly. I grant you should speak more in the vein of Demea than Mitio,
+_vi nempe et via pervulgata patrum_; but as for not seeing him again,
+and he your only son, that is altogether out of reason. I tell ye, man,
+(but I would not for a boddle that Baby Charles heard me,) that he might
+gie the glaiks to half the lasses of Lonnun, ere I could find in my
+heart speak such harsh words as you have said of this deil of a Dalgarno
+of yours."
+
+"May it please your Majesty to permit me to retire," said Lord
+Huntinglen, "and dispose of the case according to your own royal sense
+of justice, for I desire no favour for him."
+
+"Aweel, my lord, so be it; and if your lordship can think," added the
+Monarch, "of any thing in our power which might comfort you--"
+
+"Your Majesty's gracious sympathy," said Lord Huntinglen, "has already
+comforted me as far as earth can; the rest must be from the King of
+kings."
+
+"To Him I commend you, my auld and faithful servant," said James with
+emotion, as the earl withdrew from his presence. The king remained fixed
+in thought for some time, and then said to Heriot, "Jingling Geordie,
+ye ken all the privy doings of our Court, and have dune so these thirty
+years, though, like a wise man, ye hear, and see, and say nothing.
+Now, there is a thing I fain wad ken, in the way of philosophical
+inquiry--Did you ever hear of the umquhile Lady Huntinglen, the departed
+Countess of this noble earl, ganging a wee bit gleed in her walk through
+the world; I mean in the way of slipping a foot, casting a leglin-girth,
+or the like, ye understand me?"
+
+[Footnote: A leglin-girth is the lowest hoop upon a _leglin_, or
+milk-pail. Allan Ramsay applies the phrase in the same metaphorical
+sense.
+
+"Or bairns can read, they first maun spell, I learn'd this frae my
+mammy, And cast a leglin-girth mysell,
+ Lang ere I married Tammy."
+                              _Christ's Kirk On The Green_.]
+
+"On my word as an honest man," said George Heriot, somewhat surprised
+at the question, "I never heard her wronged by the slightest breath
+of suspicion. She was a worthy lady, very circumspect in her walk, and
+lived in great concord with her husband, save that the good Countess was
+something of a puritan, and kept more company with ministers than was
+altogether agreeable to Lord Huntinglen, who is, as your Majesty well
+knows, a man of the old rough world, that will drink and swear."
+
+"O Geordie!" exclaimed the king, "these are auld-warld frailties, of
+whilk we dare not pronounce even ourselves absolutely free. But the
+warld grows worse from day to day, Geordie. The juveniles of this age
+may weel say with the poet--
+
+     'Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores--'
+
+This Dalgarno does not drink so much, or swear so much, as his father;
+but he wenches, Geordie, and he breaks his word and oath baith. As
+to what you say of the leddy, and the ministers, we are a' fallible
+creatures, Geordie, priests and kings, as weel as others; and wha kens
+but what that may account for the difference between this Dalgarno and
+his father? The earl is the vera soul of honour, and cares nae mair for
+warld's gear than a noble hound for the quest of a foulmart; but as
+for his son, he was like to brazen us a' out--ourselves, Steenie, Baby
+Charles, and our council--till he heard of the tocher, and then, by my
+kingly crown, he lap like a cock at a grossart! These are discrepancies
+betwixt parent and son not to be accounted for naturally, according to
+Baptista Porta, Michael Scott _de secretis_, and others.--Ah, Jingling
+Geordie, if your clouting the caldron, and jingling on pots, pans, and
+veshels of all manner of metal, hadna jingled a' your grammar out of
+your head, I could have touched on that matter to you at mair length."
+
+Heriot was too plain-spoken to express much concern for the loss of his
+grammar learning on this occasion; but after modestly hinting that he
+had seen many men who could not fill their father's bonnet, though no
+one had been suspected of wearing their father's nightcap, he inquired
+"whether Lord Dalgarno had consented to do the Lady Hermione justice."
+
+"Troth, man, I have small doubt that he will," quoth the king; "I gave
+him the schedule of her worldly substance, which you delivered to us in
+the council, and we allowed him half-an-hour to chew the cud upon that.
+It is rare reading for bringing him to reason. I left Baby Charles and
+Steenie laying his duty before him; and if he can resist doing what
+_they_ desire him--why, I wish he would teach _me_ the gate of it. O
+Geordie, Jingling Geordie, it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down
+the guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of
+incontinence!"
+
+"I am afraid," said George Heriot, more hastily than prudently, "I might
+have thought of the old proverb of Satan reproving sin."
+
+"Deil hae our saul, neighbour," said the king, reddening, "but ye are
+not blate! I gie ye license to speak freely, and, by our saul, ye do not
+let the privilege become lost _non utendo_--it will suffer no negative
+prescription in your hands. Is it fit, think ye, that Baby Charles
+should let his thoughts be publicly seen?--No--no--princes' thoughts are
+_arcana imperii_--_Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_. Every liege
+subject is bound to speak the whole truth to the king, but there is
+nae reciprocity of obligation--and for Steenie having been whiles a
+dike-louper at a time, is it for you, who are his goldsmith, and to
+whom, I doubt, he awes an uncomatable sum, to cast that up to him?"
+
+Heriot did not feel himself called on to play the part of Zeno and
+sacrifice himself for upholding the cause of moral truth; he did not
+desert it, however, by disavowing his words, but simply expressed
+sorrow for having offended his Majesty, with which the placable king was
+sufficiently satisfied.
+
+"And now, Geordie, man," quoth he, "we will to this culprit, and hear
+what he has to say for himself, for I will see the job cleared this
+blessed day. Ye maun come wi' me, for your evidence may be wanted."
+
+The king led the way, accordingly, into a larger apartment, where the
+Prince, the Duke of Buckingham, and one or two privy counsellors were
+seated at a table, before which stood Lord Dalgarno, in an attitude of
+as much elegant ease and indifference as could be expressed, considering
+the stiff dress and manners of the times.
+
+All rose and bowed reverently, while the king, to use a north country
+word, expressive of his mode of locomotion, _toddled_ to his chair or
+throne, making a sign to Heriot to stand behind him.
+
+"We hope," said his Majesty, "that Lord Dalgarno stands prepared to do
+justice to this unfortunate lady, and to his own character and honour?"
+
+"May I humbly inquire the penalty," said Lord Dalgarno, "in case
+I should unhappily find compliance with your Majesty's demands
+impossible?"
+
+"Banishment frae our Court, my lord," said the king; "frae our Court and
+our countenance."
+
+"Unhappy exile that I may be!" said Lord Dalgarno, in a tone of subdued
+irony--"I will at least carry your Majesty's picture with me, for I
+shall never see such another king."
+
+"And banishment, my lord," said the Prince, sternly, "from these our
+dominions."
+
+"That must be by form of law, please your Royal Highness," said
+Dalgarno, with an affectation of deep respect; "and I have not heard
+that there is a statute, compelling us, under such penalty, to marry
+every woman we may play the fool with. Perhaps his Grace of Buckingham
+can tell me?"
+
+"You are a villain, Dalgarno," said the haughty and vehement favourite.
+
+"Fie, my lord, fie!--to a prisoner, and in presence of your royal and
+paternal gossip!" said Lord Dalgarno. "But I will cut this deliberation
+short. I have looked over this schedule of the goods and effects of
+Erminia Pauletti, daughter of the late noble--yes, he is called the
+noble, or I read wrong, Giovanni Pauletti, of the Houee of Sansovino,
+in Genoa, and of the no less noble Lady Maud Olifaunt, of the House of
+Glenvarloch--Well, I declare that I was pre-contracted in Spain to this
+noble lady, and there has passed betwixt us some certain _proelibatio
+matrimonii_; and now, what more does this grave assembly require of me?"
+
+"That you should repair the gross and infamous wrong you have done the
+lady, by marrying her within this hour," said the Prince.
+
+"O, may it please your Royal Highness," answered Dalgarno, "I have a
+trifling relationship with an old Earl, who calls himself my father, who
+may claim some vote in the matter. Alas! every son is not blessed with
+an obedient parent!" He hazarded a slight glance towards the throne, to
+give meaning to his last words.
+
+"We have spoken ourselves with Lord Huntinglen," said the king, "and are
+authorised to consent in his name."
+
+"I could never have expected this intervention of a _proxaneta_, which
+the vulgar translate blackfoot, of such eminent dignity," said Dalgarno,
+scarce concealing a sneer. "And my father hath consented? He was wont
+to say, ere we left Scotland, that the blood of Huntinglen and of
+Glenvarloch would not mingle, were they poured into the same basin.
+Perhaps he has a mind to try the experiment?"
+
+"My lord," said James, "we will not be longer trifled with--Will you
+instantly, and _sine mora_, take this lady to your wife, in our chapel?"
+
+"_Statim atque instanter_," answered Lord Dalgarno; "for I perceive
+by doing so, I shall obtain power to render great services to the
+commonwealth--I shall have acquired wealth to supply the wants of
+your Majesty, and a fair wife to be at the command of his Grace of
+Buckingham."
+
+The Duke rose, passed to the end of the table where Lord Dalgarno was
+standing, and whispered in his ear, "You have placed a fair sister at my
+command ere now."
+
+This taunt cut deep through Lord Dalgarno's assumed composure. He
+started as if an adder had stung him, but instantly composed himself,
+and, fixing on the Duke's still smiling countenance an eye which spoke
+unutterable hatred, he pointed the forefinger of his left hand to the
+hilt of his sword, but in a manner which could scarce be observed by any
+one save Buckingham. The Duke gave him another smile of bitter scorn,
+and returned to his seat, in obedience to the commands of the king, who
+continued calling out, "Sit down, Steenie, sit down, I command ye--we
+will hae nae harnsbreaking here."
+
+"Your Majesty needs not fear my patience," said Lord Dalgarno; "and
+that I may keep it the better, I will not utter another word in this
+presence, save those enjoined to me in that happy portion of the
+Prayer-Book, which begins with _Dearly Beloved_, and ends with
+_amazement_."
+
+"You are a hardened villain, Dalgarno," said the king; "and were I the
+lass, by my father's saul, I would rather brook the stain of having been
+your concubine, than run the risk of becoming your wife. But she shall
+be under our special protection.--Come, my lords, we will ourselves see
+this blithesome bridal." He gave the signal by rising, and moved towards
+the door, followed by the train. Lord Dalgarno attended, speaking to
+none, and spoken to by no one, yet seeming as easy and unembarrassed in
+his gait and manner as if in reality a happy bridegroom.
+
+They reached the Chapel by a private entrance, which communicated from
+the royal apartment. The Bishop of Winchester, in his pontifical dress,
+stood beside the altar; on the other side, supported by Monna Paula, the
+colourless, faded, half-lifeless form of the Lady Hermione, or Erminia
+Pauletti. Lord Dalgarno bowed profoundly to her, and the Prince,
+observing the horror with which she regarded him, walked up, and said
+to her, with much dignity,--"Madam, ere you put yourself under the
+authority of this man, let me inform you, he hath in the fullest degree
+vindicated your honour, so far as concerns your former intercourse. It
+is for you to consider whether you will put your fortune and happiness
+into the hands of one, who has shown himself unworthy of all trust."
+
+The lady, with much difficulty, found words to make reply. "I owe to
+his Majesty's goodness," she said, "the care of providing me some
+reservation out of my own fortune, for my decent sustenance. The rest
+cannot be better disposed than in buying back the fair fame of which I
+am deprived, and the liberty of ending my life in peace and seclusion."
+
+"The contract has been drawn up," said the king, "under our own eye,
+specially discharging the _potestas maritalis_, and agreeing they shall
+live separate. So buckle them, my Lord Bishop, as fast as you can, that
+they may sunder again the sooner."
+
+The Bishop accordingly opened his book and commenced the marriage
+ceremony, under circumstances so novel and so inauspicious. The
+responses of the bride were only expressed by inclinations of the
+head and body; while those of the bridegroom were spoken boldly and
+distinctly, with a tone resembling levity, if not scorn. When it was
+concluded, Lord Dalgarno advanced as if to salute the bride, but seeing
+that she drew back in fear and abhorrence, he contented himself with
+making her a low bow. He then drew up his form to its height, and
+stretched himself as if examining the power of his limbs, but elegantly,
+and without any forcible change of attitude. "I could caper yet,"
+he said "though I am in fetters--but they are of gold, and lightly
+worn.--Well, I see all eyes look cold on me, and it is time I should
+withdraw. The sun shines elsewhere than in England! But first I must ask
+how this fair Lady Dalgarno is to be bestowed. Methinks it is but decent
+I should know. Is she to be sent to the harem of my Lord Duke? Or is
+this worthy citizen, as before--"
+
+"Hold thy base ribald tongue!" said his father, Lord Huntinglen, who had
+kept in the background during the ceremony, and now stepping suddenly
+forward, caught the lady by the arm, and confronted her unworthy
+husband.--"The Lady Dalgarno," he continued, "shall remain as a widow in
+my house. A widow I esteem her, as much as if the grave had closed over
+her dishonoured husband."
+
+Lord Dalgarno exhibited momentary symptoms of extreme confusion, and
+said, in a submissive tone, "If you, my lord, can wish me dead, I
+cannot, though your heir, return the compliment. Few of the first-born
+of Israel," he added, recovering himself from the single touch of
+emotion he had displayed, "can say so much with truth. But I will
+convince you ere I go, that I am a true descendant of a house famed for
+its memory of injuries."
+
+"I marvel your Majesty will listen to him longer," said Prince Charles.
+"Methinks we have heard enough of his daring insolence."
+
+But James, who took the interest of a true gossip in such a scene as was
+now passing, could not bear to cut the controversy short, but imposed
+silence on his son, with "Whisht, Baby Charles--there is a good bairn,
+whisht!--I want to hear what the frontless loon can say."
+
+"Only, sir," said Dalgarno, "that but for one single line in this
+schedule, all else that it contains could not have bribed me to take
+that woman's hand into mine."
+
+"That line maun have been the SUMMA TOTALIS," said the king.
+
+"Not so, sire," replied Dalgarno. "The sum total might indeed have been
+an object for consideration even to a Scottish king, at no very distant
+period; but it would have had little charms for me, save that I see
+here an entry which gives me the power of vengeance over the family of
+Glenvarloch; and learn from it that yonder pale bride, when she put the
+wedding-torch into my hand, gave me the power of burning her mother's
+house to ashes!"
+
+"How is that?" said the king. "What is he speaking about, Jingling
+Geordie?"
+
+"This friendly citizen, my liege," said Lord Dalgarno, "hath expended a
+sum belonging to my lady, and now, I thank heaven, to me, in acquiring
+a certain mortgage, or wanset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, which, if
+it be not redeemed before to-morrow at noon, will put me in possession
+of the fair demesnes of those who once called themselves our house's
+rivals."
+
+"Can this be true?" said the king.
+
+"It is even but too true, please your Majesty," answered the citizen.
+"The Lady Hermione having advanced the money for the original creditor,
+I was obliged, in honour and honesty, to take the rights to her; and
+doubtless, they pass to her husband."
+
+"But the warrant, man," said the king--"the warrant on our
+Exchequer--Couldna that supply the lad wi' the means of redemption?"
+
+"Unhappily, my liege, he has lost it, or disposed of it--It is not to be
+found. He is the most unlucky youth!"
+
+"This is a proper spot of work!" said the king, beginning to amble
+about and play with the points of his doublet and hose, in expression of
+dismay. "We cannot aid him without paying our debts twice over, and we
+have, in the present state of our Exchequer, scarce the means of paying
+them once."
+
+"You have told me news," said Lord Dalgarno, "but I will take no
+advantage."
+
+"Do not," said his father, "be a bold villain, since thou must be one,
+and seek revenge with arms, and not with the usurer's weapons."
+
+"Pardon me, my lord," said Lord Dalgarno. "Pen and ink are now my
+surest means of vengeance; and more land is won by the lawyer with the
+ram-skin, than by the Andrea Ferrara with his sheepshead handle. But,
+as I said before, I will take no advantages. I will await in town
+to-morrow, near Covent Garden; if any one will pay the redemption-money
+to my scrivener, with whom the deeds lie, the better for Lord
+Glenvarloch; if not, I will go forward on the next day, and travel with
+all dispatch to the north, to take possession."
+
+"Take a father's malison with you, unhappy wretch!" said Lord
+Huntinglen.
+
+"And a king's, who is _pater patriae_," said James.
+
+"I trust to bear both lightly," said Lord Dalgarno; and bowing around
+him, he withdrew; while all present, oppressed, and, as it were,
+overawed, by his determined effrontery, found they could draw breath
+more freely, when he at length relieved them of his society. Lord
+Huntinglen, applying himself to comfort his new daughter-in-law,
+withdrew with her also; and the king, with his privy-council, whom he
+had not dismissed, again returned to his council-chamber, though the
+hour was unusually late. Heriot's attendance was still commanded, but
+for what reason was not explained to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+---I'll play the eavesdropper. _Richard III., Act V., Scene 3_.
+
+James had no sooner resumed his seat at the council-board than he began
+to hitch in his chair, cough, use his handkerchief, and make other
+intimations that he meditated a long speech. The council composed
+themselves to the beseeming degree of attention. Charles, as strict
+in his notions of decorum, as his father was indifferent to it, fixed
+himself in an attitude of rigid and respectful attention, while the
+haughty favourite, conscious of his power over both father and
+son, stretched himself more easily on his seat, and, in assuming an
+appearance of listening, seemed to pay a debt to ceremonial rather than
+to duty.
+
+"I doubt not, my lords," said the Monarch, "that some of you may be
+thinking the hour of refection is past, and that it is time to ask with
+the slave in the comedy--_Quid de symbolo?_--Nevertheless, to do justice
+and exercise judgment is our meat and drink; and now we are to pray your
+wisdom to consider the case of this unhappy youth, Lord Glenvarloch, and
+see whether, consistently with our honour, any thing can be done in his
+favour."
+
+"I am surprised at your Majesty's wisdom making the inquiry," said the
+Duke; "it is plain this Dalgarno hath proved one of the most insolent
+villains on earth, and it must therefore be clear, that if Lord
+Glenvarloch had run him through the body, there would but have been
+out of the world a knave who had lived in it too long. I think Lord
+Glenvarloch hath had much wrong; and I regret that, by the persuasions
+of this false fellow, I have myself had some hand in it."
