Walter-Scott-The-Fortunes-Of-Nigel.Pdf

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL by Sir WALTER SCOTT

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The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Sir Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION

But why should lordlings all our praise engross? THE Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross. FORTUNES OF Pope HAVING, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some degree in awakening an interest in behalf NIGEL of one devoid of those accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next tempted to choose a by hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, Sir WALTER SCOTT Bart were necessary to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of the usual accomplishments A Tale Which Holdeth Children from Play & Old Men of those who strut through the pages of this sort of com- from the Chimney Corner position, I made free with the name of a person who has —SIR PHILIP SIDNEY left the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the capital of Scotland has to display.

3 The Fortunes of Nigel To the Scottish reader little more need be said than so much under their care, that it now supports and edu- that the man alluded to is George Heriot. But for those cates one hundred and thirty youths annually, many of south of the Tweed, it may be necessary to add, that whom have done honour to their country in different the person so named was a wealthy citizen of Edinburgh, situations. and the King’s goldsmith, who followed James to the The founder of such a charity as this may be reason- English capital, and was so successful in his profession, ably supposed to have walked through life with a steady as to die, in 1624, extremely wealthy for that period. He pace, and an observant eye, neglecting no opportunity had no children; and after making a full provision for of assisting those who were not possessed of the experi- such relations as might have claims upon him, he left ence necessary for their own guidance. In supposing his the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in efforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, which the sons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously misguided by the aristocratic haughtiness of his own brought up and educated for the station to which their time, and the prevailing tone of selfish luxury which talents may recommend them, and are finally enabled seems more peculiar to ours, as well as the seductions of to enter life under respectable auspices. The hospital in pleasure which are predominant in all, some amusement, which this charity is maintained is a noble quadrangle or even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived of the Gothic order, and as ornamental to the city as a from the manner in which I might bring the exertions building, as the manner in which the youths are proof this civic Mentor to bear in his pupil’s behalf. I am, I vided for and educated, renders it useful to the commu- own, no great believer in the moral utility to be derived nity as an institution. To the honour of those who have from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word the management, (the Magistrates and Clergy of spoken in season may be of advantage to a young per- Edinburgh), the funds of the Hospital have increased son, it must surely be when it calls upon him to attend

4 Sir Walter Scott to the voice of principle and self-denial, instead of that history is that when the ancient rough and wild man- of precipitate passion. I could not, indeed, hope or ex- ners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated pect to represent my prudent and benevolent citizen in upon, and contrasted, by the illumination of increased a point of view so interesting as that of the peasant or revived learning, and the instructions of renewed or girl, who nobly sacrificed her family affections to the reformed religion. The strong contrast produced by the integrity of her moral character. Still however, some- opposition of ancient manners to those which are gradu- thing I hoped might be done not altogether unworthy ally subduing them, affords the lights and shadows nec- the fame which George Heriot has secured by the last- essary to give effect to a fictitious narrative; and while ing benefits he has bestowed on his country. such a period entitles the author to introduce incidents It appeared likely, that out of this simple plot I might of a marvellous and improbable character, as arising out weave something attractive; because the reign of James of the turbulent independence and ferocity, belonging I., in which George Heriot flourished, gave unbounded to old habits of violence, still influencing the manners scope to invention in the fable, while at the same time it of a people who had been so lately in a barbarous state; afforded greater variety and discrimination of charac- yet, on the other hand, the characters and sentiments ter than could, with historical consistency, have been of many of the actors may, with the utmost probabil- introduced, if the scene had been laid a century earlier. ity, be described with great variety of shading and de- Lady Mary Wortley Montague has said, with equal truth lineation, which belongs to the newer and more improved and taste, that the most romantic region of every coun- period, of which the world has but lately received the try is that where the mountains unite themselves with light. the plains or lowlands. For similiar reasons, it may be in The reign of James I. of England possessed this ad- like manner said, that the most picturesque period of vantage in a peculiar degree. Some beams of chivalry,