+
+"Ye speak like a child, Steenie--I mean my Lord of Buckingham," answered
+the king, "and as one that does not understand the logic of the schools;
+for an action may be inconsequential or even meritorious, _quoad
+hominem_, that is, as touching him upon _whom_ it is acted; and yet most
+criminal, _quoad locum_, or considering the place _wherein_ it is done;
+as a man may lawfully dance Chrighty Beardie or any other dance in a
+tavern, but not _inter parietes ecclesiae_. So that, though it may have
+been a good deed to have sticked Lord Dalgarno, being such as he has
+shown himself, anywhere else, yet it fell under the plain statute, when
+violence was offered within the verge of the Court. For, let me tell
+you, my lords, the statute against striking would be of no small use in
+our Court, if it could be eluded by justifying the person stricken to be
+a knave. It is much to be lamented that I ken nae Court in Christendom
+where knaves are not to be found; and if men are to break the peace
+under pretence of beating them, why, it will rain Jeddart staves
+[Footnote: The old-fashioned weapon called the Jeddart staff was a
+species of battle-axe. Of a very great tempest, it is said, in the south
+of Scotland, that it rains Jeddart staffs, as in England the common
+people talk of its raining cats and dogs.] in our very ante-chamber."
+
+"What your Majesty says," replied Prince Charles, "is marked with your
+usual wisdom--the precincts of palaces must be sacred as well as
+the persons of kings, which are respected even in the most barbarous
+nations, as being one step only beneath their divinities. But your
+Majesty's will can control the severity of this and every other law,
+and it is in your power, on consideration of his case, to grant the rash
+young man a free pardon."
+
+"_Rem acu tetigisti, Carole, mi puerule,_" answered the king; "and know,
+my lords, that we have, by a shrewd device and gift of our own, already
+sounded the very depth of this Lord Glenvarloch's disposition. I trow
+there be among you some that remember my handling in the curious case
+of my Lady Lake, and how I trimmed them about the story of hearkening
+behind the arras. Now this put me to cogitation, and I remembered me
+of having read that Dionysius, King of Syracuse, whom historians call
+Tyrannos, which signifieth not in the Greek tongue, as in ours, a
+truculent usurper, but a royal king who governs, it may be, something
+more strictly than we and other lawful monarchs, whom the ancients
+termed Basileis--Now this Dionysius of Syracuse caused cunning workmen
+to build for himself a _lugg_--D'ye ken what that is, my Lord Bishop?"
+
+"A cathedral, I presume to guess," answered the Bishop.
+
+"What the deil, man--I crave your lordship's pardon for swearing--but
+it was no cathedral--only a lurking-place called the king's _lugg_,
+or _ear_, where he could sit undescried, and hear the converse of his
+prisoners. Now, sirs, in imitation of this Dionysius, whom I took for
+my pattern, the rather that he was a great linguist and grammarian, and
+taught a school with good applause after his abdication, (either he or
+his successor of the same name, it matters not whilk)--I have caused
+them to make a _lugg_ up at the state-prison of the Tower yonder, more
+like a pulpit than a cathedral, my Lord Bishop--and communicating with
+the arras behind the Lieutenant's chamber, where we may sit and
+privily hear the discourse of such prisoners as are pent up there for
+state-offences, and so creep into the very secrets of our enemies."
+
+The Prince cast a glance towards the Duke, expressive of great vexation
+and disgust. Buckingham shrugged his shoulders, but the motion was so
+slight as to be almost imperceptible.
+
+"Weel, my lords, ye ken the fray at the hunting this morning--I
+shall not get out of the trembling exies until I have a sound night's
+sleep--just after that, they bring ye in a pretty page that had been
+found in the Park. We were warned against examining him ourselves by the
+anxious care of those around us; nevertheless, holding our life ever at
+the service of these kingdoms, we commanded all to avoid the room,
+the rather that we suspected this boy to be a girl. What think ye, my
+lords?--few of you would have thought I had a hawk's eye for sic gear;
+but we thank God, that though we are old, we know so much of such toys
+as may beseem a man of decent gravity. Weel, my lords, we questioned
+this maiden in male attire ourselves, and I profess it was a very pretty
+interrogatory, and well followed. For, though she at first professed
+that she assumed this disguise in order to countenance the woman who
+should present us with the Lady Hermione's petition, for whom she
+professed entire affection; yet when we, suspecting _anguis in herba_,
+did put her to the very question, she was compelled to own a virtuous
+attachment for Glenvarlochides, in such a pretty passion of shame and
+fear, that we had much ado to keep our own eyes from keeping company
+with hers in weeping. Also, she laid before us the false practices of
+this Dalgarno towards Glenvarlochides, inveigling him into houses of ill
+resort, and giving him evil counsel under pretext of sincere friendship,
+whereby the inexperienced lad was led to do what was prejudicial to
+himself, and offensive to us. But, however prettily she told her tale,
+we determined not altogether to trust to her narration, but rather to
+try the experiment whilk we had devised for such occasions. And having
+ourselves speedily passed from Greenwich to the Tower, we constituted
+ourselves eavesdropper, as it is called, to observe what should pass
+between Glenvarlochides and his page, whom we caused to be admitted to
+his apartment, well judging that if they were of counsel together to
+deceive us, it could not be but something of it would spunk out--And
+what think ye we saw, my lords?--Naething for you to sniggle and laugh
+at, Steenie--for I question if you could have played the temperate and
+Christian-like part of this poor lad Glenvarloch. He might be a Father
+of the Church in comparison of you, man.--And then, to try his patience
+yet farther, we loosed on him a courtier and a citizen, that is Sir
+Mungo Malagrowther and our servant George Heriot here, wha dang the poor
+lad about, and didna greatly spare our royal selves.--You mind, Geordie,
+what you said about the wives and concubines? but I forgie ye, man--nae
+need of kneeling, I forgie ye--the readier, that it regards a certain
+particular, whilk, as it added not much to Solomon's credit, the lack
+of it cannot be said to impinge on ours. Aweel, my lords, for all
+temptation of sore distress and evil ensample, this poor lad never
+loosed his tongue on us to say one unbecoming word--which inclines us
+the rather, acting always by your wise advice, to treat this affair
+of the Park as a thing done in the heat of blood, and under strong
+provocation, and therefore to confer our free pardon on Lord
+Glenvarloch."
+
+"I am happy your gracious Majesty," said the Duke of Buckingham, "has
+arrived at that conclusion, though I could never have guessed at the
+road by which you attained it."
+
+"I trust," said Prince Charles, "that it is not a path which your
+Majesty will think it consistent with your high dignity to tread
+frequently."
+
+"Never while I live again, Baby Charles, that I give you my royal word
+on. They say that hearkeners hear ill tales of themselves--by my saul,
+my very ears are tingling wi' that auld sorrow Sir Mungo's sarcasms. He
+called us close-fisted, Steenie--I am sure you can contradict that. But
+it is mere envy in the auld mutilated sinner, because he himself has
+neither a noble to hold in his loof, nor fingers to close on it if he
+had." Here the king lost recollection of Sir Mungo's irreverence
+in chuckling over his own wit, and only farther alluded to it by
+saying--"We must give the old maunderer _bos in linguam_--something to
+stop his mouth, or he will rail at us from Dan to Beersheba.--And now,
+my lords, let our warrant of mercy to Lord Glenvarloch be presently
+expedited, and he put to his freedom; and as his estate is likely to go
+so sleaveless a gate, we will consider what means of favour we can
+show him.--My lords, I wish you an appetite to an early supper--for our
+labours have approached that term.--Baby Charles and Steenie, you will
+remain till our couchee.--My Lord Bishop, you will be pleased to stay to
+bless our meat.--Geordie Heriot, a word with you apart."
+
+His Majesty then drew the citizen into a corner, while the counsellors,
+those excepted who had been commanded to remain, made their
+obeisance, and withdrew. "Geordie," said the king, "my good and trusty
+servant"--Here he busied his fingers much with the points and ribbons of
+his dress,--"Ye see that we have granted, from our own natural sense of
+right and justice, that which yon long-backed fallow, Moniplies I think
+they ca' him, proffered to purchase from us with a mighty bribe; whilk
+we refused, as being a crowned king, who wad neither sell our justice
+nor our mercy for pecuniar consideration. Now, what think ye should be
+the upshot of this?"
+
+"My Lord Glenvarloch's freedom, and his restoration to your Majesty's
+favour," said Heriot.
+
+"I ken that," said the king, peevishly. "Ye are very dull to-day. I
+mean, what do you think this fallow Moniplies should think about the
+matter?"
+
+"Surely that your Majesty is a most good and gracious sovereign,"
+answered Heriot.
+
+"We had need to be gude and gracious baith," said the king, still more
+pettishly, "that have idiots about us that cannot understand what we
+mint at, unless we speak it out in braid Lowlands. See this chield
+Moniplies, sir, and tell him what we have done for Lord Glenvarloch,
+in whom he takes such part, out of our own gracious motion, though we
+refused to do it on ony proffer of private advantage. Now, you may put
+it till him, as if of your own mind, whether it will be a gracious or a
+dutiful part in him, to press us for present payment of the two or three
+hundred miserable pounds for whilk we were obliged to opignorate our
+jewels? Indeed, mony men may think ye wad do the part of a good citizen,
+if you took it on yourself to refuse him payment, seeing he hath
+had what he professed to esteem full satisfaction, and considering,
+moreover, that it is evident he hath no pressing need of the money,
+whereof we have much necessity."
+
+George Heriot sighed internally. "O my Master," thought he--"my dear
+Master, is it then fated you are never to indulge any kingly or noble
+sentiment, without its being sullied by some afterthought of interested
+selfishness!"
+
+The king troubled himself not about what he thought, but taking him by
+the collar, said,--"Ye ken my meaning now, Jingler--awa wi' ye. You
+are a wise man--manage it your ain gate--but forget not our present
+straits." The citizen made his obeisance, and withdrew.
+
+"And now, bairns," said the king, "what do you look upon each other
+for--and what have you got to ask of your dear dad and gossip?"
+
+"Only," said the Prince, "that it would please your Majesty to command
+the lurking-place at the prison to be presently built up--the groans of
+a captive should not be brought in evidence against him."
+
+"What! build up my lugg, Baby Charles? And yet, better deaf than hear
+ill tales of oneself. So let them build it up, hard and fast, without
+delay, the rather that my back is sair with sitting in it for a whole
+hour.--And now let us see what the cooks have been doing for us, bonny
+bairns."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+  To this brave man the knight repairs
+  For counsel in his law affairs;
+  And found him mounted in his pew.
+  With books and money placed for show,
+  Like nest-eggs to make clients lay,
+  And for his false opinion pay.
+                        _Hudibras._
+
+Our readers may recollect a certain smooth-tongued, lank-haired,
+buckram-suited, Scottish scrivener, who, in the earlier part of this
+history, appeared in the character of a protege of George Heriot. It is
+to his house we are about to remove, but times have changed with him.
+The petty booth hath become a chamber of importance--the buckram suit
+is changed into black velvet; and although the wearer retains his
+puritanical humility and politeness to clients of consequence, he can
+now look others broad in the face, and treat them with a full allowance
+of superior opulence, and the insolence arising from it. It was but
+a short period that had achieved these alterations, nor was the party
+himself as yet entirely accustomed to them, but the change was becoming
+less embarrassing to him with every day's practice. Among other
+acquisitions of wealth, you may see one of Davy Ramsay's best timepieces
+on the table, and his eye is frequently observing its revolutions, while
+a boy, whom he employs as a scribe, is occasionally sent out to compare
+its progress with the clock of Saint Dunstan.
+
+The scrivener himself seemed considerably agitated. He took from a
+strong-box a bundle of parchments, and read passages of them with great
+attention; then began to soliloquize--"There is no outlet which law can
+suggest--no back-door of evasion--none--if the lands of Glenvarloch
+are not redeemed before it rings noon, Lord Dalgarno has them a cheap
+pennyworth. Strange, that he should have been at last able to set his
+patron at defiance, and achieve for himself the fair estate, with the
+prospect of which he so long flattered the powerful Buckingham.--Might
+not Andrew Skurliewhitter nick him as neatly? He hath been my
+patron--true--not more than Buckingham was his; and he can be so no
+more, for he departs presently for Scotland. I am glad of it--I hate
+him, and I fear him. He knows too many of my secrets--I know too many
+of his. But, no--no--no--I need never attempt it, there are no means of
+over-reaching him.--Well, Willie, what o'clock?"
+
+"Ele'en hours just chappit, sir."
+
+"Go to your desk without, child," said the scrivener. "What to do
+next--I shall lose the old Earl's fair business, and, what is worse, his
+son's foul practice. Old Heriot looks too close into business to permit
+me more than the paltry and ordinary dues. The Whitefriars business was
+profitable, but it has become unsafe ever since--pah!--what brought that
+in my head just now? I can hardly hold my pen--if men should see me
+in this way!--Willie," (calling aloud to the boy,) "a cup of distilled
+waters--Soh!--now I could face the devil."
+
+He spoke the last words aloud, and close by the door of the apartment,
+which was suddenly opened by Richie Moniplies, followed by two
+gentlemen, and attended by two porters bearing money-bags. "If ye can
+face the devil, Maister Skurliewhitter," said Richie, "ye will be the
+less likely to turn your back on a sack or twa o' siller, which I have
+ta'en the freedom to bring you. Sathanas and Mammon are near akin." The
+porters, at the same time, ranged their load on the floor.
+
+"I--I,"--stammered the surprised scrivener--"I cannot guess what you
+mean, sir."
+
+"Only that I have brought you the redemption-money on the part of
+Lord Glenvarloch, in discharge of a certain mortgage over his family
+inheritance. And here, in good time, comes Master Reginald Lowestoffe,
+and another honourable gentleman of the Temple, to be witnesses to the
+transaction."
+
+"I--I incline to think," said the scrivener, "that the term is expired."
+
+"You will pardon us, Master Scrivener," said Lowestoffe. "You will not
+baffle us--it wants three-quarters of noon by every clock in the city."
+
+"I must have time, gentlemen," said Andrew, "to examine the gold by tale
+and weight."
+
+"Do so at your leisure, Master Scrivener," replied Lowestoffe again.
+"We have already seen the contents of each sack told and weighed, and we
+have put our seals on them. There they stand in a row, twenty in number,
+each containing three hundred yellow-hammers--we are witnesses to the
+lawful tender."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the scrivener, "this security now belongs to a
+mighty lord. I pray you, abate your haste, and let me send for Lord
+Dalgarno,--or rather I will run for him myself."
+
+So saying, he took up his hat; but Lowestoffe called out,--"Friend
+Moniplies, keep the door fast, an thou be'st a man! he seeks but to put
+off the time.--In plain terms, Andrew, you may send for the devil, if
+you will, who is the mightiest lord of my acquaintance, but from hence
+you stir not till you have answered our proposition, by rejecting or
+accepting the redemption-money fairly tendered--there it lies--take it,
+or leave it, as you will. I have skill enough to know that the law is
+mightier than any lord in Britain--I have learned so much at the Temple,
+if I have learned nothing else. And see that you trifle not with it,
+lest it make your long ears an inch shorter, Master Skurliewhitter."
+
+"Nay, gentlemen, if you threaten me," said the scrivener, "I cannot
+resist compulsion."
+
+"No threats--no threats at all, my little Andrew," said Lowestoffe; "a
+little friendly advice only--forget not, honest Andrew, I have seen you
+in Alsatia."
+
+Without answering a single word, the scrivener sat down, and drew in
+proper form a full receipt for the money proffered.
+
+"I take it on your report, Master Lowestoffe," he said; "I hope you
+will remember I have insisted neither upon weight nor tale--I have been
+civil--if there is deficiency I shall come to loss."
+
+"Fillip his nose with a gold-piece, Richie," quoth the Templar. "Take up
+the papers, and now wend we merrily to dine thou wot'st where."
+
+"If I might choose," said Richie, "it should not be at yonder roguish
+ordinary; but as it is your pleasure, gentlemen, the treat shall be
+given wheresoever you will have it."
+
+"At the ordinary," said the one Templar.
+
+"At Beaujeu's," said the other; "it is the only house in London for neat
+wines, nimble drawers, choice dishes, and--"
+
+"And high charges," quoth Richie Moniplies. "But, as I said before,
+gentlemen, ye have a right to command me in this thing, having so
+frankly rendered me your service in this small matter of business,
+without other stipulation than that of a slight banquet."
+
+The latter part of this discourse passed in the street, where,
+immediately afterwards, they met Lord Dalgarno. He appeared in haste,
+touched his hat slightly to Master Lowestoffe, who returned his
+reverence with the same negligence, and walked slowly on with his
+companion, while Lord Dalgarno stopped Richie Moniplies with a
+commanding sign, which the instinct of education compelled Moniplies,
+though indignant, to obey.
+
+"Whom do you now follow, sirrah?" demanded the noble.
+
+"Whomsoever goeth before me, my lord," answered Moniplies.
+
+"No sauciness, you knave--I desire to know if you still serve Nigel
+Olifaunt?" said Dalgarno.
+
+"I am friend to the noble Lord Glenvarloch," answered Moniplies, with
+dignity.
+
+"True," replied Lord Dalgarno, "that noble lord has sunk to seek friends
+among lackeys--Nevertheless,--hark thee hither,--nevertheless, if he
+be of the same mind as when we last met, thou mayst show him, that, on
+to-morrow, at four afternoon, I shall pass northward by Enfield Chase--I
+will be slenderly attended, as I design to send my train through Barnet.
+It is my purpose to ride an easy pace through the forest, and to linger
+a while by Camlet Moat--he knows the place; and, if he be aught but an
+Alsatian bully, will think it fitter for some purposes than the Park. He
+is, I understand, at liberty, or shortly to be so. If he fail me at
+the place nominated, he must seek me in Scotland, where he will find me
+possessed of his father's estate and lands."
+
+"Humph!" muttered Richie; "there go twa words to that bargain."
+
+He even meditated a joke on the means which he was conscious he
+possessed of baffling Lord Dalgarno's expectations; but there was
+something of keen and dangerous excitement in the eyes of the young
+nobleman, which prompted his discretion for once to rule his vit, and he
+only answered--
+
+"God grant your lordship may well brook your new conquest--when you
+get it. I shall do your errand to my lord--whilk is to say," he added
+internally, "he shall never hear a word of it from Richie. I am not the
+lad to put him in such hazard."
+
+Lord Dalgarno looked at him sharply for a moment, as if to penetrate
+the meaning of the dry ironical tone, which, in spite of Richie's awe,
+mingled with his answer, and then waved his hand, in signal he should
+pass on. He himself walked slowly till the trio were out of sight, then
+turned back with hasty steps to the door of the scrivener, which he had
+passed in his progress, knocked, and was admitted.
+
+Lord Dalgarno found the man of law with the money-bags still
+standing before him; and it escaped not his penetrating glance, that
+Skurliewhitter was disconcerted and alarmed at his approach.
+
+"How now, man," he said; "what! hast thou not a word of oily compliment
+to me on my happy marriage?--not a word of most philosophical
+consolation on my disgrace at Court?--Or has my mien, as a wittol and
+discarded favourite, the properties of the Gorgon's head, the _turbatae
+Palladis arma_, as Majesty might say?"
+
+"My lord, I am glad--my lord, I am sorry,"--answered the trembling
+scrivener, who, aware of the vivacity of Lord Dalgarno's temper, dreaded
+the consequence of the communication he had to make to him.
+
+"Glad and sorry!" answered Lord Dalgarno. "That is blowing hot and cold,
+with a witness. Hark ye, you picture of petty-larceny personified--if
+you are sorry I am a cuckold, remember I am only mine own, you
+knave--there is too little blood in her cheeks to have sent her astray
+elsewhere. Well, I will bear mine antler'd honours as I may--gold
+shall gild them; and for my disgrace, revenge shall sweeten it. Ay,
+revenge--and there strikes the happy hour!"
+
+The hour of noon was accordingly heard to peal from Saint Dunstan's.
+"Well banged, brave hammers!" said Lord Dalgarno, in triumph.--"The
+estate and lands of Glenvarloch are crushed beneath these clanging
+blows. If my steel to-morrow prove but as true as your iron maces
+to-day, the poor landless lord will little miss what your peal hath
+cut him out from.--The papers--the papers, thou varlet! I am to-morrow
+Northward, ho! At four, afternoon, I am bound to be at Camlet Moat,
+in the Enfield Chase. To-night most of my retinue set forward. The
+papers!--Come, dispatch."
+
+"My lord, the--the papers of the Glenvarloch mortgage--I--I have them
+not."
+
+"Have them not!" echoed Lord Dalgarno,--"Hast thou sent them to my
+lodgings, thou varlet? Did I not say I was coming hither?--What mean you
+by pointing to that money? What villainy have you done for it? It is too
+large to be come honestly by."
+
+"Your lordship knows best," answered the scrivener, in great
+perturbation. "The gold is your own. It is--it is--"
+
+"Not the redemption-money of the Glenvarloch estate!" said Dalgarno.
+"Dare not say it is, or I will, upon the spot, divorce your pettifogging
+soul from your carrion carcass!" So saying, he seized the scrivener
+by the collar, and shook him so vehemently, that he tore it from the
+cassock.
+
+"My lord, I must call for help," said the trembling caitiff, who felt
+at that moment all the bitterness of the mortal agony--"It was the law's
+act, not mine. What could I do?"
+
+"Dost ask?--why, thou snivelling dribblet of damnation, were all thy
+oaths, tricks, and lies spent? or do you hold yourself too good to utter
+them in my service? Thou shouldst have lied, cozened, out-sworn truth
+itself, rather than stood betwixt me and my revenge! But mark me," he
+continued; "I know more of your pranks than would hang thee. A line from
+me to the Attorney-General, and thou art sped."
+
+"What would you have me to do, my lord?" said the scrivener. "All that
+art and law can accomplish, I will try."
+
+"Ah, are you converted? do so, or pity of your life!" said the lord;
+"and remember I never fail my word.--Then keep that accursed gold,"
+he continued. "Or, stay, I will not trust you--send me this gold home
+presently to my lodging. I will still forward to Scotland, and it shall
+go hard but that I hold out Glenvarloch Castle against the owner, by
+means of the ammunition he has himself furnished. Thou art ready to
+serve me?" The scrivener professed the most implicit obedience.
+
+"Then remember, the hour was past ere payment was tendered--and see thou
+hast witnesses of trusty memory to prove that point."
+
+"Tush, my lord, I will do more," said Andrew, reviving--"I will prove
+that Lord Glenvarloch's friends threatened, swaggered, and drew swords
+on me.--Did your lordship think I was ungrateful enough to have suffered
+them to prejudice your lordship, save that they had bare swords at my
+throat?"
+
+"Enough said," replied Dalgarno; "you are perfect--mind that you
+continue so, as you would avoid my fury. I leave my page below--get
+porters, and let them follow me instantly with the gold."
+
+So saying, Lord Dalgarno left the scrivener's habitation.
+
+Skurliewhitter, having dispatched his boy to get porters of trust for
+transporting the money, remained alone and in dismay, meditating by
+what means he could shake himself free of the vindictive and ferocious
+nobleman, who possessed at once a dangerous knowledge of his character,
+and the power of exposing him, where exposure would be ruin. He
+had indeed acquiesced in the plan, rapidly sketched, for obtaining
+possession of the ransomed estate, but his experience foresaw that this
+would be impossible; while, on the other hand, he could not anticipate
+the various consequences of Lord Dalgarno's resentment, without fears,
+from which his sordid soul recoiled. To be in the power, and subject
+both to the humours and the extortions of a spendthrift young lord, just
+when his industry had shaped out the means of fortune,--it was the most
+cruel trick which fate could have played the incipient usurer.
+
+While the scrivener was in this fit of anxious anticipation, one knocked
+at the door of the apartment; and, being desired to enter, appeared in
+the coarse riding-cloak of uncut Wiltshire cloth, fastened by a broad
+leather belt and brass buckle, which was then generally worn by graziers
+and countrymen. Skurliewhitter, believing he saw in his visitor a
+country client who might prove profitable, had opened his mouth to
+request him to be seated, when the stranger, throwing back his frieze
+hood which he had drawn over his face, showed the scrivener features
+well imprinted in his recollection, but which he never saw without a
+disposition to swoon.
+
+"Is it you?" he said, faintly, as the stranger replaced the hood which
+concealed his features.
+
+"Who else should it be?" said his visitor.
+
+"Thou son of parchment, got betwixt the inkhorn And the stuff'd
+process-bag--that mayest call The pen thy father, and the ink thy mother,
+
+ The wax thy brother, and the sand thy sister
+ And the good pillory thy cousin allied--
+ Rise, and do reverence unto me, thy better!"
+
+"Not yet down to the country," said the scrivener, "after every warning?
+Do not think your grazier's cloak will bear you out, captain--no, nor
+your scraps of stage-plays."
+
+"Why, what would you have me to do?" said the captain--"Would you have
+me starve? If I am to fly, you must eke my wings with a few feathers.
+You can spare them, I think."
+
+"You had means already--you have had ten pieces--What is become of
+them?"
+
+"Gone," answered Captain Colepepper--"Gone, no matter where--I had a
+mind to bite, and I was bitten, that's all--I think my hand shook at the
+thought of t'other night's work, for I trowled the doctors like a very
+baby."
+
+"And you have lost all, then?--Well, take this and be gone," said the
+scrivener.
+
+"What, two poor smelts! Marry, plague of your bounty!--But remember, you
+are as deep in as I."
+
+"Not so, by Heaven!" answered the scrivener; "I only thought of easing
+the old man of some papers and a trifle of his gold, and you took his
+life."
+
+"Were he living," answered Colepepper, "he would rather have lost
+it than his money.--But that is not the question, Master
+Skurliewhitter--you undid the private bolts of the window when you
+visited him about some affairs on the day ere he died--so satisfy
+yourself, that, if I am taken, I will not swing alone. Pity Jack
+Hempsfield is dead, it spoils the old catch,
+
+     'And three merry men, and three merry men,
+      And three merry men are we,
+      As ever did sing three parts in a string,
+      All under the triple tree.'"
+
+"For God's sake, speak lower," said the scrivener; "is this a place or
+time to make your midnight catches heard?--But how much will serve your
+turn? I tell you I am but ill provided."
+
+"You tell me a lie, then," said the bully--"a most palpable and gross
+lie.--How much, d'ye say, will serve my turn? Why, one of these bags
+will do for the present."
+
+"I swear to you that these bags of money are not at my disposal."
+
+"Not honestly, perhaps," said the captain, "but that makes little
+difference betwixt us."
+
+"I swear to you," continued the scrivener "they are in no way at my
+disposal--they have been delivered to me by tale--I am to pay them over
+to Lord Dalgarno, whose boy waits for them, and I could not skelder one
+piece out of them, without risk of hue and cry."
+
+"Can you not put off the delivery?" said the bravo, his huge hand still
+fumbling with one of the bags, as if his fingers longed to close on it.
+
+"Impossible," said the scrivener, "he sets forward to Scotland
+to-morrow."
+
+"Ay!" said the bully, after a moment's thought--"Travels he the north
+road with such a charge?"
+
+"He is well accompanied," added the scrivener; "but yet--"
+
+"But yet--but what?" said the bravo.
+
+"Nay, I meant nothing," said the scrivener.
+
+"Thou didst--thou hadst the wind of some good thing," replied
+Colepepper; "I saw thee pause like a setting dog. Thou wilt say as
+little, and make as sure a sign, as a well-bred spaniel."
+
+"All I meant to say, captain, was, that his servants go by Barnet, and
+he himself, with his page, pass through Enfield Chase; and he spoke to
+me yesterday of riding a soft pace."
+
+"Aha!--Comest thou to me there, my boy?"
+
+"And of resting"--continued the scrivener,--"resting a space at Camlet
+Moat."
+
+"Why, this is better than cock-fighting!" said the captain.
+
+"I see not how it can advantage you, captain," said the scrivener. "But,
+however, they cannot ride fast, for his page rides the sumpter-horse,
+which carries all that weight," pointing to the money on the table.
+"Lord Dalgarno looks sharp to the world's gear."
+
+"That horse will be obliged to those who may ease him of his burden,"
+said the bravo; "and egad, he may be met with.--He hath still that
+page--that same Lutin--that goblin? Well, the boy hath set game for
+me ere now. I will be revenged, too, for I owe him a grudge for an old
+score at the ordinary. Let me see--Black Feltham, and Dick Shakebag--we
+shall want a fourth--I love to make sure, and the booty will stand
+parting, besides what I can bucket them out of. Well, scrivener, lend
+me two pieces.--Bravely done--nobly imparted! Give ye good-den." And
+wrapping his disguise closer around him, away he went.
+
+When he had left the room, the scrivener wrung his hands, and exclaimed,
+"More blood--more blood! I thought to have had done with it, but this
+time there was no fault with me--none--and then I shall have all the
+advantage. If this ruffian falls, there is truce with his tugs at my
+purse-strings; and if Lord Dalgarno dies--as is most likely, for though
+as much afraid of cold steel as a debtor of a dun, this fellow is
+a deadly shot from behind a bush,--then am I in a thousand ways
+safe--safe--safe."
+
+We willingly drop the curtain over him and his reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+  We are not worst at once--the course of evil
+  Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
+  An infant's hand might stem its breach with clay;
+  But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy--
+  Ay, and religion too--shall strive in vain
+  To turn the headlong torrent.
+                            _Old Play._
+
+The Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a
+private chamber at Beaujeu's, where he might be considered as good
+company; for he had exchanged his serving-man's cloak and jerkin for
+a grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but
+such as might have befitted an older man than himself. He had positively
+declined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to which his
+companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be
+easily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion were not
+indisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw and pedantic
+Scotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few pieces, of which
+he appeared to have acquired considerable command. But not even a
+succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the little brilliant
+atoms circulated like motes in the sun's rays, had the least effect
+on Richie's sense of decorum. He retained the gravity of a judge, even
+while he drank like a fish, partly from his own natural inclination to
+good liquor, partly in the way of good fellowship towards his guests.
+When the wine began to make some innovation on their heads, Master
+Lowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to
+become yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical than even in the
+earlier part of the entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up
+their debauch and join the gamesters.
+
+The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning
+of the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which was
+received with cap and knee, and many assurances of--"Kindly welcome,
+gentlemen."
+
+"I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen," said Richie to his
+companions,--"and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went, or
+stayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I
+thank you, however, for having graced my poor collation thus far; and
+I commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the ordinary neither
+was, is, nor shall be, an element of mine."
+
+"Fare thee well, then," said Lowestoffe, "most sapient and sententious
+Master Moniplies. May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and may
+I be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heartily
+as you have done this day."
+
+"Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so--but, if you
+would but hear me speak a few words of admonition respecting this wicked
+ordinary--"
+
+"Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie," said Lowestoffe, "until
+I have lost all my money," showing, at the same time, a purse
+indifferently well provided, "and then the lecture is likely to have
+some weight."
+
+"And keep my share of it, Richie," said the other Templar, showing an
+almost empty purse, in his turn, "till this be full again, and then I
+will promise to hear you with some patience."
+
+"Ay, ay, gallants," said Richie, "the full and the empty gang a' ae
+gate, and that is a grey one--but the time will come."
+
+"Nay, it is come already," said Lowestoffe; "they have set out the
+hazard table. Since you will peremptorily not go with us, why, farewell,
+Richie."
+
+"And farewell, gentlemen," said Richie, and left the house, into which
+they had returned.
+
+Moniplies was not many steps from the door, when a person, whom, lost
+in his reflections on gaming, ordinaries, and the manners of the age,
+he had not observed, and who had been as negligent on his part, ran
+full against him; and, when Richie desired to know whether he meant "ony
+incivility," replied by a curse on Scotland, and all that belonged to
+it. A less round reflection on his country would, at any time, have
+provoked Richie, but more especially when he had a double quart of
+Canary and better in his pate. He was about to give a very rough answer,
+and to second his word by action, when a closer view of his antagonist
+changed his purpose.
+
+"You are the vera lad in the warld," said Richie, "whom I most wished to
+meet."
+
+"And you," answered the stranger, "or any of your beggarly countrymen,
+are the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair
+and false, and an honest man cannot thrive within eyeshot of you."
+
+"As to our poverty, friend," replied Richie, "that is as Heaven pleases;
+but touching our falset, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal
+and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in English doublet."
+
+"I care not whether he does or not," said the gallant. "Let me go--why
+keep you hold of my cloak? Let me go, or I will thrust you into the
+kennel."
+
+"I believe I could forgie ye, for you did me a good turn once, in
+plucking me out of it," said the Scot.
+
+"Beshrew my fingers, then, if they did so," replied the stranger. "I
+would your whole country lay there, along with you; and Heaven's curse
+blight the hand that helped to raise them!--Why do you stop my way?" he
+added, fiercely.
+
+"Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin," said Richie. "Nay, never start
+about it, man--you see you are known. Alack-a-day! that an honest man's
+son should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name!"
+Jenkin struck his brow violently with his clenched fist.
+
+"Come, come," said Richie, "this passion availeth nothing. Tell me what
+gate go you?"
+
+"To the devil!" answered Jin Vin.
+
+"That is a black gate, if you speak according to the letter," answered
+Richie; "but if metaphorically, there are worse places in this great
+city than the Devil Tavern; and I care not if I go thither with you, and
+bestow a pottle of burnt sack on you--it will correct the crudities of
+my stomach, and form a gentle preparative for the leg of a cold pullet."
+
+"I pray you, in good fashion, to let me go," said Jenkin. "You may mean
+me kindly, and I wish you to have no wrong at my hand; but I am in the
+humour to be dangerous to myself, or any one."
+
+"I will abide the risk," said the Scot, "if you will but come with me;
+and here is a place convenient, a howff nearer than the Devil, whilk
+is but an ill-omened drouthy name for a tavern. This other of the Saint
+Andrew is a quiet place, where I have ta'en my whetter now and
+then, when I lodged in the neighbourhood of the Temple with Lord
+Glenvarloch.--What the deil's the matter wi' the man, garr'd him gie sic
+a spang as that, and almaist brought himself and me on the causeway?"
+
+"Do not name that false Scot's name to me," said Jin Vin, "if you would
+not have me go mad!--I was happy before I saw him--he has been the cause
+of all the ill that has befallen me--he has made a knave and a madman of
+me!"
+
+"If you are a knave," said Richie, "you have met an officer--if you are
+daft, you have met a keeper; but a gentle officer and a kind keeper.
+Look you, my gude friend, there has been twenty things said about this
+same lord, in which there is no more truth than in the leasings of
+Mahound. The warst they can say of him is, that he is not always so
+amenable to good advice as I would pray him, you, and every young man to
+be. Come wi' me--just come ye wi' me; and, if a little spell of siller
+and a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your occasions, all
+I can say is, you have had the luck to meet one capable of giving you
+both, and maist willing to bestow them."
+
+The pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent,
+who was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for
+himself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of
+another. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which
+Richie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a
+snug niche, with a reeking pottle of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar
+betwixt them. Pipes and tobacco were also provided, but were only used
+by Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding considerably to
+the gravity and importance of his manner, and affording, as it were,
+a bland and pleasant accompaniment to the words of wisdom which flowed
+from his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank them in
+silence, Richie repeated the question, whither his guest was going when
+they met so fortunately.
+
+"I told you," said Jenkin, "I was going to destruction--I mean to the
+gaming-house. I am resolved to hazard these two or three pieces, to get
+as much as will pay for a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship lies
+at Gravesend, bound for America--and so Eastward, ho!--I met one devil
+in the way already, who would have tempted me from my purpose, but I
+spurned him from me--you may be another for what I know.--What degree
+of damnation do you propose for me," he added wildly, "and what is the
+price of it?"
+
+"I would have you to know," answered Richie, "that I deal in no such
+commodities, whether as buyer or seller. But if you will tell me
+honestly the cause of your distress, I will do what is in my power to
+help you out of it,--not being, however, prodigal of promises, until
+I know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice when he has
+observed the diagnostics."
+
+"No one has any thing to do with my affairs," said the poor lad; and
+folding his arms on the table, he laid his head upon them, with the
+sullen dejection of the overburdened lama, when it throws itself down to
+die in desperation.
+
+Richard Moniplies, like most folk who have a good opinion of themselves,
+was fond of the task of consolation, which at once displayed his
+superiority, (for the consoler is necessarily, for the time at least,
+superior to the afflicted person,) and indulged his love of talking.