5 The Fortunes of Nigel although its planet had been for some time set, contin- munity was perpetually giving rise to acts of blood and ued to animate and gild the horizon, and although prob- violence. The bravo of the Queen’s day, of whom ably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men Shakspeare has given us so many varieties, as Bardolph, and women still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Nym, Pistol, Peto, and the other companions of Falstaff, Philip Sydney’s Arcadia; and the ceremonial of the tilt- men who had their humours, or their particular turn of yard was yet exhibited, though it now only flourished extravaganza, had, since the commencement of the Low as a Place de Carrousel. Here and there a high-spirited Country wars, given way to a race of sworders, who used Knight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord the rapier and dagger, instead of the far less dangerous Herbert of Cherbury, was found devoted enough to the sword and buckler; so that a historian says on this sub- vows he had taken, to imagine himself obliged to com- ject, “that private quarrels were nourished, but espe- pel, by the sword’s-point, a fellow-knight or squire to cially between the Scots and English; and duels in every restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from street maintained; divers sects and peculiar titles passed a fair damsel;* but yet, while men were taking each unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring other’s lives on such punctilios of honour, the hour was Boys, Bonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the like, being persons prodigal, and of great expense, who, world that they were no longer to reason from author- having run themselves into debt, were constrained to ity to fact, but to establish truth by advancing from run next into factions, to defend themselves from dan- fact to fact, till they fixed an indisputable authority, ger of the law. These received countenance from divers not from hypothesis, but from experiment. of the nobility; and the citizens, through lasciviousness The state of society in the reign of James I. was also consuming their estates, it was like that the number [of strangely disturbed, and the license of a part of the com- these desperadoes] would rather increase than dimin- * See Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s Memoirs. 6 Sir Walter Scott ish; and under these pretences they entered into many iquity, beyond manner abounding in most places.” desperate enterprizes, and scarce any durst walk in the Nor is it only in the pages of a puritanical, perhaps a street after nine at night.”* satirical writer, that we find so shocking and disgusting The same authority assures us farther, that “ancient a picture of the coarseness of the beginning of the sev- gentlemen, who had left their inheritance whole and well enteenth century. On the contrary, in all the comedies furnished with goods and chattels (having thereupon kept of the age, the principal character for gaiety and wit is good houses) unto their sons, lived to see part consumed a young heir, who has totally altered the establishment in riot and excess, and the rest in possibility to be utterly of the father to whom he has succeeded, and, to use the lost; the holy state of matrimony made but a May-game, old simile, who resembles a fountain, which plays off in by which divers families had been subverted; brothel idleness and extravagance the wealth which its careful houses much frequented, and even great persons, prosti- parents painfully had assembled in hidden reservoirs. tuting their bodies to the intent to satisfy their lusts, con- And yet, while that spirit of general extravagance sumed their substance in lascivious appetites. And of all seemed at work over a whole kingdom, another and very sorts, such knights and gentlemen, as either through pride different sort of men were gradually forming the staid or prodigality—had consumed their substance, repair- and resolved characters, which afterwards displayed ing to the city, and to the intent to consume their virtue themselves during the civil wars, and powerfully regu- also, lived dissolute lives; many of their ladies and daugh- lated and affected the character of the whole English ters, to the intent to maintain themselves according to nation, until, rushing from one extreme to another, they their dignity, prostituting their bodies in shameful man- sunk in a gloomy fanaticism the splendid traces of the ner. Ale-houses, dicing-houses, taverns, and places of in- reviving fine arts. * History of the First Fourteen Years of King James’s Reign. From the quotations which I have produced, the self- See Somers’s Tracts, edited by Scott, vol. ii. p.266. 7 The Fortunes of Nigel ish and disgusting conduct of Lord Dalgarno will not see such lack of good order and sobriety as I have now perhaps appear overstrained; nor will the scenes in done. The gunpowder fright is got out of all our heads, Whitefriars and places of similar resort seem too highly and we are going on hereabout as if the devil was con- coloured. This indeed is far from being the case. It was triving every man should blow up himself by wild riot, in James I.’s reign that vice first appeared affecting the excess, and devastation of time and temperance. The better classes in its gross and undisguised depravity. The great ladies do go well masqued; and indeed, it be the entertainments and amusements of Elizabeth’s time had only show of their modesty to conceal their countenance, an air of that decent restraint which became the court but alack, they meet with such countenance to uphold of a maiden sovereign; and, in that earlier period, to use their strange doings, that I marvel not at aught that the words of Burke, vice lost half its evil by being de- happens.”* prived of all its grossness. In James’s reign, on the con- Such being the state of the court, coarse sensuality trary, the coarsest pleasures were publicly and unlimit- brought along with it its ordinary companion, a brutal edly indulged, since, according to Sir John Harrington, * Harrington’s Nugae Antique, vol. ii. p. 352. For the gross the men wallowed in beastly delights; and even ladies debauchery of the period, too much encouraged by the example of the monarch, who was, in other respects, neither abandoned their delicacy and rolled about in intoxica- without talent nor a good-natured disposition, see Winwood’s tion. After a ludicrous account of a mask, in which the Memorials, Howell’s Letters, and other Memorials of the actors had got drunk, and behaved themselves accord- time; but particularly, consult the Private Letters and Cor- respondence of Steenie, alias Buckingham, with his rever- ingly, he adds, “I have much marvelled at these strange end Dad and Gossip, King James, which abound with the pageantries, and they do bring to my recollection what grossest as well as the most childish language. The learned passed of this sort in our Queen’s days, in which I was Mr. D’Israeli, in an attempt to vindicate the character of James, has only succeeded in obtaining for himself the char- sometimes an assistant and partaker: but never did I acter of a skilful and ingenious advocate, without much advantage to his royal client. 8 Sir Walter Scott degree of undisguised selfishness, destructive alike of firmed and added to them by a charter in 1608. Shadwell philanthropy and good breeding; both of which, in their was the first author who made some literary use of several spheres, depend upon the regard paid by each in- Whitefriars, in his play of the Squire of Alsatia, which dividual to the interest as well as the feelings of others. It turns upon the plot of the Adelphi of Terence. is in such a time that the heartless and shameless man of In this old play, two men of fortune, brothers, edu- wealth and power may, like the supposed Lord Dalgarno, cate two young men, (sons to the one and nephews to brazen out the shame of his villainies, and affect to tri- the other,) each under his own separate system of rigour umph in their consequences, so long as they were person- and indulgence. The elder of the subjects of this experi- ally advantageous to his own pleasures or profit. ment, who has been very rigidly brought up, falls at once Alsatia is elsewhere explained as a cant name for into all the vices of the town, is debauched by the cheats Whitefriars, which, possessing certain privileges of sanc- and bullies of Whitefriars, and, in a word, becomes the tuary, became for that reason a nest of those mischie- Squire of Alsatia. The poet gives, as the natural and vous characters who were generally obnoxious to the law. congenial inhabitants of the place, such characters as These privileges were derived from its having been an es- the reader will find in the note.* The play, as we learn tablishment of the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded *“Cheatly, a rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out says Stow, in his Survey of London, by Sir Patrick Grey, of Whitefriars, but there inveigles young heirs of entail, and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages, is in 1241. Edward I. gave them a plot of ground in Fleet bound for them, and shares with them till he undoes them. A Street, to build their church upon. The edifice then erected lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the cant was rebuilt by Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, in the reign about town. “Shamwell, cousin to the Belfords, who, being ruined by of Edward. In the time of the Reformation the place Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir retained its immunities as a sanctuary, and James I. con- out of Alsatia, where he lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute debauched life. 9 The Fortunes of Nigel from the dedication to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, which some intimation is given in the dramatic piece. was successful above the author’s expectations, “no com- Such are the materials to which the author stands in- edy these many years having filled the theatre so long debted for the composition of the Fortunes of Nigel, a together. And I had the great honour,” continues novel, which may be perhaps one of those that are more Shadwell, “to find so many friends, that the house was amusing on a second perusal, than when read a first time never so full since it was built as upon the third day of for the sake of the story, the incidents of which are few this play, and vast numbers went away that could not and meagre. be admitted.”* From the Squire of Alsatia the author The Introductory Epistle is written, in Lucio’s phrase, derived some few hints, and learned the footing on which “according to the trick,” and would never have appeared the bullies and thieves of the Sanctuary stood with their had the writer meditated making his avowal of the work. neighbours, the fiery young students of the Temple, of As it is the privilege of a masque or incognito to speak in a feigned voice and assumed character, the author “Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cow- attempted, while in disguise, some liberties of the same ardly, impudent, blustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in sort; and while he continues to plead upon the various Flanders, who has run from his colours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by the Alsatians he excuses which the introduction contains, the present is dubb’d a captain, marries one that lets lodgings, sells acknowledgment must serve as an apology for a species cherry-brandy, and is a bawd. “Scrapeall a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-sing- of “hoity toity, whisky frisky” pertness of manner, ing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, which, in his avowed character, the author should have who joins with Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods, considered as a departure from the rules of civility and and money.”—Dramatis Personae to the Squire of Alsatia, SHADWELL’S Works, vol. iv. good taste. ABBOTSFORD. 1st July, 1831. *Dedication to the Squire of Alsatia, Shadwell’s Works, vol. iv. 10 Sir Walter Scott You are aware that the share which I had in introducing the Romance, called THE MONASTERY, to public INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE notice, has given me a sort of character in the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in the outer CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK TO THE REVEREND shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of DR. DRYASDUST my curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to buy Corderies and copy-books, DEAR SIR, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, I readily accept of, and reply to the civilities with which with, “Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get you have been pleased to honour me in your obliging letter, a chair for Captain Clutterbuck. There is the newspa- and entirely agree with your quotation, of “Quam bonum per, Captain—to-day’s paper;” or, “Here is the last new et quam jucundum!” We may indeed esteem ourselves as work—there is a folder, make free with the leaves;” or, come of the same family, or, according to our country prov- “Put it in your pocket and carry it home;” or, “We will erb, as being all one man’s bairns; and there needed no make a bookseller of you, sir, and you shall have it at apology on your part, reverend and dear sir, for demand- trade price.” Or, perhaps if it is the worthy trader’s own ing of me any information which I may be able to supply publication, his liberality may even extend itself to— respecting the subject of your curiosity. The interview ”Never mind booking such a trifle to you, sir—it is an which you allude to took place in the course of last winter, over-copy. Pray, mention the work to your reading and is so deeply imprinted on my recollection, that it re- friends.” I say nothing of the snug well-selected liter- quires no effort to collect all its most minute details. ary party arranged round a turbot, leg of five-year-old

11 The Fortunes of Nigel mutton, or some such gear, or of the circulation of a of an individual, who knew how to avail himself, to an quiet bottle of Robert Cockburn’s choicest black—nay, unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talent which perhaps, of his new ones. All these are comforts reserved his country produced, will probably appear more clearly to such as are freemen of the corporation of letters, and to the generation which shall follow the present. I have the advantage of enjoying them in perfection. I entered the shop at the Cross, to enquire after the But all things change under the sun; and it is with no health of my worthy friend, and learned with satisfac- ordinary feelings of regret, that, in my annual visits to tion, that his residence in the south had abated the rigour the metropolis, I now miss the social and warm-hearted of the symptoms of his disorder. Availing myself, then, welcome of the quick-witted and kindly friend who first of the privileges to which I have alluded, I strolled on- introduced me to the public; who had more original wit ward in that labyrinth of small dark rooms, or crypts, than would have set up a dozen of professed sayers of to speak our own antiquarian language, which form the good things, and more racy humour than would have extensive back-settlements of that celebrated publish- made the fortune of as many more. To this great depri- ing-house. Yet, as I proceeded from one obscure recess vation has been added, I trust for a time only, the loss to another, filled, some of them with old volumes, some of another bibliopolical friend, whose vigorous intellect, with such as, from the equality of their rank on the and liberal ideas, have not only rendered his native coun- shelves, I suspected to be the less saleable modern books try the mart of her own literature, but established there of the concern, I could not help feeling a holy horror a Court of Letters, which must command respect, even creep upon me, when I thought of the risk of intruding from those most inclined to dissent from many of its on some ecstatic bard giving vent to his poetical fury; canons. The effect of these changes, operated in a great or it might be, on the yet more formidable privacy of a measure by the strong sense and sagacious calculations band of critics, in the act of worrying the game which