+He inflicted on the poor penitenta harangue of pitiless length, stuffed
+full of the usual topics of the mutability of human affairs--the eminent
+advantages of patience under affliction--the folly of grieving for what
+hath no remedy--the necessity of taking more care for the future, and
+some gentle rebukes on account of the past, which acid he threw in to
+assist in subduing the patient's obstinacy, as Hannibal used vinegar in
+cutting his way through rocks. It was not in human nature to endure this
+flood of commonplace eloquence in silence; and Jin Vin, whether desirous
+of stopping the flow of words--crammed thus into his ear, "against the
+stomach of his sense," or whether confiding in Richie's protestations
+of friendship, which the wretched, says Fielding, are ever so ready to
+believe, or whether merely to give his sorrows vent in words, raised his
+head, and turning his red and swollen eyes to Richie--
+
+"Cocksbones, man, only hold thy tongue, and thou shall know all about
+it,--and then all I ask of thee is to shake hands and part.--This
+Margaret Ramsay,--you have seen her, man?"
+
+"Once," said Richie, "once, at Master George Heriot's in Lombard
+Street--I was in the room when they dined."
+
+"Ay, you helped to shift their trenchers, I remember," said Jin Vin.
+"Well, that same pretty girl--and I will uphold her the prettiest
+betwixt Paul's and the Bar--she is to be wedded to your Lord
+Glenvarloch, with a pestilence on him!"
+
+"That is impossible," said Richie; "it is raving nonsense, man--they
+make April gouks of you cockneys every month in the year--The Lord
+Glenvarloch marry the daughter of a Lonnon mechanic! I would as soon
+believe the great Prester John would marry the daughter of a Jew
+packman."
+
+"Hark ye, brother," said Jin Vin, "I will allow no one to speak
+disregardfully of the city, for all I am in trouble."
+
+"I crave your pardon, man--I meant no offence," said Richie; "but as to
+the marriage, it is a thing simply impossible."
+
+"It is a thing that will take place, though, for the Duke and the
+Prince, and all of them, have a finger in it; and especially the old
+fool of a king, that makes her out to be some great woman in her own
+country, as all the Scots pretend to be, you know."
+
+"Master Vincent, but that you are under affliction," said the consoler,
+offended on his part, "I would hear no national reflections."
+
+The afflicted youth apologised in his turns, but asserted, "it was true
+that the king said Peg-a-Ramsay was some far-off sort of noblewoman; and
+that he had taken a great interest in the match, and had run about like
+an old gander, cackling about Peggie ever since he had seen her in hose
+and doublet--and no wonder," added poor Vin, with a deep sigh.
+
+"This may be all true," said Richie, "though it sounds strange in my
+ears; but, man, you should not speak evil of dignities---Curse not the
+king, Jenkin; not even in thy bed-chamber--stone walls have ears--no one
+has a right to know better than I."
+
+"I do not curse the foolish old man," said Jenkin; "but I would have
+them carry things a peg lower.--If they were to see on a plain field
+thirty thousand such pikes as I have seen in the artillery gardens,
+it would not be their long-haired courtiers would help them, I trow."
+[Footnote: Clarendon remarks, that the importance of the military
+exercise of the citizens was severely felt by the cavaliers during the
+civil war, notwithstanding the ridicule that had been showered upon it
+by the dramatic poets of the day. Nothing less than habitual practice
+could, at the battle of Newbury and elsewhere, have enabled the
+Londoners to keep their ranks as pikemen, in spite of the repeated
+charge of the fiery Prince Rupert and his gallant cavaliers.]
+
+"Hout tout, man," said Richie, "mind where the Stewarts come frae, and
+never think they would want spears or claymores either; but leaving sic
+matters, whilk are perilous to speak on, I say once more, what is your
+concern in all this matter?"
+
+"What is it?" said Jenkin; "why, have I not fixed on Peg-a-Ramsay to be
+my true love, from the day I came to her old father's shop? and have I
+not carried her pattens and her chopines for three years, and borne her
+prayer-book to church, and brushed the cushion for her to kneel down
+upon, and did she ever say me nay?"
+
+"I see no cause she had," said Richie, "if the like of such small
+services were all that ye proffered. Ah, man! there are few--very few,
+either of fools or of wise men, ken how to guide a woman."
+
+"Why, did I not serve her at the risk of my freedom, and very nigh at
+the risk of my neck? Did she not--no, it was not her neither, but that
+accursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me--persuade me like a fool
+to turn myself into a waterman to help my lord, and a plague to him,
+down to Scotland? and instead of going peaceably down to the ship at
+Gravesend, did not he rant and bully, and show his pistols, and make
+me land him at Greenwich, where he played some swaggering pranks, that
+helped both him and me into the Tower?"
+
+"Aha!" said Richie, throwing more than his usual wisdom into his looks,
+"so you were the green-jacketed waterman that rowed Lord Glenvarloch
+down the river?"
+
+"The more fool I, that did not souse him in the Thames," said Jenkin;
+"and I was the lad who would not confess one word of who and what I
+was, though they threatened to make me hug the Duke of Exeter's
+daughter."[Footnote: A particular species of rack, used at the Tower of
+London, was so called.]
+
+"Wha is she, man?" said Richie; "she must be an ill-fashioned piece, if
+you're so much afraid of her, and she come of such high kin."
+
+"I mean the rack--the rack, man," said Jenkin. "Where were you bred
+that never heard of the Duke of Exeter's daughter? But all the dukes and
+duchesses in England could have got nothing out of me--so the truth came
+out some other way, and I was set free.--Home I ran, thinking myself
+one of the cleverest and happiest fellows in the ward. And she--she--she
+wanted to pay me with _money_ for all my true service! and she spoke so
+sweetly and so coldly at the same time, I wished myself in the deepest
+dungeon of the Tower--I wish they had racked me to death before I heard
+this Scottishman was to chouse me out of my sweetheart!"
+
+"But are ye sure ye have lost her?" said Richie; "it sounds strange
+in my ears that my Lord Glenvarloch should marry the daughter of a
+dealer,--though there are uncouth marriages made in London, I'll allow
+that."
+
+"Why, I tell you this lord was no sooner clear of the Tower, than he and
+Master George Heriot comes to make proposals for her, with the king's
+assent, and what not; and fine fair-day prospects of Court favour for
+this lord, for he hath not an acre of land."
+
+"Well, and what said the auld watch-maker?" said Richie; "was he not, as
+might weel beseem him, ready to loop out of his skin-case for very joy?"
+
+"He multiplied six figures progressively, and reported the product--then
+gave his consent."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I rushed into the streets," said the poor lad, "with a burning heart
+and a blood-shot eye--and where did I first find myself, but with that
+beldam, Mother Suddlechop--and what did she propose to me, but to take
+the road?"
+
+"Take the road, man? in what sense?" said Richie.
+
+"Even as a clerk to Saint Nicholas--as a highwayman, like Poins and
+Peto, and the good fellows in the play--and who think you was to be my
+captain?--for she had the whole out ere I could speak to her--I fancy
+she took silence for consent, and thought me damned too unutterably
+to have one thought left that savoured of redemption--who was to be my
+captain, but the knave that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you
+waited on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully about
+town here, whom they call Colepepper."
+
+"Colepepper--umph--I know somewhat of that smaik," said Richie; "ken ye
+by ony chance where he may be heard of, Master Jenkin?--ye wad do me a
+sincere service to tell me."
+
+"Why, he lives something obscurely," answered the apprentice, "on
+account of suspicion of some villainy--I believe that horrid murder in
+Whitefriars, or some such matter. But I might have heard all about him
+from Dame Suddlechop, for she spoke of my meeting him at Enfield Chase,
+with some other good fellows, to do a robbery on one that goes northward
+with a store of treasure."
+
+"And you did not agree to this fine project?" said Moniplies.
+
+"I cursed her for a hag, and came away about my business," answered
+Jenkin.
+
+"Ay, and what said she to that, man? That would startle her," said
+Richie.
+
+"Not a whit. She laughed, and said she was in jest," answered Jenkin;
+"but I know the she-devil's jest from her earnest too well to be taken
+in that way. But she knows I would never betray her.'
+
+"Betray her! No," replied Richie; "but are ye in any shape bound to this
+birkie Peppercull, or Colepepper, or whatever they call him, that ye
+suld let him do a robbery on the honest gentleman that is travelling to
+the north, and may be a kindly Scot, for what we know?"
+
+"Ay--going home with a load of English money," said Jenkin. "But be he
+who he will, they may rob the whole world an they list, for I am robbed
+and ruined."
+
+Richie filled his friend's cup up to the brim, and insisted that he
+should drink what he called "clean caup out." "This love," he said,
+"is but a bairnly matter for a brisk young fellow like yourself, Master
+Jenkin. And if ye must needs have a whimsy, though I think it would be
+safer to venture on a staid womanly body, why, here be as bonny lasses
+in London as this Peg-a-Ramsay. You need not sigh sae deeply, for it is
+very true--there is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Now
+wherefore should you, who are as brisk and trig a young fellow of your
+inches as the sun needs to shine on--wherefore need you sit moping this
+way, and not try some bold way to better your fortune?"
+
+"I tell you, Master Moniplies," said Jenkin, "I am as poor as any
+Scot among you--I have broke my indenture, and I think of running my
+country."
+
+"A-well-a-day!" said Richie; "but that maunna be, man--I ken weel, by
+sad experience, that poortith takes away pith, and the man sits full
+still that has a rent in his breeks. [Footnote: This elegant speech was
+made by the Earl of Douglas, called Tineman after being wounded and made
+prisoner at the battle of Shrewsbury, where
+
+     "His well labouring sword
+     Had three times slain the semblance of the king,"]
+
+But courage, man; you have served me heretofore, and I will serve you
+now. If you will but bring me to speech of this same captain, it will be
+the best day's work you ever did."
+
+"I guess where you are, Master Richard--you would save your countryman's
+long purse," said Jenkin. "I cannot see how that should advantage me,
+but I reck not if I should bear a hand. I hate that braggart, that
+bloody-minded, cowardly bully. If you can get me mounted I care not if I
+show you where the dame told me I should meet him--but you must stand
+to the risk, for though he is a coward himself, I know he will have more
+than one stout fellow with him."
+
+"We'll have a warrant, man," said Richie, "and the hue and cry, to
+boot."
+
+"We will have no such thing," said Jenkin, "if I am to go with you. I
+am not the lad to betray any one to the harmanbeck. You must do it by
+manhood if I am to go with you. I am sworn to cutter's law, and will
+sell no man's blood."
+
+"Aweel," said Richie, "a wilful man must have his way; ye must think
+that I was born and bred where cracked crowns were plentier than whole
+ones. Besides, I have two noble friends here, Master Lowestoffe of the
+Temple, and his cousin Master Ringwood, that will blithely be of so
+gallant a party."
+
+"Lowestoffe and Ringwood!" said Jenkin; "they are both brave
+gallants--they will be sure company. Know you where they are to be
+found?"
+
+"Ay, marry do I," replied Richie. "They are fast at the cards and dice,
+till the sma' hours, I warrant them."
+
+"They are gentlemen of trust and honour," said Jenkin, "and, if they
+advise it, I will try the adventure. Go, try if you can bring them
+hither, since you have so much to say with, them. We must not be seen
+abroad together.--I know not how it is, Master Moniplies," continued he,
+as his countenance brightened up, and while, in his turn, he filled the
+cups, "but I feel my heart something lighter since I have thought of
+this matter."
+
+"Thus it is to have counsellors, Master Jenkin," said Richie; "and truly
+I hope to hear you say that your heart is as light as a lavrock's, and
+that before you are many days aulder. Never smile and shake your head,
+but mind what I tell you--and bide here in the meanwhile, till I go to
+seek these gallants. I warrant you, cart-ropes would not hold them back
+from such a ploy as I shall propose to them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+  The thieves have bound the true men--
+  Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go
+   merrily to London.
+                    _Henry IV., Part I._
+
+The sun was high upon the glades of Enfield Chase, and the deer, with
+which it then abounded, were seen sporting in picturesque groups among
+the ancient oaks of the forest, when a cavalier and a lady, on foot,
+although in riding apparel, sauntered slowly up one of the long alleys
+which were cut through the park for the convenience of the hunters.
+Their only attendant was a page, who, riding a Spanish jennet, which
+seemed to bear a heavy cloak-bag, followed them at a respectful
+distance. The female, attired in all the fantastic finery of the period,
+with more than the usual quantity of bugles, flounces, and trimmings,
+and holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and her riding-mask
+of black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all the little coquetry
+practised on such occasions, to secure the notice of her companion,
+who sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to attend to it, and
+at other times interrupted his train of graver reflections, to reply to
+her.
+
+"Nay, but, my lord--my lord, you walk so fast, you will leave me behind
+you.--Nay, I will have hold of your arm, but how to manage with my mask
+and my fan? Why would you not let me bring my waiting-gentlewoman to
+follow us, and hold my things? But see, I will put my fan in my girdle,
+soh!--and now that I have a hand to hold you with, you shall not run
+away from me."
+
+"Come on, then," answered the gallant, "and let us walk apace, since you
+would not be persuaded to stay with your gentlewoman, as you call her,
+and with the rest of the baggage.--You may perhaps see _that_, though,
+you will not like to see."
+
+She took hold of his arm accordingly; but as he continued to walk at the
+same pace, she shortly let go her hold, exclaiming that he had hurt her
+hand. The cavalier stopped, and looked at the pretty hand and arm which
+she showed him, with exclamations against his cruelty. "I dare say," she
+said, baring her wrist and a part of her arm, "it is all black and blue
+to the very elbow."
+
+"I dare say you are a silly little fool," said the cavalier, carelessly
+kissing the aggrieved arm; "it is only a pretty incarnate which sets off
+the blue veins."
+
+"Nay, my lord, now it is you are silly," answered the dame; "but I am
+glad I can make you speak and laugh on any terms this morning. I am
+sure, if I did insist on following you into the forest, it was all
+for the sake of diverting you. I am better company than your page, I
+trow.--And now, tell me, these pretty things with horns, be they not
+deer?"
+
+"Even such they be, Nelly," answered her neglectful attendant.
+
+"And what can the great folk do with so many of them, forsooth?"
+
+"They send them to the city, Nell, where wise men make venison pasties
+of their flesh, and wear their horns for trophies," answered Lord
+Dalgarno, whom our reader has already recognised.
+
+"Nay, now you laugh at me, my lord," answered his companion; "but I know
+all about venison, whatever you may think. I always tasted it once a
+year when we dined with Mr. Deputy," she continued, sadly, as a sense
+of her degradation stole across a mind bewildered with vanity and
+folly, "though he would not speak to me now, if we met together in the
+narrowest lane in the Ward!"
+
+"I warrant he would not," said Lord Dalgarno, "because thou, Nell,
+wouldst dash him with a single look; for I trust thou hast more spirit
+than to throw away words on such a fellow as he?"
+
+"Who, I!" said Dame Nelly. "Nay, I scorn the proud princox too much for
+that. Do you know, he made all the folk in the Ward stand cap in hand to
+him, my poor old John Christie and all?" Here her recollection began to
+overflow at her eyes.
+
+"A plague on your whimpering," said Dalgarno, somewhat harshly,--"Nay,
+never look pale for the matter, Nell. I am not angry with you, you
+simple fool. But what would you have me think, when you are eternally
+looking back upon your dungeon yonder by the river, which smelt of pitch
+and old cheese worse than a Welshman does of onions, and all this when I
+am taking you down to a castle as fine as is in Fairy Land!"
+
+"Shall we be there to-night, my lord?" said Nelly, drying her tears.
+
+"To-night, Nelly?--no, nor this night fortnight."
+
+"Now, the Lord be with us, and keep us!--But shall we not go by sea,
+my lord?--I thought everybody came from Scotland by sea. I am sure Lord
+Glenvarloch and Richie Moniplies came up by sea."
+
+"There is a wide difference between coming up and going down, Nelly,"
+answered Lord Dalgarno.
+
+"And so there is, for certain," said his simple companion. "But yet I
+think I heard people speaking of going down to Scotland by sea, as well
+as coming up. Are you well avised of the way?--Do you think it possible
+we can go by land, my sweet lord?"
+
+"It is but trying, my sweet lady," said Lord Dalgarno. "Men say England
+and Scotland are in the same island, so one would hope there may be some
+road betwixt them by land."
+
+"I shall never be able to ride so far," said the lady.
+
+"We will have your saddle stuffed softer," said the lord. "I tell you
+that you shall mew your city slough, and change from the caterpillar of
+a paltry lane into the butterfly of a prince's garden. You shall have as
+many tires as there are hours in the day--as many handmaidens as
+there are days in the week--as many menials as there are weeks in the
+year--and you shall ride a hunting and hawking with a lord, instead of
+waiting upon an old ship-chandler, who could do nothing but hawk and
+spit."
+
+"Ay, but will you make me your lady?" said Dame Nelly.
+
+"Ay, surely--what else?" replied the lord--"My lady-love."
+
+"Ay, but I mean your lady-wife," said Nelly.
+
+"Truly, Nell, in that I cannot promise to oblige you. A lady-wife,"
+continued Dalgarno, "is a very different thing from a lady-love."
+
+"I heard from Mrs. Suddlechop, whom you lodged me with since I left poor
+old John Christie, that Lord Glenvarloch is to marry David Ramsay the
+clockmaker's daughter?"
+
+"There is much betwixt the cup and the lip, Nelly. I wear something
+about me may break the bans of that hopeful alliance, before the day is
+much older," answered Lord Dalgarno.
+
+"Well, but my father was as good a man as old Davy Ramsay, and as well
+to pass in the world, my lord; and, therefore, why should you not marry
+me? You have done me harm enough, I trow--wherefore should you not do me
+this justice?"
+
+"For two good reasons, Nelly. Fate put a husband on you, and the king
+passed a wife upon me," answered Lord Dalgarno.
+
+"Ay, my lord," said Nelly, "but they remain in England, and we go to
+Scotland."
+
+"Thy argument is better than thou art aware of," said Lord Dalgarno. "I
+have heard Scottish lawyers say the matrimonial tie may be unclasped
+in our happy country by the gentle hand of the ordinary course of law,
+whereas in England it can only be burst by an act of Parliament. Well,
+Nelly, we will look into that matter; and whether we get married again
+or no, we will at least do our best to get unmarried."