12 Sir Walter Scott they had just run down. In such a supposed case, I felt and that I at once bended the knee, with the classical by anticipation the horrors of the Highland seers, whom salutation of, Salve, magne parens! The vision, however, their gift of deuteroscopy compels to witness things cut me short, by pointing to a seat, intimating at the unmeet for mortal eye; and who, to use the expression same time, that my presence was not expected, and that of Collins, he had something to say to me. I sat down with humble obedience, and endeavoured — “heartless, oft, like moody madness, stare, to note the features of him with whom I now found my- To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.” self so unexpectedly in society. But on this point I can give your reverence no satisfaction; for, besides the ob- Still, however, the irresistible impulse of an undefined scurity of the apartment, and the fluttered state of my curiosity drove me on through this succession of own nerves, I seemed to myself overwhelmed by a sense darksome chambers, till, like the jeweller of Delhi in of filial awe, which prevented my noting and recording the house of the magician Bennaskar, I at length reached what it is probable the personage before me might most a vaulted room, dedicated to secrecy and silence, and desire to have concealed. Indeed, his figure was so closely beheld, seated by a lamp, and employed in reading a. veiled and wimpled, either with a mantle, morning- blotted revise,* the person, or perhaps I should rather gown, or some such loose garb, that the verses of Spenser say the Eidolon, or representative Vision of the AU- might well have been applied— THOR OF WAVERLEY! You will not be surprised at the filial instinct which enabled me at once to acknowl- “Yet, certes, by her face and physnomy, edge the features borne by this venerable apparition, Whether she man or woman only were, *The uninitiated must be informed, that a second proof-sheet That could not any creature well descry.” is so called. 13 The Fortunes of Nigel Clutterbuck, being the person of my family whom I have I must, however, go on as I have begun, to apply the most regard for, since the death of Jedediah masculine gender; for, notwithstanding very ingenious Cleishbotham; and I am afraid I may have done you reasons, and indeed something like positive evidence, some wrong, in assigning to you The Monastery as a have been offered to prove the Author of Waverley to be portion of my effects. I have some thoughts of making two ladies of talent, I must abide by the general opin- it up to you, by naming you godfather to this yet union, that he is of the rougher sex. There are in his writ- born babe—(he indicated the proof-sheet with his fin- ings too many things ger)—But first, touching The Monastery—How says the world—you are abroad and can learn? “Quae maribus sola tribuuntur,” Captain Clutterbuck. Hem! hem!—The enquiry is deli- to permit me to entertain any doubt on that subject. I cate—I have not heard any complaints from the Pub- will proceed, in the manner of dialogue, to repeat as lishers. nearly as I can what passed betwixt us, only observing, that in the course of the conversation, my timidity im- Author. That is the principal matter; but yet an indiffer- perceptibly gave way under the familiarity of his ad- ent work is sometimes towed on by those which have dress; and that, in the concluding part of our dialogue, left harbour before it, with the breeze in their poop.— I perhaps argued with fully as much confidence as was What say the Critics? beseeming. Captain. There is a general—feeling—that the White Author of Waverley. I was willing to see you, Captain Lady is no favourite.