+
+"Shall we indeed, my honey-sweet lord? and then I will think less about
+John Christie, for he will marry again, I warrant you, for he is well to
+pass; and I would be glad to think he had somebody to take care of him,
+as I used to do, poor loving old man! He was a kind man, though he was
+a score of years older than I; and I hope and pray he will never let a
+young lord cross his honest threshold again!"
+
+Here the dame was once more much inclined to give way to a passion of
+tears; but Lord Dalgarno conjured down the emotion, by saying with some
+asperity--"I am weary of these April passions, my pretty mistress, and
+I think you will do well to preserve your tears for some more pressing
+occasion. Who knows what turn of fortune may in a few minutes call for
+more of them than you can render?"
+
+"Goodness, my lord! what mean you by such expressions? John Christie
+(the kind heart!) used to keep no secrets from me, and I hope your
+lordship will not hide your counsel from me?"
+
+"Sit down beside me on this bank," said the nobleman; "I am bound to
+remain here for a short space, and if you can be but silent, I should
+like to spend a part of it in considering how far I can, on the present
+occasion, follow the respectable example which you recommend to me."
+
+The place at which he stopped was at that time little more than a mound,
+partly surrounded by a ditch, from which it derived the name of Camlet
+Moat. A few hewn stones there were, which had escaped the fate of many
+others that had been used in building different lodges in the forest for
+the royal keepers. These vestiges, just sufficient to show that "herein
+former times the hand of man had been," marked the ruins of the abode of
+a once illustrious but long-forgotten family, the Mandevilles, Earls
+of Essex, to whom Enfield Chase and the extensive domains adjacent had
+belonged in elder days. A wild woodland prospect led the eye at various
+points through broad and seemingly interminable alleys, which, meeting
+at this point as at a common centre, diverged from each other as they
+receded, and had, therefore, been selected by Lord Dalgarno as
+the rendezvous for the combat, which, through the medium of Richie
+Moniplies, he had offered to his injured friend, Lord Glenvarloch.
+
+"He will surely come?" he said to himself; "cowardice was not wont to
+be his fault--at least he was bold enough in the Park.--Perhaps yonder
+churl may not have carried my message? But no--he is a sturdy knave--one
+of those would prize their master's honour above their life.--Look to
+the palfrey, Lutin, and see thou let him not loose, and cast thy falcon
+glance down every avenue to mark if any one comes.--Buckingham has
+undergone my challenge, but the proud minion pleads the king's paltry
+commands for refusing to answer me. If I can baffle this Glenvarloch, or
+slay him--If I can spoil him of his honour or his life, I shall go down
+to Scotland with credit sufficient to gild over past mischances. I know
+my dear countrymen--they never quarrel with any one who brings them
+home either gold or martial glory, much more if he has both gold and
+laurels."
+
+As he thus reflected, and called to mind the disgrace which he had
+suffered, as well as the causes he imagined for hating Lord Glenvarloch,
+his countenance altered under the influence of his contending emotions,
+to the terror of Nelly, who, sitting unnoticed at his feet, and looking
+anxiously in his face, beheld the cheek kindle, the mouth become
+compressed, the eye dilated, and the whole countenance express the
+desperate and deadly resolution of one who awaits an instant and
+decisive encounter with a mortal enemy. The loneliness of the place, the
+scenery so different from that to which alone she had been accustomed,
+the dark and sombre air which crept so suddenly over the countenance
+of her seducer, his command imposing silence upon her, and the apparent
+strangeness of his conduct in idling away so much time without any
+obvious cause, when a journey of such length lay before them, brought
+strange thoughts into her weak brain. She had read of women, seduced
+from their matrimonial duties by sorcerers allied to the hellish powers,
+nay, by the Father of Evil himself, who, after conveying his victim
+into some desert remote from human kind, exchanged the pleasing shape in
+which he gained her affections, for all his natural horrors. She chased
+this wild idea away as it crowded itself upon her weak and bewildered
+imagination; yet she might have lived to see it realised allegorically,
+if not literally, but for the accident which presently followed.
+
+The page, whose eyes were remarkably acute, at length called out to
+his master, pointing with his finger at the same time down one of the
+alleys, that horsemen were advancing in that direction. Lord Dalgarno
+started up, and shading his eyes with his hand, gazed eagerly down the
+alley; when, at the same instant, he received a shot, which, grazing his
+hand, passed right through his brain, and laid him a lifeless corpse
+at the feet, or rather across the lap, of the unfortunate victim of
+his profligacy. The countenance, whose varied expression she had been
+watching for the last five minutes, was convulsed for an instant, and
+then stiffened into rigidity for ever. Three ruffians rushed from the
+brake from which the shot had been fired, ere the smoke was dispersed.
+One, with many imprecations seized on the page; another on the female,
+upon whose cries he strove by the most violent threats to impose
+silence; whilst the third began to undo the burden from the page's
+horse. But an instant rescue prevented their availing themselves of the
+advantage they had obtained.
+
+It may easily be supposed that Richie Moniplies, having secured the
+assistance of the two Templars, ready enough to join in any thing
+which promised a fray, with Jin Vin to act as their guide, had set off,
+gallantly mounted and well armed, under the belief that they would reach
+Camlet Moat before the robbers, and apprehend them in the fact. They
+had not calculated that, according to the custom of robbers in other
+countries, but contrary to that of the English highwayman of those
+days, they meant to ensure robbery by previous murder. An accident also
+happened to delay them a little while on the road. In riding through
+one of the glades of the forest, they found a man dismounted and sitting
+under a tree, groaning with such bitterness of spirit, that Lowestoffe
+could not forbear asking if he was hurt. In answer, he said he was
+an unhappy man in pursuit of his wife, who had been carried off by a
+villain; and as he raised his countenance, the eyes of Richie, to his
+great astonishment, encountered the visage of John Christie.
+
+"For the Almighty's sake, help me, Master Moniplies!" he said; "I have
+learned my wife is but a short mile before, with that black villain Lord
+Dalgarno."
+
+"Have him forward by all means," said Lowestoffe; "a second Orpheus
+seeking his Eurydice!--Have him forward--we will save Lord Dalgarno's
+purse, and ease him of his mistress--Have him with us, were it but for
+the variety of the adventure. I owe his lordship a grudge for rooking
+me. We have ten minutes good."
+
+But it is dangerous to calculate closely in matters of life and death.
+In all probability the minute or two which was lost in mounting John
+Christie behind one of their party, might have saved Lord Dalgarno
+from his fate. Thus his criminal amour became the indirect cause of
+his losing his life; and thus "our pleasant vices are made the whips to
+scourge us."
+
+The riders arrived on the field at full gallop the moment after the shot
+was fired; and Richie, who had his own reasons for attaching himself to
+Colepepper, who was bustling to untie the portmanteau from the page's
+saddle, pushed against him with such violence as to overthrow him, his
+own horse at the same time stumbling and dismounting his rider, who was
+none of the first equestrians. The undaunted Richie immediately arose,
+however, and grappled with the ruffian with such good-will, that, though
+a strong fellow, and though a coward now rendered desperate, Moniplies
+got him under, wrenched a long knife from his hand, dealt him a
+desperate stab with his own weapon, and leaped on his feet; and, as the
+wounded man struggled to follow his example, he struck him upon the head
+with the butt-end of a musketoon, which last blow proved fatal.
+
+"Bravo, Richie!" cried Lowestoffe, who had himself engaged
+at sword-point with one of the ruffians, and soon put him to
+flight,--"Bravo! why, man, there lies Sin, struck down like an ox, and
+Iniquity's throat cut like a calf."
+
+"I know not why you should upbraid me with my upbringing, Master
+Lowestoffe," answered Richie, with great composure; "but I can tell you,
+the shambles is not a bad place for training one to this work."
+
+The other Templar now shouted loudly to them,--"If ye be men, come
+hither--here lies Lord Dalgarno, murdered!"
+
+Lowestoffe and Richie ran to the spot, and the page took the
+opportunity, finding himself now neglected on all hands, to ride off
+in a different direction; and neither he, nor the considerable sum with
+which his horse was burdened, were ever heard of from that moment.
+
+The third ruffian had not waited the attack of the Templar and Jin Vin,
+the latter of whom had put down old Christie from behind him that he
+might ride the lighter; and the whole five now stood gazing with horror
+on the bloody corpse of the young nobleman, and the wild sorrow of the
+female, who tore her hair and shrieked in the most disconsolate manner,
+until her agony was at once checked, or rather received a new direction,
+by the sudden and unexpected appearance of her husband, who, fixing on
+her a cold and severe look, said, in a tone suited to his manner--"Ay,
+woman! thou takest on sadly for the loss of thy paramour."--Then,
+looking on the bloody corpse of him from whom he had received so deep an
+injury, he repeated the solemn words of Scripture,--"'Vengeance is mine,
+saith the Lord, and I will repay it.'--I, whom thou hast injured, will
+be first to render thee the decent offices due to the dead."
+
+So saying, he covered the dead body with his cloak, and then looking on
+it for a moment, seemed to reflect on what he had next to perform. As
+the eye of the injured man slowly passed from the body of the seducer
+to the partner and victim of his crime, who had sunk down to his feet,
+which she clasped without venturing to look up, his features, naturally
+coarse and saturnine, assumed a dignity of expression which overawed
+the young Templars, and repulsed the officious forwardness of Richie
+Moniplies, who was at first eager to have thrust in his advice and
+opinion. "Kneel not to me, woman," he said, "but kneel to the God
+thou hast offended, more than thou couldst offend such another worm as
+thyself. How often have I told thee, when thou wert at the gayest and
+the lightest, that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit
+before a fall? Vanity brought folly, and folly brought sin, and sin hath
+brought death, his original companion. Thou must needs leave duty, and
+decency, and domestic love, to revel it gaily with the wild and with the
+wicked; and there thou liest like a crushed worm, writhing beside the
+lifeless body of thy paramour. Thou hast done me much wrong--dishonoured
+me among friends--driven credit from my house, and peace from my
+fireside--But thou wert my first and only love, and I will not see
+thee an utter castaway, if it lies with me to prevent it.--Gentlemen,
+I render ye such thanks as a broken-hearted man can give.--Richard,
+commend me to your honourable master. I added gall to the bitterness of
+his affliction, but I was deluded.--Rise up, woman, and follow me."
+
+He raised her up by the arm, while, with streaming eyes, and bitter
+sobs, she endeavoured to express her penitence. She kept her hands
+spread over her face, yet suffered him to lead her away; and it was only
+as they turned around a brake which concealed the scene they had left,
+that she turned back, and casting one wild and hurried glance towards
+the corpse of Dalgarno, uttered a shriek, and clinging to her husband's
+arm, exclaimed wildly,--"Save me--save me! They have murdered him!"
+
+Lowestoffe was much moved by what he had witnessed; but he was ashamed,
+as a town-gallant, of his own unfashionable emotion, and did a force
+to his feelings when he exclaimed,--"Ay, let them go--the kind-hearted,
+believing, forgiving husband--the liberal, accommodating spouse. O what
+a generous creature is your true London husband!--Horns hath he, but,
+tame as a fatted ox, he goreth not. I should like to see her when
+she hath exchanged her mask and riding-beaver for her peaked hat
+and muffler. We will visit them at Paul's Wharf, coz--it will be a
+convenient acquaintance."
+
+"You had better think of catching the gipsy thief, Lutin," said Richie
+Moniplies; "for, by my faith, he is off with his master's baggage and
+the siller."
+
+A keeper, with his assistants, and several other persons, had now come
+to the spot, and made hue and cry after Lutin, but in vain. To their
+custody the Templars surrendered the dead bodies, and after going
+through some formal investigation, they returned, with Richard and
+Vincent, to London, where they received great applause for their
+gallantry.--Vincent's errors were easily expiated, in consideration
+of his having been the means of breaking up this band of villains;
+and there is some reason to think, that what would have diminished
+the credit of the action in other instances, rather added to it in
+the actual circumstances, namely, that they came too late to save Lord
+Dalgarno.
+
+George Heriot, who suspected how matters stood with Vincent, requested
+and obtained permission from his master to send the poor young fellow on
+an important piece of business to Paris. We are unable to trace his
+fate farther, but believe it was prosperous, and that he entered into
+an advantageous partnership with his fellow-apprentice, upon old
+Davy Ramsay retiring from business, in consequence of his daughter's
+marriage. That eminent antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, is possessed of an
+antique watch, with a silver dial-plate, the mainspring being a piece
+of catgut instead of a chain, which bears the names of Vincent and
+Tunstall, Memory-Monitors.
+
+Master Lowestoffe failed not to vindicate his character as a man of
+gaiety, by inquiring after John Christie and Dame Nelly; but greatly to
+his surprise, (indeed to his loss, for he had wagered ten pieces that he
+would domesticate himself in the family,) he found the good-will, as
+it was called, of the shop, was sold, the stock auctioned, and the late
+proprietor and his wife gone, no one knew whither. The prevailing belief
+was, that they had emigrated to one of the new settlements in America.
+
+Lady Dalgarno received the news of her unworthy husband's death with a
+variety of emotions, among which, horror that he should have been cut
+off in the middle career of his profligacy, was the most prominent.
+The incident greatly deepened her melancholy, and injured her health,
+already shaken by previous circumstances. Repossessed of her own
+fortune by her husband's death, she was anxious to do justice to Lord
+Glenvarloch, by treating for the recovery of the mortgage.
+
+But the scrivener, having taken fright at the late events, had left the
+city and absconded, so that it was impossible to discover into whose
+hands the papers had now passed. Richard Moniplies was silent, for his
+own reasons; the Templars, who had witnessed the transaction, kept
+the secret at his request, and it was universally believed that the
+scrivener had carried off the writings along with him. We may here
+observe, that fears similar to those of Skurliewhitter freed London for
+ever from the presence of Dame Suddlechop, who ended her career in the
+_Rasp-haus_, (viz. Bridewell,) of Amsterdam.
+
+The stout old Lord Huntinglen, with a haughty carriage and unmoistened
+eye, accompanied the funeral procession of his only son to its last
+abode; and perhaps the single tear which fell at length upon the coffin,
+was given less to the fate of the individual, than to the extinction of
+the last male of his ancient race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+_Jacques_. There is, suie, another flood toward, and these couples are
+coming to the ark!--Here comes a pair of very strange beasts.--_As You
+Like It_.
+
+The fashion of such narratives as the present, changes like other
+earthly things. Time was that the tale-teller was obliged to wind up
+his story by a circumstantial description of the wedding, bedding, and
+throwing the stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so
+many circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at length happily
+conducted his hero and heroine. Not a circumstance was then omitted,
+from the manly ardour of the bridegroom, and the modest blushes of the
+bride, to the parson's new surplice, and the silk tabinet mantua of
+the bridesmaid. But such descriptions are now discarded, for the same
+reason, I suppose, that public marriages are no longer fashionable, and
+that, instead of calling together their friends to a feast and a dance,
+the happy couple elope in a solitary post-chaise, as secretly as if they
+meant to go to Gretna-Green, or to do worse. I am not ungrateful for a
+change which saves an author the trouble of attempting in vain to give
+a new colour to the commonplace description of such matters; but,
+notwithstanding, I find myself forced upon it in the present instance,
+as circumstances sometimes compel a stranger to make use of an old road
+which has been for some time shut up. The experienced reader may have
+already remarked, that the last chapter was employed in sweeping out
+of the way all the unnecessary and less interesting characters, that I
+might clear the floor for a blithe bridal.
+
+In truth, it would be unpardonable to pass over slightly what so
+deeply interested our principal personage, King James. That learned and
+good-humoured monarch made no great figure in the politics of Europe;
+but then, to make amends, he was prodigiously busy, when he could find a
+fair opportunity of intermeddling with the private affairs of his loving
+subjects, and the approaching marriage of Lord Glenvarloch was matter
+of great interest to him. He had been much struck (that is, for him,
+who was not very accessible to such emotions) with the beauty and
+embarrassment of the pretty Peg-a-Ramsay, as he called her, when he
+first saw her, and he glorified himself greatly on the acuteness which
+he had displayed in detecting her disguise, and in carrying through the
+whole inquiry which took place in consequence of it.
+
+He laboured for several weeks, while the courtship was in progress, with
+his own royal eyes, so as wellnigh to wear out, he declared, a pair
+of her father's best barnacles, in searching through old books and
+documents, for the purpose of establishing the bride's pretensions to
+a noble, though remote descent, and thereby remove the only objection
+which envy might conceive against the match. In his own opinion, at
+least, he was eminently successful; for, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther one
+day, in the presence-chamber, took upon him to grieve bitterly for the
+bride's lack of pedigree, the monarch cut him short with, "Ye may save
+your grief for your ain next occasions, Sir Mungo; for, by our royal
+saul, we will uphauld her father, Davy Ramsay, to be a gentleman of nine
+descents, whase great gudesire came of the auld martial stock of the
+House of Dalwolsey, than whom better men never did, and better never
+will, draw sword for king and country. Heard ye never of Sir William
+Ramsay of Dalwolsey, man, of whom John Fordoun saith,--'He was
+_bellicosissimus, nobilissimus?_'--His castle stands to witness for
+itsell, not three miles from Dalkeith, man, and within a mile of
+Bannockrig. Davy Ramsay came of that auld and honoured stock, and I
+trust he hath not derogated from his ancestors by his present craft.
+They all wrought wi' steel, man; only the auld knights drilled holes wi'
+their swords in their enemies' corslets, and he saws nicks in his brass
+wheels. And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes to the blind as
+to slash them out of the head of those that see, and to show us how to
+value our time as it passes, as to fling it away in drinking, brawling,
+spear-splintering, and such-like unchristian doings. And you maun
+understand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal art,
+which approacheth almost to the act of creating a living being,
+seeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius saith of the sphere of
+Archimedes, the Syracusan--
+
+"Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris, Et vivum certis motibus
+urget opus.'"
+
+"Your Majesty had best give auld Davy a coat-of-arms, as well as a
+pedigree," said Sir Mungo.
+
+"It's done, or ye bade, Sir Mungo," said the king; "and I trust we, who
+are the fountain of all earthly honour, are free to spirit a few drops
+of it on one so near our person, without offence to the Knight of Castle
+Girnigo. We have already spoken with the learned men of the Herald's
+College, and we propose to grant him an augmented coat-of-arms, being
+his paternal coat, charged with the crown-wheel of a watch in chief, for
+a difference; and we purpose to add Time and Eternity, for supporters,
+as soon as the Garter King-at-Arms shall be able to devise how Eternity
+is to be represented."
+
+"I would make him twice as muckle as Time," [Footnote: Chaucer says,
+there is nothing new but what it has been old. The reader has here the
+original of an anecdote which has since been fathered on a Scottish
+Chief of our own time.] said Archie Armstrong, the Court fool, who
+chanced to be present when the king stated this dilemma. "Peace, man--ye
+shall be whippet," said the king, in return for this hint; "and you, my
+liege subjects of England, may weel take a hint from what we have said,
+and not be in such a hurry to laugh at our Scottish pedigrees, though
+they be somewhat long derived, and difficult to be deduced. Ye see that
+a man of right gentle blood may, for a season, lay by his gentry, and
+yet ken whare to find it, when he has occasion for it. It would be as
+unseemly for a packman, or pedlar, as ye call a travelling merchant,
+whilk is a trade to which our native subjects of Scotland are specially
+addicted, to be blazing his genealogy in the faces of those to whom he
+sells a bawbee's worth of ribbon, as it would be to him to have a
+beaver on his head, and a rapier by his side, when the pack was on his
+shoulders. Na, na--he hings his sword on the cleek, lays his beaver on
+the shelf, puts his pedigree into his pocket, and gangs as doucely and
+cannily about his peddling craft as if his blood was nae better than
+ditch-water; but let our pedlar be transformed, as I have kend it happen
+mair than ance, into a bein thriving merchant, then ye shall have a
+transformation, my lords.
+
+     'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--'
+
+Out he pulls his pedigree, on he buckles his sword, gives his beaver a
+brush, and cocks it in the face of all creation. We mention these things
+at the mair length, because we would have you all to know, that it is
+not without due consideration of the circumstances of all parties, that
+we design, in a small and private way, to honour with our own royal
+presence the marriage of Lord Glenvarloch with Margaret Ramsay, daughter
+and heiress of David Ramsay, our horologer, and a cadet only thrice
+removed from the ancient house of Dalwolsey. We are grieved we cannot
+have the presence of the noble Chief of that House at the ceremony; but
+where there is honour to be won abroad the Lord Dalwolsey is seldom
+to be found at home. _Sic fuit, est, et erit_.-Jingling Geordie, as ye
+stand to the cost of the marriage feast, we look for good cheer."
+
+Heriot bowed, as in duty bound. In fact, the king, who was a great
+politician about trifles, had manoeuvred greatly on this occasion,
+and had contrived to get the Prince and Buckingham dispatched on an
+expedition to Newmarket, in order that he might find an opportunity in
+their absence of indulging himself in his own gossiping, _coshering_
+habits, which were distasteful to Charles, whose temper inclined to
+formality, and with which even the favourite, of late, had not thought
+it worth while to seem to sympathise. When the levee was dismissed, Sir
+Mungo Malagrowther seized upon the worthy citizen in the court-yard
+of the Palace, and detained him, in spite of all his efforts, for the
+purpose of subjecting him to the following scrutiny:--
+
+"This is a sair job on you, Master George--the king must have had little
+consideration--this will cost you a bonny penny, this wedding dinner?"
+
+"It will not break me, Sir Mungo," answered Heriot; "the king hath a
+right to see the table which his bounty hath supplied for years, well
+covered for a single day."
+
+"Vera true, vera true--we'll have a' to pay, I doubt, less or mair--a
+sort of penny-wedding it will prove, where all men contribute to the
+young folk's maintenance, that they may not have just four bare legs in
+a bed together. What do you propose to give, Master George?--we begin
+with the city when money is in question." [Footnote: The penny-wedding
+of the Scots, now disused even among the lowest ranks, was a peculiar
+species of merry-making, at which, if the wedded pair were popular, the
+guests who convened, contributed considerable sums under pretence of
+paying for the bridal festivity, but in reality to set the married folk
+afloat in the world.]
+
+"Only a trifle, Sir Mungo--I give my god-daughter the marriage ring;
+it is a curious jewel--I bought it in Italy; it belonged to Cosmo
+de Medici. The bride will not need my help--she has an estate which
+belonged to her maternal grandfather."
+
+"The auld soap-boiler," said Sir Mungo; "it will need some of his suds
+to scour the blot out of the Glenvarloch shield--I have heard that
+estate was no great things."
+
+"It is as good as some posts at Court, Sir Mungo, which are coveted by
+persons of high quality," replied George Heriot.
+
+"Court favour, said ye? Court favour, Master Heriot?" replied Sir Mungo,
+choosing then to use his malady of misapprehension; "Moonshine in
+water, poor thing, if that is all she is to be tochered with--I am truly
+solicitous about them."
+
+"I will let you into a secret," said the citizen, "which will relieve
+your tender anxiety. The dowager Lady Dalgarno gives a competent fortune
+to the bride, and settles the rest of her estate upon her nephew the
+bridegroom."
+
+"Ay, say ye sae?" said Sir Mungo, "just to show her regard to her
+husband that is in the tomb--lucky that her nephew did not send him
+there; it was a strange story that death of poor Lord Dalgarno--some
+folk think the poor gentleman had much wrong. Little good comes of
+marrying the daughter of the house you are at feud with; indeed, it was
+less poor Dalgarno's fault, than theirs that forced the match on him;
+but I am glad the young folk are to have something to live on, come how
+it like, whether by charity or inheritance. But if the Lady Dalgarno
+were to sell all she has, even to her very wylie-coat, she canna gie
+them back the fair Castle of Glenvarloch--that is lost and gane--lost
+and gane."
+
+"It is but too true," said George Heriot; "we cannot discover what has
+become of the villain Andrew Skurliewhitter, or what Lord Dalgarno has
+done with the mortgage."
+
+"Assigned it away to some one, that his wife might not get it after he
+was gane; it would have disturbed him in his grave, to think Glenvarloch
+should get that land back again," said Sir Mungo; "depend on it, he will
+have ta'en sure measures to keep that noble lordship out of her grips or
+her nevoy's either."
+
+"Indeed it is but too probable, Sir Mungo," said Master Heriot; "but
+as I am obliged to go and look after many things in consequence of this
+ceremony, I must leave you to comfort yourself with the reflection."
+
+"The bride-day, you say, is to be on the thirtieth of the instant
+month?" said Sir Mungo, holloing after the citizen; "I will be with you
+in the hour of cause."
+
+"The king invites the guests," said George Heriot, without turning back.
+
+"The base-born, ill-bred mechanic!" soliloquised Sir Mungo, "if it were
+not the odd score of pounds he lent me last week, I would teach him how
+to bear himself to a man of quality! But I will be at the bridal banquet
+in spite of him."
+
+Sir Mungo contrived to get invited, or commanded, to attend on the
+bridal accordingly, at which there were but few persons present; for
+James, on such occasions, preferred a snug privacy, which gave him
+liberty to lay aside the encumbrance, as he felt it to be, of his regal
+dignity. The company was very small, and indeed there were at least two
+persons absent whose presence might have been expected. The first of
+these was the Lady Dalgarno, the state of whose health, as well as the
+recent death of her husband, precluded her attendance on the ceremony.
+The other absentee was Richie Moniplies, whose conduct for some time
+past had been extremely mysterious. Regulating his attendance on Lord
+Glenvarloch entirely according to his own will and pleasure, he had,
+ever since the rencounter in Enfield Chase, appeared regularly at his
+bedside in the morning, to assist him to dress, and at his wardrobe in
+the evening. The rest of the day he disposed of at his own pleasure,
+without control from his lord, who had now a complete establishment of
+attendants. Yet he was somewhat curious to know how the fellow disposed
+of so much of his time; but on this subject Richie showed no desire to
+be communicative.
+
+On the morning of the bridal-day, Richie was particularly attentive in
+doing all a valet-de-chambre could, so as to set off to advantage the
+very handsome figure of his master; and when he had arranged his dress
+to the utmost exactness, and put to his long curled locks what he called
+"the finishing touch of the redding-kaim," he gravely kneeled down,
+kissed his hand, and bade him farewell, saying that he humbly craved
+leave to discharge himself of his lordship's service.
+
+"Why, what humour is this?" said Lord Glenvarloch; "if you mean to
+discharge yourself of my service, Richie, I suppose you intend to enter
+my wife's?"
+
+"I wish her good ladyship that shall soon be, and your good lordship,
+the blessings of as good a servant as myself, in heaven's good time,"
+said Richie; "but fate hath so ordained it, that I can henceforth only
+be your servant in the way of friendly courtesy."
+
+"Well, Richie," said the young lord, "if you are tired of service, we
+will seek some better provision for you; but you will wait on me to the
+church, and partake of the bridal dinner?"
+
+"Under favour, my lord," answered Richie; "I must remind you of our
+covenant, having presently some pressing business of mine own, whilk
+will detain me during the ceremony; but I will not fail to prie Master
+George's good cheer, in respect he has made very costly fare, whilk it
+would be unthankful not to partake of."
+
+"Do as you list," answered Lord Glenvarloch; and having bestowed a
+passing thought on the whimsical and pragmatical disposition of his
+follower, he dismissed the subject for others better suited to the day.
+
+The reader must fancy the scattered flowers which strewed the path
+of the happy couple to church--the loud music which accompanied the
+procession--the marriage service performed by a bishop--the king, who
+met them at Saint Paul's, giving away the bride,--to the great relief
+of her father, who had thus time, during the ceremony, to calculate the
+just quotient to be laid on the pinion of report in a timepiece which he
+was then putting together.
+
+When the ceremony was finished, the company were transported in the
+royal carriages to George Heriot's, where a splendid collation was
+provided for the marriage-guests in the Foljambe apartments. The king
+no sooner found himself in this snug retreat, than, casting from him
+his sword and belt with such haste as if they burnt his fingers, and
+flinging his plumed hat on the table, as who should say, Lie there,
+authority! he swallowed a hearty cup of wine to the happiness of the
+married couple, and began to amble about the room, mumping, laughing,
+and cracking jests, neither the wittiest nor the most delicate, but
+accompanied and applauded by shouts of his own mirth, in order to
+encourage that of the company. Whilst his Majesty was in the midst of
+this gay humour, and a call to the banquet was anxiously expected,
+a servant whispered Master Heriot forth of the apartment. When he
+re-entered, he walked up to the king, and, in his turn whispered
+something, at which James started.
+
+"He is not wanting his siller?" said the king, shortly and sharply.
+
+"By no means, my liege," answered Heriot. "It is a subject he states
+himself as quite indifferent about, so long as it can pleasure your
+Majesty."
+
+"Body of us, man!" said the king, "it is the speech of a true man and a
+loving subject, and we will grace him accordingly--what though he be
+but a carle--a twopenny cat may look at a king. Swith, man! have
+him--_pundite fores_.--Moniplies?--They should have called the chield
+Monypennies, though I sall warrant you English think we have not such a
+name in Scotland."
+
+"It is an ancient and honourable stock, the Monypennies," said Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther; "the only loss is, there are sae few of the name."
+
+"The family seems to increase among your countrymen, Sir Mungo," said
+Master Lowestoffe, whom Lord Glenvarloch had invited to be present,
+"since his Majesty's happy accession brought so many of you here."
+
+"Right, sir--right," said Sir Mungo, nodding and looking at George
+Heriot; "there have some of ourselves been the better of that great
+blessing to the English nation."
+
+As he spoke, the door flew open, and in entered, to the astonishment
+of Lord Glenvarloch, his late serving-man Richie Moniplies, now
+sumptuously, nay, gorgeously, attired in a superb brocaded suit, and
+leading in his hand the tall, thin, withered, somewhat distorted form
+of Martha Trapbois, arrayed in a complete dress of black velvet,
+which suited so strangely with the pallid and severe melancholy of her
+countenance, that the king himself exclaimed, in some perturbation,
+"What the deil has the fallow brought us here? Body of our regal selves!
+it is a corpse that has run off with the mort-cloth!"
+
+"May I sifflicate your Majesty to be gracious unto her?" said Richie;
+"being that she is, in respect of this morning's wark, my ain wedded
+wife, Mrs. Martha Moniplies by name."
+
+"Saul of our body, man! but she looks wondrous grim," answered King
+James. "Art thou sure she has not been in her time maid of honour to
+Queen Mary, our kinswoman, of redhot memory?"
+
+"I am sure, an it like your Majesty, that she has brought me fifty
+thousand pounds of good siller, and better; and that has enabled me to
+pleasure your Majesty, and other folk."
+
+"Ye need have said naething about that, man," said the king; "we ken our
+obligations in that sma' matter, and we are glad this rudas spouse of
+thine hath bestowed her treasure on ane wha kens to put it to the profit
+of his king and country.--But how the deil did ye come by her, man?"
+
+"In the auld Scottish fashion, my liege. She is the captive of my bow
+and my spear," answered Moniplies. "There was a convention that she
+should wed me when I avenged her father's death--so I slew, and took
+possession."
+
+"It is the daughter of Old Trapbois, who has been missed so long," said
+Lowestoffe.--"Where the devil could you mew her up so closely, friend
+Richie?"
+
+"Master Richard, if it be your will," answered Richie; "or Master
+Richard Moniplies, if you like it better. For mewing of her up, I found
+her a shelter, in all honour and safety, under the roof of an honest
+countryman of my own--and for secrecy, it was a point of prudence, when
+wantons like you were abroad, Master Lowestoffe."
+
+There was a laugh at Richie's magnanimous reply, on the part of every
+one but his bride, who made to him a signal of impatience, and said,
+with her usual brevity and sternness,--"Peace--peace, I pray you, peace.
+Let us do that which we came for." So saying, she took out a bundle of
+parchments, and delivering them to Lord Glenvarloch, she said aloud,--"I
+take this royal presence, and all here, to witness, that I restore the
+ransomed lordship of Glenvarloch to the right owner, as free as ever it
+was held by any of his ancestors."
+
+"I witnessed the redemption of the mortgage," said Lowestoffe; "but I
+little dreamt by whom it had been redeemed."
+
+"No need ye should," said Richie; "there would have been small wisdom in
+crying roast-meat."
+
+"Peace," said his bride, "once more.--This paper," she continued,
+delivering another to Lord Glenvarloch, "is also your property--take it,
+but spare me the question how it came into my custody."
+
+The king had bustled forward beside Lord Glenvarloch, and fixing an
+eager eye on the writing, exclaimed--"Body of ourselves, it is our royal
+sign-manual for the money which was so long out of sight!--How came you
+by it, Mistress Bride?"
+
+"It is a secret," said Martha, dryly.
+
+"A secret which my tongue shall never utter," said Richie,
+resolutely,--"unless the king commands me on my allegiance."
+
+"I do--I do command you," said James, trembling and stammering with the
+impatient curiosity of a gossip; while Sir Mungo, with more malicious
+anxiety to get at the bottom of the mystery, stooped his long thin form
+forward like a bent fishing-rod, raised his thin grey locks from his
+ear, and curved his hand behind it to collect every vibration of the
+expected intelligence. Martha in the meantime frowned most ominously on
+Richie, who went on undauntedly to inform the king, "that his deceased
+father-in-law, a good careful man in the main, had a' touch of worldly
+wisdom about him, that at times marred the uprightness of his walk;
+he liked to dabble among his neighbour's gear, and some of it would at
+times stick to his fingers in the handling."
+
+"For shame, man, for shame!" said Martha; "since the infamy of the
+deed must be told, be it at least briefly.--Yes, my lord," she added,
+addressing Glenvarloch, "the piece of gold was not the sole bait which
+brought the miserable old man to your chamber that dreadful night--his
+object, and he accomplished it, was to purloin this paper. The wretched
+scrivener was with him that morning, and, I doubt not, urged the doting
+old man to this villainy, to offer another bar to the ransom of your
+estate. If there was a yet more powerful agent at the bottom of this
+conspiracy, God forgive it to him at this moment, for he is now where
+the crime must be answered!"
+
+"Amen!" said Lord Glenvarloch, and it was echoed by all present.
+
+"For my father," continued she, with her stern features twitched by an
+involuntary and convulsive movement, "his guilt and folly cost him his
+life; and my belief is constant, that the wretch, who counselled him
+that morning to purloin the paper, left open the window for the entrance
+of the murderers."
+
+Every body was silent for an instant; the king was first to speak,
+commanding search instantly to be made for the guilty scrivener.
+"_I, lictor,_" he concluded, "_colliga manus--caput obnubito-infelici
+suspendite arbori_."
+
+Lowestoffe answered with due respect, that the scrivener had absconded
+at the time of Lord Dalgarno's murder, and had not been heard of since.
+
+"Let him be sought for," said the king. "And now let us change the
+discourse--these stories make one's very blood grew, and are altogether
+unfit for bridal festivity. Hymen, O Hymenee!" added he, snapping his
+fingers, "Lord Glenvarloch, what say you to Mistress Moniplies, this
+bonny bride, that has brought you back your father's estate on your
+bridal day?"
+
+"Let him say nothing, my liege," said Martha; "that will best suit his
+feelings and mine."
+
+"There is redemption-money, at the least, to be repaid," said Lord
+Glenvarloch; "in that I cannot remain debtor."
+
+"We will speak of it hereafter," said Martha; "_my_ debtor _you_ cannot
+be." And she shut her mouth as if determined to say nothing more on the
+subject.
+
+Sir Mungo, however, resolved not to part with the topic, and availing
+himself of the freedom of the moment, said to Richie--"A queer story
+that of your father-in-law, honest man; methinks your bride thanked you
+little for ripping it up."
+
+"I make it a rule, Sir Mungo," replied Richie, "always to speak any evil
+I know about my family myself, having observed, that if I do not, it is
+sure to be told by ither folks."
+
+"But, Richie," said Sir Mungo, "it seems to me that this bride of yours
+is like to be master and mair in the conjugal state."
+
+"If she abides by words, Sir Mungo," answered Richie, "I thank heaven I
+can be as deaf as any one; and if she comes to dunts, I have twa hands
+to paik her with."
+
+"Weel said, Richie, again," said the king; "you have gotten it on baith
+haffits, Sir Mungo.--Troth, Mistress Bride, for a fule, your gudeman has
+a pretty turn of wit."