14 Sir Walter Scott into which Ariel, the most delicate creation of Author. I think she is a failure myself; but rather in ex- Shakspeare’s imagination, seduces our jolly friend ecution than conception. Could I have evoked an esprit Trinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one follet, at the same time fantastic and interesting, capri- shall find me rowing against the stream. I care not who cious and kind; a sort of wildfire of the elements, bound knows it—I write for general amusement; and, though by no fixed laws, or motives of action; faithful and fond, I never will aim at popularity by what I think unwor- yet teazing and uncertain— thy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertina- cious in the defence of my own errors against the voice Captain. If you will pardon the interruption, sir, I think of the public. you are describing a pretty woman. Captain. You abandon, then, in the present work—(look- Author. On my word, I believe I am. I must invest my el- ing, in my turn, towards the proof-sheet)—the mystic, ementary spirits with a little human flesh and blood—they and the magical, and the whole system of signs, won- are too fine-drawn for the present taste of the public. ders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages, or obscure allusions to future events? Captain. They object, too, that the object of your Nixie ought to have been more uniformly noble—Her duck- Author. Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son—not one ing the priest was no Naiad-like amusement. bounce on the drum of Tedworth—not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in the wainscot. All Author. Ah! they ought to allow for the capriccios of is clear and above board—a Scots metaphysician might what is, after all, but a better sort of goblin. The bath believe every word of it.

15 The Fortunes of Nigel lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho’s suppressed wit- Captain. And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; ticisms, when he was under his master’s displeasure.— commencing strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending There never was a novel written on this plan while the happily—like the course of a famed river, which gushes world stood. from the mouth of some obscure and romantic grotto— then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its Captain. Pardon me—Tom Jones. course, visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of interest are presented by the Author. True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high country through which it passes—widening and deep- notions of the dignity of an art which he may be con- ening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at sidered as having founded. He challenges a comparison the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where between the Novel and the Epic. Smollett, Le Sage, and ships of all kinds strike sail and yard? others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of the rules he has laid down, have written rather a history Author. Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why,’tis of the miscellaneous adventures which befall an indi- Ercles’ vein, and it would require some one much more vidual in the course of life, than the plot of a regular like Hercules than I, to produce a story which should and connected epopeia, where every step brings us a gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and widen, point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great mas- and deepen, and all the rest on’t. I should be chin-deep ters have been satisfied if they amused the reader upon in the grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, the road; though the conclusion only arrived because in the meanwhile, all the quirks and quiddities which I the tale must have an end—just as the traveller alights might have devised for my reader’s amusement, would at the inn, because it is evening.