+
+"There are fools, sire," replied she, "who have wit, and fools who
+have courage--aye, and fools who have learning, and are great fools
+notwithstanding.--I chose this man because he was my protector when
+I was desolate, and neither for his wit nor his wisdom. He is truly
+honest, and has a heart and hand that make amends for some folly. Since
+I was condemned to seek a protector through the world, which is to me a
+wilderness, I may thank God that I have come by no worse."
+
+"And that is sae sensibly said," replied the king, "that, by my saul,
+I'll try whether I canna make him better. Kneel down, Richie--somebody
+lend me a rapier--yours, Mr. Langstaff, (that's a brave name for a
+lawyer,)--ye need not flash it out that gate, Templar fashion, as if ye
+were about to pink a bailiff!"
+
+He took the drawn sword, and with averted eyes, for it was a sight he
+loved not to look on, endeavoured to lay it on Richie's shoulder, but
+nearly stuck it into his eye. Richie, starting back, attempted to rise,
+but was held down by Lowestoffe, while Sir Mungo, guiding the royal
+weapon, the honour-bestowing blow was given and received: "_Surge,
+carnifex_--Rise up, Sir Richard Moniplies, of Castle-Collop!--And, my
+lords and lieges, let us all to our dinner, for the cock-a-leekie is
+cooling."
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+Note I. p. l4.--DAVID RAMSAY
+
+David Ramsay, watchmaker and horologer to James I., was a real person,
+though the author has taken the liberty of pressing him into the service
+of fiction. Although his profession led him to cultivate the exact
+sciences, like many at this period he mingled them with pursuits which
+were mystical and fantastic. The truth was, that the boundaries between
+truth and falsehood in mathematics, astronomy, and similar pursuits,
+were not exactly known, and there existed a sort of _terra incognita_
+between them, in which the wisest men bewildered themselves. David
+Ramsay risked his money on the success of the vaticinations which his
+researches led him to form, since he sold clocks and watches under
+condition, that their value should not become payable till King James
+was crowned in the Pope's chair at Rome. Such wagers were common in that
+day, as may be seen by looking at Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.
+
+David Ramsay was also an actor in another singular scene, in which the
+notorious astrologer Lilly was a performer, and had no small expectation
+on the occasion, since he brought with him a half-quartern sack to put
+the treasure in.
+
+"David Ramsay, his Majesty's clock-maker, had been informed that there
+was a great quantity of treasure buried in the cloister of Westminster
+Abbey. He acquaints Dean Withnam therewith, who was also then Bishop
+of Lincoln. The Dean gave him liberty to search after it, with this
+proviso, that if any was discovered, his church should have a share of
+it. Davy Ramsay finds out one John Scott, who pretended the use of the
+Mosaical rods, to assist him herein. [Footnote: The same now called,
+I believe, the Divining Rod, and applied to the discovery of water
+not obvious to the eye.] I was desired to join with him, unto which
+I consented. One winter's night, Davy Ramsay, with several gentlemen,
+myself, and Scott, entered the cloisters. We played the hazel rods round
+about the cloisters. Upon the west end of the cloisters the rods turned
+one over another, an argument that the treasure was there. The labourers
+digged at least six feet deep, and then we met with a coffin; but which,
+in regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much
+repented.
+
+"From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a
+sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so
+blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west
+end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at
+all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned
+very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not
+what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the
+demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned
+unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never
+since be induced to join with any such like actions.
+
+"The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people
+being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some
+laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the
+demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown
+down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and
+knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work."--LILLY'S _Life
+and Times_, p. 46.
+
+David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have
+possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in
+1651-2 published "_Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of
+Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World." The edition of 1652
+is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be
+argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer
+had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his
+dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, "It's true your
+carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a
+stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to
+value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such
+look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none
+but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue." From these
+expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a
+follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his
+son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity
+of being himself a cheat.
+
+Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT
+
+This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive,
+but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of
+Scripture, "that being dead he yet speaketh." We have already mentioned,
+in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder;
+the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre.
+
+George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was
+the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of
+some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of
+his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He
+was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to
+propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot
+of 17th December, 1596.
+
+George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a
+goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a
+money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his
+consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of
+his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable
+burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the
+Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly
+L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with
+the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James
+Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by
+her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first
+year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George
+Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master,
+on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture,
+(copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in
+the prime of life, is thus described: "His fair hair, which overshades
+the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour
+on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine
+Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move
+steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution
+to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it."--_Historical and
+Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder,
+by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827.
+
+I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting,
+that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's
+Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector,
+has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:--"Mrs.
+Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612."
+Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the
+Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied
+the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south
+aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument,
+bearing the following inscription:--
+
+_"Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii,
+Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis,
+filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu
+instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER,
+Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non
+sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit.
+
+"Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in
+ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui
+desiderium reliquit.
+
+ Hic Alicia Primrosa
+ Jacet crudo abruta fato,
+ Intempestivas
+ Ut rosa pressa manus.
+ Nondum bisdenos
+ Annorum impleverat orbes,
+ Pulchra, pudica,
+ Patris delicium atque viri:
+ Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam
+ Mater, decessit, et inde
+ Cura dolorq: Patri,
+ Cura dolorq: viro.
+ Non sublata tamen
+ Tantum translata recessit;
+ Nunc Rosa prima Poli
+ Quae fuit antea soli."_
+
+The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so
+interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune
+to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of
+_Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228.
+
+Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND
+
+The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James
+on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at
+his coming first out of Scotland, "but," says Osborne, "which, through
+his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the
+Tweed." Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published
+by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's
+own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and
+unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors,
+and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be.
+But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on
+the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign,
+by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or
+independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in
+the opinion and conceit of all beholders, "but idle rascals, and poor
+miserable bodies." It was even in vain that the vessels which brought
+up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and
+confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as
+one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring
+payment of "auld debts due to them by the King," which, it is observed
+with great _naivete_, "is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing
+to his Majesty." The expressions in the text are selected from these
+curious proclamations.
+
+NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES
+
+The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is
+thus described by a contemporary:--
+
+"He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of]
+his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak,
+having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather
+before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age.
+That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk
+was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a
+part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with
+God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher
+verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God
+would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they
+proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than
+hope, that would daily make thus bold with God."--DALZELL'S _Sketches of
+Scottish History _, p. 86.
+
+NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER
+
+It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic
+Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of
+his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be
+met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It
+is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the
+imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal
+attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the
+antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the
+worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of
+fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising
+under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his
+most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around
+him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy
+gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had
+not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men
+who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste,
+when he suddenly singled out one of the party:--"Auld d'ye think my
+coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a
+braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the
+trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century." Upon another
+occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a
+nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused
+of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions
+of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as
+if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he
+volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that
+the "chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's
+ancestors had _killed_ them,"--fame ascribing the origin of the latter
+family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that
+have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a
+general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the
+proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same
+scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop.
+
+Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER
+
+Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs.
+Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and
+secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the
+poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents
+lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of
+Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of
+Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master,
+King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using
+yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders,
+she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the
+widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from
+the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was
+produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady,
+some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions
+upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these
+figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, "heard a
+crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion,
+among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as
+if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship
+showed to such as were not his own scholars." Compare this curious
+passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651,
+with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in
+the Secret History of King James.
+
+Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN
+
+The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander
+Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen.
+In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John
+Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger
+Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir
+Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the
+King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time
+was the fifth of August, "upon which," proceeds the satirical historian,
+"Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the
+principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask
+that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his
+suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was
+unserviceable to the King."
+
+Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM
+
+Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition,
+was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or
+opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and
+Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what
+seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office
+of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon,
+"the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper,
+Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false;
+'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and
+will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that
+I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by
+rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and
+fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely,
+had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word."--WELDON'S
+_Court of King James and Charles._
+
+ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
+
+About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of
+chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the
+institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place
+in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial
+originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be
+trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal
+homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed
+in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where
+they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry
+and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great
+strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant
+accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next
+gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of
+knighthood were frequently made knights.
+
+But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances,
+a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and
+appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole
+band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority
+when he cashiers part of his train.
+
+   "Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,
+    French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page."
+
+Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change.
+The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son
+for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner
+
+  "Than damn him to this desperate course of life.
+     _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line
+   Of institution, from our ancestors
+   Hath been derived down to us, and received
+   In a succession, for the noblest way
+   Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms,
+   Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise,
+   And all the blazon of a gentleman?
+   Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,
+   To move his body gracefully, to speak
+   The language pure, or to turn his mind
+   Or manners more to the harmony of nature,
+   Than in these nurseries of nobility?
+     _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,
+   And only virtue made it, not the market,
+   That titles were not vended at the drum
+   And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness,
+   And greatness worship; every house became
+   An academy, and those parts
+   We see departed in the practice now
+   Quite from the institution.
+     _LOVEL._ Why do you say so,
+   Or think so enviously? do they not still
+   Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,
+   To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence?
+   The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring
+   In armour; to be active for the wars;
+   To study figures, numbers and proportions,
+   May yield them great in counsels and the art;
+   To make their English sweet upon their tongue?
+   As reverend Chaucer says.
+     _HOST._ Sir, you mistake;
+   To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it,
+   And carry messages to Madam Cressid;
+   Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings.
+   To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap
+   O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house;
+   For exercise of arms a bale of dice,
+   And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat
+   And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak
+   From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets
+   Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel
+   Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons
+   From off my lady's gown: These are the arts,
+   Or seven liberal deadly sciences,
+   Of pagery, or rather paganism,
+   As the tides run; to which, if he apply him,
+   He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn,
+   A year the earlier come to read a lecture
+   Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's
+   And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle."
+                            The New Inn, Act I.
+
+Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD
+
+Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and
+possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a
+book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._
+He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed
+his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom
+he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years
+of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted
+with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the
+Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was
+created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De
+Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the
+greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived.
+
+Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS
+
+Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in
+Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century.
+The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such
+incidents as the following: "The 24 of November (1567), at two
+afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High
+Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody
+skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol."
+These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of
+_The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:--"I knew
+the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were
+brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose
+Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear
+Sir Willie." But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish
+capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were
+in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young
+debauchees.
+
+Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY
+
+The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed
+by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also
+distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was
+displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome
+records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very
+circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and
+opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears
+that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a
+mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick,
+and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that
+it passed with Brusquet for venison.
+
+Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST
+
+The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the
+citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter
+Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called.
+It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable
+vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst
+themselves "which calling was of most repute," and a lawyer put in his
+claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence
+with much arrogance.
+
+   "'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he,
+    'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee?
+    But to defend such things as thee
+            'Tis pity;
+    For such as you esteem us least,
+    Who ever have been ready prest
+    To guard you and your cuckoo's nest,
+            The City'"
+
+The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant
+citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis.
+
+  "'Of London city I am free,
+    And there I first my wife did see,
+    And for that very cause,' said he,
+            'I love it.
+
+    And he that calls it cuckoo's nest,
+    Except he say he speaks in jest,
+    He is a villain and a beast,--
+            'I'll prove it!
+
+    For though I am a man of trade,
+    And free of London city made,
+    Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade,
+            In battle.
+
+    And citizens, if need require,
+    Themselves can force the foe retire,
+    Whatever this low country squire
+             May prattle.'"
+
+The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem.
+The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_
+12mo, vol. iii. 1716.
+
+Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE
+
+Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original
+representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost
+identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells
+us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history.
+
+  "Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay
+   With his whole army; look the other way,
+   And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse,
+   Encamp'd himself in might and all his force.
+   Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell
+   The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell;
+   Besides, what of his knowledge he could say,
+   He had authentic notice from the play,
+   Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts
+   And policies not incident to hosts;
+   But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing,
+   Where he mistook a player for a king,
+   For when he would have said, that Richard died,
+   And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried."
+
+            RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193.
+
+Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE
+
+This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry.
+The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady,
+at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of
+the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The
+circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time.
+All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that
+his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign.
+
+Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE
+
+Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London,
+1697, p.70, observes of James I., "The king was excessively addicted to
+hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong
+Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines;
+and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as
+much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting
+when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with
+the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and
+though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged
+his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days
+after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other
+cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on
+horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself
+in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take
+the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on."
+
+The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded
+particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among
+other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those
+carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, "King James's Hunting Bottle,"
+with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the
+King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in
+his drinking; "However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers,
+when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which
+he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he
+drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and
+his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high
+country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very
+strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom
+drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or
+two."--_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811.
+
+Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK
+
+I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in
+existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the
+foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity
+is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence
+of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following
+description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue:
+
+                             "FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO
+    _"Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo
+Zucchero, the King's painter._
+
+"This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit,
+has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully
+the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt,
+as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must
+have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the
+picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between
+the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke
+of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly
+towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side
+of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and
+looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed.
+Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking
+fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of
+the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth
+are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt
+family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their
+livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence
+of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked
+between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the
+Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of
+King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord
+L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court,
+mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then
+proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour
+in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a bushy ruff, well starched;
+and after various other directions as to his dress, he concludes, 'but
+above all things fail not to praise the roan jennet whereon the King
+doth daily ride.' In this picture King James is represented on the
+identical roan jennet. In the background of the picture are seen two
+or three suspicious-looking figures, as if watching the success of some
+plot. These may have been put in by the painter, to flatter the King,
+by making it be supposed that he had actually escaped, or successfully
+combated, some serious plot. The King is attended by a numerous band of
+courtiers and attendants, all of whom seem moving forward to arrest
+the defaulter. The painting of this picture is extremely good, but
+the drawing is very Gothic, and there is no attempt at the keeping of
+perspective. The picture is very dark and obscure, which considerably
+adds to the interest of the scene."
+
+Note XVIII. p. 325.--KING JAMES'S TIMIDITY
+
+The fears of James for his personal safety were often excited without
+serious grounds. On one occasion, having been induced to visit a
+coal-pit on the coast of Fife, he was conducted a little way under the
+sea, and brought to daylight again on a small island, or what was such
+at full tide, down which a shaft had been sunk. James, who conceived his
+life or liberty aimed at, when he found himself on an islet surrounded
+by the sea, instead of admiring, as his cicerone hoped, the unexpected
+change of scene, cried TREASON with all his might, and could not be
+pacified till he was rowed ashore. At Lockmaben he took an equally
+causeless alarm from a still slighter circumstance. Some vendisses,
+a fish peculiar to the Loch, were presented to the royal table as a
+delicacy; but the King, who was not familiar with their appearance,
+concluded they were poisoned, and broke up the banquet "with most
+admired disorder."
+
+Note XIX. p. 328.--TRAITOR'S GATE
+
+Traitor's Gate, which opens from the Tower of London to the Thames, was,
+as its name implies, that by which persons accused of state offences
+were conveyed to their prison. When the tide is making, and the ancient
+gate is beheld from within the buildings, it used to be a most striking
+part of the old fortress; but it is now much injured in appearance,
+being half built up with masonry to support a steam-engine, or something
+of that sort.
+
+Note XX. p. 361.--PUNISHMENT OF STUBBS BY MUTILATION
+
+This execution, which so captivated the imagination of Sir Mungo
+Malagrowther, was really a striking one. The criminal, a furious and
+bigoted Puritan, had published a book in very violent terms against the
+match of Elizabeth with the Duke of Alencon, which he termed an union of
+a daughter of God with a son of antichrist. Queen Elizabeth was greatly
+incensed at the freedom assumed in this work, and caused the author
+Stubbs, with Page the publisher, and one Singleton the printer, to
+be tried on an act passed by Philip and Mary against the writers and
+dispersers of seditious publications. They were convicted, and although
+there was an opinion strongly entertained by the lawyers, that the
+act was only temporary, and expired with Queen Mary, Stubbs and Page
+received sentence to have their right hands struck off. They accordingly
+suffered the punishment, the wrist being divided by a cleaver driven
+through the joint by force of a mallet. The printer was pardoned. "I
+remember," says the historian Camden, "being then present, that Stubbs,
+when his right hand was cut off, plucked off his hat with the left, and
+said, with a loud voice, 'God save the Queen!' The multitude standing
+about was deeply silent, either out of horror of this new and unwonted
+kind of punishment, or out of commiseration towards the man, as being of
+an honest and unblamable repute, or else out of hatred to the marriage,
+which most men presaged would be the overthrow of religion."-CAMDBN'S
+_Annals for the Year_ 1581.
+
+Note XXI. p. 375.--RlCHIE MONIPLIES BEHIND THE ARRAS
+
+The practical jest of Richie Moniplies going behind the arras to get an
+opportunity of teasing Heriot, was a pleasantry such as James might be
+supposed to approve of. It was customary for those who knew his humour
+to contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The celebrated Archie
+Armstrong, and another jester called Drummond, mounted on other people's
+backs, used to charge each other like knights in the tilt-yard, to the
+monarch's great amusement. The following is an instance of the same
+kind, taken from Webster upon Witchcraft. The author is speaking of the
+faculty called ventriloquism.
+
+But to make this more plain and certain, we shall add a story of a
+notable impostor, or ventriloquist, from the testimony of Mr. Ady, which
+we have had confirmed from the mouth of some courtiers, that both saw
+and knew him, and is this:--It hath been (saith he) credibly reported,
+that there was a man in the court of King James his days, that could act
+this imposture so lively, that he could call the King by name, and cause
+the King to look round about him, wondering who it was that called him,
+whereas he that called him stood before him in his presence, with his
+face towards him. But after this imposture was known, the King, in his
+merriment, would sometimes take occasionally this impostor to make sport
+upon some of his courtiers, as, for instance:--
+
+"There was a knight belonging to the court, whom the King caused to come
+before him in his private room, (where no man was but the King, and this
+knight and the impostor,) and feigned some occasion of serious discourse
+with the knight; but when the King began to speak and the knight bending
+his attention to the King, suddenly there came a voice as out of another
+room, calling the knight by name, 'Sir John, Sir John; come away,
+Sir John;' at which the knight began to frown that any man should be
+unmannerly as to molest the King and him; and still listening to the
+King's discourse, the voice came again, 'Sir John, Sir John; come away
+and drink off your sack.' At that Sir John began to swell with anger,
+and looked into the next room to see who it was that dared to call him
+so importunately, and could not find out who it was, and having chid
+with whomsoever he found, he returned again to the King. The King had no
+sooner begun to speak as formerly, but the voice came again, 'Sir John,
+come away, your sack stayeth for you.' At that Sir John began to stamp
+with madness, and looked out and returned several times to the King, but
+could not be quiet in his discourse with the King, because of the voice
+that so often troubled him, till the king had sported enough."--WEBSTER
+_on Witchcraft_, p. 124.