16 Sir Walter Scott

Captain. A very commodious mode of travelling, for the Captain. Will your goodness permit me to mention an author at least. In short, sir, you are of opinion with anecdote of my excellent grandmother? Bayes—“What the devil does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?” Author. I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain Clutterbuck. Author. Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and spirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put Captain. It may come into our dialogue on Bayes’s together, but which had sufficient interest in them to amuse plan.—The sagacious old lady—rest her soul!—was a in one corner the pain of body; in another, to relieve anxi- good friend to the church, and could never hear a minis- ety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a brow bent ter maligned by evil tongues, without taking his part with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place warmly. There was one fixed point, however, at which of bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to she always abandoned the cause of her reverend pro- induce an idler to study the history of his country; in all, tege—it was so soon as she learned he had preached a save where the perusal interrupted the discharge of seri- regular sermon against slanderers and backbiters. ous duties, to furnish harmless amusement,—might not the author of such a work, however inartificially executed, Author. And what is that to the purpose? plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave, who, about to be punished for having spread the false re- Captain. Only that I have heard engineers say, that one port of a victory, saved himself by exclaiming—“Am I to may betray the weak point to the enemy, by too much blame, O Athenians, who have given you one happy day?” ostentation of fortifying it.

17 The Fortunes of Nigel Captain. Care for your reputation, then,—for your fame. Author. And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose? Author. My fame?—I will answer you as a very ingenious, able, and experienced friend, being counsel for Captain. Nay, then, without farther metaphor, I am the notorious Jem MacCoul, replied to the opposite side afraid this new production, in which your generosity of the bar, when they laid weight on his client’s refusing seems willing to give me some concern, will stand much to answer certain queries, which they said any man who in need of apology, since you think proper to begin your had a regard for his reputation would not hesitate to defence before the case is on trial.—The story is hastily reply to. “My client,” said he-by the way, Jem was stand- huddled up, I will venture a pint of claret. ing behind him at the time, and a rich scene it was-”is so unfortunate as to have no regard for his reputation; Author. A pint of port, I suppose you mean? and I should deal very uncandidly with the Court, should I say he had any that was worth his attention.”-I am, Captain. I say of claret—good claret of the Monastery. though from very different reasons, in Jem’s happy state Ah, sir, would you but take the advice of your friends, of indifference. Let fame follow those who have a sub- and try to deserve at least one-half of the public favour stantial shape. A shadow-and an impersonal author is you have met with, we might all drink Tokay! nothing better-can cast no shade.

Author. I care not what I drink, so the liquor be whole- Captain. You are not now, perhaps, so impersonal as here- some. tofore. These Letters to the Member for the University of Oxford—

18 Sir Walter Scott rious employment of such ingenuity as has been dis- Author. Show the wit, genius, and delicacy of the au- played by the young letter-writer. thor, which I heartily wish to see engaged on a subject of more importance; and show, besides, that the preser- Captain. But allowing, my dear sir, that you care not for vation of my character of incongnito has engaged early your personal reputation, or for that of any literary talent in the discussion of a curious question of evidence. person upon whose shoulders your faults may be vis- But a cause, however ingeniously pleaded, is not there- ited, allow me to say, that common gratitude to the pub- fore gained. You may remember, the neatly-wrought lic, which has received you so kindly, and to the critics, chain of circumstantial evidence, so artificially brought who have treated you so leniently, ought to induce you forward to prove Sir Philip Francis’s title to the Letters to bestow more pains on your story. of Junius, seemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has passed away, and Junius, in the Author. I do entreat you, my son, as Dr. Johnson would general opinion, is as much unknown as ever. But on have said, “free your mind from cant.” For the critics, this subject I will not be soothed or provoked into say- they have their business, and I mine; as the nursery proving one word more. To say who I am not, would be one erb goes— step towards saying who I am; and as I desire not, any more than a certain justice of peace mentioned by “The children in Holland take pleasure in making Shenstone, the noise or report such things make in the What the children in England take pleasure in breaking.” world, I shall continue to be silent on a subject, which, in my opinion, is very undeserving the noise that has I am their humble jackal, too busy in providing food for been made about it, and still more unworthy of the se- them, to have time for considering whether they swallow