+
+Note XXII. p. 393.--LADY LAKE.
+
+Whether out of a meddling propensity common to all who have a gossiping
+disposition, or from the love of justice, which ought to make part of a
+prince's character, James was very fond of enquiring personally into the
+causes _celebres_ which occurred during his reign. In the imposture of
+the Boy of Bilson, who pretended to be possessed, and of one Richard
+Haydock, a poor scholar, who pretended to preach during his sleep, the
+King, to use the historian Wilson's expression, took delight in
+sounding with the line of his understanding, the depths of these brutish
+impositions, and in doing so, showed the acuteness with which he was
+endowed by Nature. Lady Lake's story consisted in a clamorous complaint
+against the Countess of Exeter, whom she accused of a purpose to put to
+death Lady Lake herself, and her daughter, Lady Ross, the wife of the
+Countess's own son-in-law, Lord Ross; and a forged letter was produced,
+in which Lady Exeter was made to acknowledge such a purpose. The account
+given of the occasion of obtaining this letter, was, that it had been
+written by the Countess at Wimbledon, in presence of Lady Lake and her
+daughter, Lady Ross, being designed to procure their forgiveness for her
+mischievous intention. The King remained still unsatisfied, the writing,
+in his opinion, bearing some marks of forgery. Lady Lake and her
+daughter then alleged, that, besides their own attestation, and that of
+a confidential domestic, named Diego, in whose presence Lady Exeter had
+written the confession, their story might also be supported by the oath
+of their waiting-maid, who had been placed behind the hangings at the
+time the letter was written, and heard the Countess of Exeter read over
+the confession after she had signed it. Determined to be at the bottom
+of this accusation, James, while hunting one day near Wimbledon, the
+scene of the alleged confession, suddenly left his sport, and,
+galloping hastily to Wimbledon, in order to examine personally the
+room, discovered, from the size of the apartment, that the alleged
+conversation could not have taken place in the manner sworn to; and that
+the tapestry of the chamber, which had remained in the same state for
+thirty years, was too short by two feet, and, therefore, could not have
+concealed any one behind it. This matter was accounted an exclusive
+discovery of the King by his own spirit of shrewd investigation. The
+parties were punished in the Star Chamber by fine and imprisonment.
+
+
+
+   _A,' all.                         BELDAM, ugly old woman.
+   ABYE, suffer for.                 BELIVE, by-and-by, presently.
+   ACCIDENS, grammar.                BENEVOLENCES, taxes illegally
+   AIGRE, sour, ill-natured.           exacted by the Kings of
+   AIN GATE, own way.                  England.
+   A' LEEVING, all living.           BIDE, keep, remain.
+   AMBLE, a peculiar gait of a       BIELDY BIT, sheltered spot.
+     horse, in which both legs on    BIGGING, building.
+     one side are moved forward      BILBOE, sword, rapier.
+     at the same time.               BILLIES, brothers.
+   ANCE, once.                       BIRKIE, lively young fellow.
+   ANENT, concerning.                BLACK-JACK, leathern drinking-
+   ANGEL, an ancient English gold      cup.
+     coin, worth about 10s., and     BLADES, dashing fellows, rakes.
+     bearing the figure of an angel. BLATE, modest, bashful.
+   ARRAS, tapestry.                  BLETHERING, foolish, silly.
+   AUGHT, owe.                       BLITHE, BLYTHE, glad.
+   AULD, old.                        BLUE-COATS, lackeys.
+   AULD REEKIE, Edinburgh, in        BODDLE, a copper coin, value
+     allusion to its smoke.            the sixth part of an English
+   AVISEMENT, counsel.                 penny.
+   AW, all.                          BODE, bid, offer.
+   AWMOUS, alms, a gift.             BOOKIE, book.
+                                     BRAE, hill, hill-side. BANGED,
+                                           sprang, bounded.
+   BRAVE PIECE, fine thing.
+   BARNACLES, spectacles.            BRAW, fine, handsome.
+   BARNS-BREAKING, idle frolics.     BREAKING, kneading.
+   BAWBEE, halfpenny.                BREEKS, breeches, trousers.
+   BAXTER, baker.                    BROCHES, kitchen spits.
+   BEAR-BANNOCKS, barley cakes.      BROSE, pottage of mean and
+   BECKING, curtseying.                water.
+   BECKS, nods.                      BROWNIE, domestic goblin.
+   BEECHEN BICKERS, dishes of        BUCKET, cheat.
+     beechwood.                      BUNEMOST, uppermost.
+
+   BURROWS-TOWN, borough-town.
+   BUSS, kiss.
+
+   CALF-WARD, place where calves are kept in the field.
+   CALLAN, CALLANT, lad.
+   CANNILY, cautiously, skilfully.
+   CANNY, quiet.
+   CANTLE, crown of the head.
+   CARCANET, necklace.
+   CARLE, fellow.
+   CARLE-HEMPIE, the strongest stalk of hemp.
+   CARNIFEX, executioner.
+   CAUFF, chaff.
+   CAULDRIFE, chilly.
+   CA'T, call it.
+   CAUP, cup.
+   CAUSEY, pavement.
+   CERTIE, faith, in truth.
+   CHALMER, chamber.
+   CHANGE-HOUSE, roadside inn where horses are changed on a journey.
+   CHALK, slash.
+   CHAPPIT, struck.
+   CHEEK-BY-JOWL, CHEEK-BY-CHOWL, side by side.
+   CHEERY, dagger.
+   CHENZIE-MAIL, chain-mail.
+   CHIELD, fellow.
+   CHOPINES, high shoes or clogs.
+   CHUCKS, chuck-stones, as played by children.
+   CHUFFS, clowns, simpletons.
+   CLAITHING, clothing.
+
+   CLAPPED LOOFS, crossed palms.
+   CLATTER-TRAPS, rattle-traps.
+   CLAUGHT, snatched.
+   CLAVERING, idle talking.
+   CLEEK, hook.
+   CLEW, clue.
+   CLOOT, hoof.
+   CLOUR, blow.
+   CLOUTING, mending.
+   COCK-A-LEEKIE, COCK-A-LEEKY, leek soup in which a cock has been
+   boiled.
+   COIF, linen covering for the head.
+   COMPLOTS, plots, intrigues.
+   COMPT, list, account, particulars.
+   COMPTING-ROOM, counting-house.
+   COSHERING, being familiar and intimate.
+   COUP, barter.
+   COUP THE CRANS, go to wreck and ruin.
+   COUPIT, tumbled.
+   CRAIG, rock; also neck.
+   CRAP, creep.
+   CRAW'D SAE CROUSE, crowed so proudly.
+   CULLY, one easily deceived, a dupe.
+   CURN, grain.
+   CUSSER, stallion.
+   CUTTY-QUEAN, a loose woman.
+
+   DAFT, silly, mad.
+   DAIKERING, jogging or toiling along.
+   DANG, driven, knocked.
+   DEIL, devil.
+   DEUTEROSCOPY, a meaning beyond the original sense.
+   DIDNA, did not.
+   DIKE-LOUPER, a debauchee.
+   DIRDUM, uproar, tumult. DIRKED, stabbed with a dirk.
+   DONNERIT, stupefied.
+   DOOMS, very, absolutely.
+   DOUCE, quiet, respectable, sober.
+   DOVER, neither asleep nor awake.
+   DOWCOT, dove-cote.
+   DRAB, illicit sexual intercourse.
+   DRAFF, drains given to cows; also the wash given to pigs.
+   DRAFF-POKE, bag of grains.
+   DREDGING-BOX, a box with holes for sprinkling flour in cookery.
+   DROUTHY, thirsty.
+   DUD, rag.
+   DUKE OF EXETER'S DAUGHTER, a species of rack in the Tower of London.
+   DULE-WEEDS, mourning.
+   DUMMALAFONG, a common prey to all comers.
+   DUNTS, blows.
+
+   EARD, earth.
+   EEN, eyes.
+   ELRITCH, hideous.
+   ENOW, just now.
+   ENSAMPLE, example.
+   EVITED, avoided.
+   EXIES, hysterics.
+
+   FALCHION, a short broadsword with a slightly curved point.
+   FALSET, falsehood.
+   FAUSE, false.
+   FASH, trouble.
+   FASHIOUS, troublesome, annoying.
+   FENCE-LOUPER, rakish fellow.
+   FEBRIFUGE, a medicine to subdue a fever.
+   FIDUCIARY, trustee.
+   FLATCAPS, citizens, civilians.
+   FLEECHING, flattering.
+   FOOD FOR FAGGOTS, martyrs for their religious opinions.
+   FOOT-CLOTH, horse-cloth reaching almost to the ground.
+   FOUARTS, house-leeks.
+   FOULWART, pole-cat.
+   FRAE, from.
+   FRESCO, half-naked.
+   FULE, fool.
+   FULHAM, loaded dice.
+
+   GAGE, pledge, trust.
+   GANG A' AE GATE, go all one way.
+   GAR, make, force.
+   GARR'D, made, compelled.
+   GATE, way, road; also kind of.
+   GEAR, property.
+   GIFF-GAFF, give and take, tit for tat.
+   GIE THE GLAIKS, to befool, deceive.
+   GILLIE-WHITE-FOOT, running footman.
+   GILLRAVAGER, plunderer.
+   GIRNED, grinned.
+   GLAIKS, deception.
+   GLEED, awry, all wrong.
+   GOUD-COUK, fool.
+   GRAFFS, graves.
+   GRAMERCY, great thanks.
+   GRANDAM, old woman, grandmother.
+   GRAT, cried.
+   GREEN GEESE, parrots.
+   GREET, cry.
+   GREW, shudder.
+   GRIPS, handshakings, greetings.
+   GROSART, GROSSART, goose-berry.
+   GULL, one easily befooled,
+   GULLEY, large knife.
+   GUTTERBLOOD, one meanly bred.
+   GYNOCRACY, petticoat government.
+
+   HAET, thing.
+   HAFFITS, sides of the head.
+   HAFT, handle.
+   HAIRBOURED, resided, sojourned.
+   HAMESUCKEN, assaulting a man on his own premises.
+   HANKED, coiled.
+   HARLE, drag, trail.
+   HARMAN BECK, constable.
+   HEART-SCALD, disgust.
+   HEAD-TIRE, head-dress.
+   HECK AND MANGER, in comfortable quarters.
+   HEUGHS, glens.
+   HIRDIE-GIRDIE, topsy-turvy.
+   HIRPLING, limping, walking lame.
+   HIRSEL, flock.
+   HORSE-GRAITH, harness.
+   HOUGHS, hollows.
+   HOWFF, rendezvous, place of resort.
+
+   ILK ANE, each one.
+   ILL, bad.
+   ILL REDD-UP, very untidy.
+   ILL-WILLY, ill-natured.
+   INGINE, ingenuity.
+   INGOTS, masses of unwrought metal.
+   INGRATE, an ungrateful person.
+   IRON CARLES, iron figures of men.
+
+   JAW, wave.
+   JEDDART-STAFF, a species of battle-axe peculiar to Jedburgh.
+   JENNET, a small Spanish horse.
+   JINGLE, dance.
+   JOUP, dip, stoop down.
+
+   KEMPING, strife.
+   KENNING, knowledge.
+   KIMMER, gossip, neighbour.
+   KIRK, church.
+   KITTLE, ticklish, difficult, precarious.
+   KYTHED, seemed, appeared.
+
+   LAIGH, low.
+   LAIR, learning.
+   LAMB'S-WOOL, a beverage made of the pulp of roasted apples.
+   LANDLOUPER, adventurer, runagate.
+   LANG SYNE, long ago.
+   LATTEN, plated iron or brass.
+   LAVROCK, lark.
+   LEASING-MAKING, uttering treasonable language.
+   LEASINGS, falsehoods, treason.
+   LEGLIN-GIRTH, the lowest hoop on a leglin, or milk-pail.
+   LICK, a beating.
+   LIEFEST, most beloved.
+   LIFT, steal.
+   LIGHT O' LOVE, mistress, wanton woman.
+   LINKBOYS, juvenile torch-bearers.
+   LIST, like.
+   LITHER, soft.
+   LOOF, palm of the hand.
+   LOON, LOUN, rascal.
+   LOUPING, leaping.
+   LUG, LUGG, ear.
+   LUVE, love.
+
+   MAIR THAN ANCE, more than once.
+   MARLE, wonder, marvel.
+   MAGGOT, whim, fancy.
+   MELL, intermeddle.
+   MENSEFUL, modest, mannerly.
+   MERK, a Scottish coin, value 13s 4d.
+   MESS-BOOK, mass-book, Catholic prayer-book.
+   MICKLE, MUCKLE, much, great, large.
+   MINT, attempt.
+   MIRK, dark.
+   MISLEARD, unmannerly.
+   MORT-CLOTH, shroud.
+   MOTION, puppet-show.
+   MUCKLE v. MICKLE.
+   MUFFLED, disguised.
+   MUSKETOON, a species of musket.
+   MY GERTIE, my goodness! gracious!
+
+   NEB, nose, point.
+   NEEDSNA, need not.
+   NICHER, snigger.
+   NICKS, notches.
+   NIFFER, exchange.
+   NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d. sterling.
+   NOWTE, black cattle.
+   NUNCHION, luncheon, food taken between meals.
+
+   OR, before.
+   OTHER GATE, other kind of.
+   OWER SICKER, too careful.
+
+   PAIK, fight, chastise.
+   PANGED, crammed.
+   PAPISTRIE, Popery.
+   PEASE-BOGLE, scarecrow among the pease growing.
+   PENNY-WEDDING, a wedding where all who attend contribute a trifle
+   towards the
+   expenses of the merrymaking.
+   PICKTHANK, a parasitical informer.
+   PIG, earthen pot, vessel, or pitcher.
+   PINK, stab, pierce holes into.
+   PLACK, a copper coin, value the third part of an English
+   penny.
+   PLOY, trick.
+   POCK-END, empty pocket or purse.
+   POCK-PUDDING, bag pudding.
+   POORTITH, poverty.
+   PORK-GRISKINS, sucking-pigs; also broiled loin of pork.
+   POUCH, pocket.
+   PRIE, taste.
+   PULLET, a young hen.
+
+   QUEAN, wench, young woman.
+
+   RAMPALLIONS, low women.
+   RAVE, tore.
+   RAXING, stretching.
+   REDDING-KAME, hair-comb.
+   REDD-UP, tidy, put in order.
+   RED WUD, stark mad.
+   REIRD, shouting.
+   REMEID, resource, remedy.
+   ROOPIT, croupy, hoarse.
+   ROSE-NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d., impressed with a rose.
+   ROUT, ROWT, to roar or bellow.
+   RUDAS, wild, forward, bold.
+
+   SAAM, same.
+   SACK, sherry or canary wine, warmed and spiced.
+   SACKLESS, innocent.
+   SCAT, tribute, tax.
+   SCAUDING, scalding.
+   SCAUR, scare, frighten.
+   SCLATE-STANE, slate-stone.
+   SCRIVENER, one who draws up contracts.
+   SHABBLE, cutlass,
+   SHOON, shoes.
+   SHOUTHER, shoulder.
+   SHULE, shovel.
+   SIB, related.
+   SIBYL, prophetess.
+   SICKER, careful.
+   SICLIKE, just so.
+   SILLER, money, silver.
+   SIRRAH, sir!
+   SKEIGH, skittish.
+   SKELDER, plunder, snatch.
+   SLEEVELESS, thriftless.
+   SMAIK, mean, paltry fellow.
+   SNAP-HAUNCHES, firelocks.
+   SPANG, spring.
+   SPEER, ask.
+   SPEERINGS, information, inquiries.
+   SPRAIKLE, to get on with difficulty.
+   SPUNK, slip.
+   SPUNKIES, will-o'-the-wisps.
+   STEEKING, closing.
+   STEEKIT, shut.
+   STONERN, stone.
+   STOT, a bullock between two and three years old.
+   STRAND-SCOURING, gutter-raking.
+   STURDIED, afflicted with the sturdy, a sheep disease.
+   STYPIC, astringent, something to arrest haemorrhage.
+   SUCCORY-WATER, sugar water.
+   SUNDOWN, sunset.
+   SUNER, sooner.
+   SUMPTER HORSE, pack-horse.
+   SWITH, begone! be off!
+   SYNE, ago.
+
+   TAIT, lock.
+   TANE, the one.
+   TAWSE, leather strap used for chastisement.
+   TEINDS, tithes.
+   THROUGH-STANES, gravestones.
+   TIKE v. TYKE.
+   TINT, lost.
+   TITHER, the other.
+   TOCHER, dowry.
+   TOOM, empty.
+   TOUR, see.
+   TOUT, blast on the horn.
+   TOYS, goods.
+   TREEN, wooden.
+   TROTH, truth.
+   TROW, believe, guess.
+   TRYSTE, appointment.
+   TURN-BROCHE, turn-spit.
+   TYKE, TIKE, dog, cur.
+   TWA, two.
+   TWIRING, coquetting, making eyes at.
+
+   UMQUHILE, late, deceased.
+
+   VIVERS, victuals.
+
+   WAD, pledge.
+   WADNA, would not.
+   WADSET, mortgage.
+   WANION, misfortune.
+   WARE, spend.
+   WARLOCKS, wizards.
+   WASTRIFE, waste, extravagance.
+   WAUR, worse.
+   WEEL KEND, well known.
+   WHA, who.
+   WHEEN, few, a number of.
+   WHIGMALEERY, trinkets, nicknacks.
+   WHILK, which.
+   WHINGER, cutlass, long knife.
+   WHINYARD, sword.
+   WHOMBLE, upset.
+   WIMPLED, wrapped up.
+   WINNA, will not.
+   WITHY, gallows rope.
+   WOO', wool.
+   WYLIE-COAT, under-petticoat.
+   WYND, street, alley.
+   WYTE, blame.
+
+   YESTREEN, last night.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott
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