19 The Fortunes of Nigel or reject it.—To the public, I stand pretty nearly in the relation of the postman who leaves a packet at the door Captain. Respect to yourself, then, ought to teach cau- of an individual. If it contains pleasing intelligence, a tion. billet from a mistress, a letter from an absent son, a re- mittance from a correspondent supposed to be bank- Author. Ay, if caution could augment the chance of my rupt,—the letter is acceptably welcome, and read and re- success. But, to confess to you the truth, the works and read, folded up, filed, and safely deposited in the bureau. passages in which I have succeeded, have uniformly been If the contents are disagreeable, if it comes from a dun written with the greatest rapidity; and when I have seen or from a bore, the correspondent is cursed, the letter is some of these placed in opposition with others, and com- thrown into the fire, and the expense of postage is heart- mended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen ily regretted; while all the time the bearer of the dis- and standish, that the parts in which I have come fee- patches is, in either case, as little thought on as the snow bly off, were by much the more laboured. Besides, I of last Christmas. The utmost extent of kindness between doubt the beneficial effect of too much delay, both on the author and the public which can really exist, is, that account of the author and the public. A man should the world are disposed to be somewhat indulgent to the strike while the iron is hot, and hoist sail while the wind succeeding works of an original favourite, were it but on is fair. If a successful author keep not the stage, an- account of the habit which the public mind has acquired; other instantly takes his ground. If a writer lie by for while the author very naturally thinks well of their taste, ten years ere he produces a second work, he is super- who have so liberally applauded his productions. But I seded by others; or, if the age is so poor of genius that deny there is any call for gratitude, properly so called, this does not happen, his own reputation becomes his either on one side or the other. greatest obstacle. The public will expect the new work

20 Sir Walter Scott to be ten times better than its predecessor; the author regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and the will expect it should be ten times more popular, and ’tis work is closed long before I have attained the point I a hundred to ten that both are disappointed. proposed.

Captain. This may justify a certain degree of rapidity Captain. Resolution and determined forbearance might in publication, but not that which is proverbially said remedy that evil. to be no speed. You should take time at least to arrange your story. Author. Alas! my dear sir, you do not know the force of paternal affection. When I light on such a character as Author. That is a sore point with me, my son. Believe Bailie Jarvie, or Dalgetty, my imagination brightens, me, I have not been fool enough to neglect ordinary pre- and my conception becomes clearer at every step which cautions. I have repeatedly laid down my future work I take in his company, although it leads me many a weary to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters, and en- mile away from the regular road, and forces me leap deavoured to construct a story which I meant should hedge and ditch to get back into the route again. If I evolve itself gradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, resist the temptation, as you advise me, my thoughts and stimulate curiosity; and which, finally, should ter- become prosy, flat, and dull; I write painfully to myself, minate in a striking catastrophe. But I think there is a and under a consciousness of flagging which makes me demon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had in- I begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. vested the incidents, departs from them, and leaves ev- Characters expand under my hand; incidents are multi- ery thing dull and gloomy. I am no more the same au- plied; the story lingers, while the materials increase; my thor I was in my better mood, than the dog in a wheel,

21 The Fortunes of Nigel condemned to go round and round for hours, is like the You must know, that, some twenty years since, I went same dog merrily chasing his own tail, and gambolling down to visit an old friend in Worcestershire, who had in all the frolic of unrestrained freedom. In short, sir, served with me in the—Dragoons. on such occasions, I think I am bewitched. Captain. Then you have served, sir? Captain. Nay, sir, if you plead sorcery, there is no more to be said—he must needs go whom the devil drives. Author. I have—or I have not, which signifies the same And this, I suppose, sir, is the reason why you do not thing—Captain is a good travelling name.—I found my make the theatrical attempt to which you have been so friend’s house unexpectedly crowded with guests, and, often urged? as usual, was condemned—the mansion being an old one—to the haunted apartment. I have, as a great mod- Author. It may pass for one good reason for not writing ern said, seen too many ghosts to believe in them, so a play, that I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that betook myself seriously to my repose, lulled by the wind the idea adopted by too favourable judges, of my hav- rustling among the lime-trees, the branches of which ing some aptitude for that department of poetry, has chequered the moonlight which fell on the floor through been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which, the diamonded casement, when, behold, a darker shadow being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they interposed itself, and I beheld visibly on the floor of the have hastily considered the offspring of my mother-wit. apartment— Now, the manner in which I became possessed of these fragments is so extraordinary, that I cannot help telling Captain. The White Lady of Avenel, I suppose?—You it to you. have told the very story before.

22 Sir Walter Scott the Variorum Shakspeare. Yes, stranger, it was these ill- Author. No—I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, fated hands That consigned to grease and conflagration and apron, sleeves tucked up to the elbow, a dredging- the scores of small quartos, which, did they now exist, box in the one hand, and in the other a sauce-ladle. I would drive the whole Roxburghe Club out of their concluded, of course, that it was my friend’s cook-maid senses—it was these unhappy pickers and stealers that walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value for singed fat fowls and wiped dirty trenchers with the lost Sally, who could toss a pancake with any girl in the coun- works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Jonson, try, I got up to conduct her safely to the door. But as I Webster—what shall I say?—even of Shakspeare him- approached her, she said,—“Hold, sir! I am not what self!” you take me for;”—words which seemed so opposite to Like every dramatic antiquary, my ardent curiosity the circumstances, that I should not have much minded after some play named in the Book of the Master of them, had it not been for the peculiarly hollow sound in Revels, had often been checked by finding the object of which they were uttered.—“Know, then,” she said, in my research numbered amongst the holocaust of vic- the same unearthly accents, “that I am the spirit of tims which this unhappy woman had sacrificed to the Betty Barnes.”—“Who hanged herself for love of the God of Good Cheer. It is no wonder then, that, like the stage-coachman,” thought I; “this is a proper spot of Hermit of Parnell, work!”—“Of that unhappy Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr. Warburton, the painful collector, “I broke the bands of fear, and madly cried, but ah! the too careless custodier, of the largest collec- ‘You careless jade!’—But scarce the words began, tion of ancient plays ever known—of most of which When Betty brandish’d high her saucing-pan.” the titles only are left to gladden the Prolegomena of

23 The Fortunes of Nigel “Beware,” she said, “you do not, by your ill-timed an- of serving them, are wonderfully partial to pressed men. ger, cut off the opportunity I yet have to indemnify the world for the errors of my ignorance. In yonder coal- Author. I am a living witness, having been, like a second hole, not used for many a year, repose the few greasy Laberius, made a dramatist whether I would or not. I and blackened fragments of the elder Drama which were believe my muse would be Terry-fied into treading the not totally destroyed. Do thou then”—Why, what do stage, even if I should write a sermon. 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. Truly, if you did, I am afraid folks might make a farce of it; and, therefore, should you change your style, Captain. Lie, sir! Nay, Heaven forbid I should apply the I still advise a volume of dramas like Lord Byron’s. word to a person so veracious. You are only inclined to chase your tail a little this morning, that’s all. Had you Author. No, his lordship is a cut above me—I won’t run not better reserve this legend to form an introduction my horse against his, if I can help myself. But there is to “Three Recovered Dramas,” or so? my friend Allan has written just such a play as I might write myself, in a very sunny day, and with one of Author. You are quite right—habit’s a strange thing, my Bramah’s extra-patent pens. I cannot make neat work son. I had forgot whom I was speaking to. Yes, Plays for without such appurtenances. the closet, not for the stage— Captain. Do you mean Allan Ramsay? Captain. Right, and so you are sure to be acted; for the managers, while thousands of volunteers are desirous Author. No, nor Barbara Allan either. I mean Allan

24 Sir Walter Scott Cunningham, who has just published his tragedy of Sir tively coughed down—Tempora mutantur. Marmaduke Maxwell, full of merry-making and murdering, kissing and cutting of throats, and passages Author. They cannot stand still, they will change with which lead to nothing, and which are very pretty pas- all of us. What then? sages for all that. Not a glimpse of probability is there about the plot, but so much animation in particular “A man’s a man for a’ that.” passages, and such a vein of poetry through the whole, as I dearly wish I could infuse into my Culinary Re- But the hour of parting approaches. mains, should I ever be tempted to publish them. With a popular impress, people would read and admire the Captain. You are determined to proceed then in your beauties of Allan—as it is, they may perhaps only note own system? Are you aware that an unworthy motive his defects—or, what is worse, not note him at all.— may be assigned for this rapid succession of publica- But never mind them, honest Allan; you are a credit to tion? You will be supposed to work merely for the lucre Caledonia for all that.—There are some lyrical effusions of gain. of his, too, which you would do well to read, Captain. “It’s hame, and it’s hame,” is equal to Burns. Author. Supposing that I did permit the great advantages which must be derived from success in literature, Captain. I will take the hint. The club at Kennaquhair to join with other motives in inducing me to come more are turned fastidious since Catalan! visited the Abbey. frequently before the public,—that emolument is the My “Poortith Cauld” has been received both poorly and voluntary tax which the public pays for a certain spe- coldly, and “the Banks of Bonnie Doon” have been posi- cies of literary amusement—it is extorted from no one,

25 The Fortunes of Nigel and paid, I presume, by those only who can afford it, his works constitute as effectual a part of the public and who receive gratification in proportion to the ex- wealth, as that which is created by any other manufac- pense. If the capital sum which these volumes have put ture. If a new commodity, having an actually intrinsic into circulation be a very large one, has it contributed and commercial value, be the result of the operation, to my indulgences only? or can I not say to hundreds, why are the author’s bales of books to be esteemed a from honest Duncan the paper-manufacturer, to the less profitable part of the public stock than the goods most snivelling of the printer’s devils, “Didst thou not of any other manufacturer? I speak with reference to share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?” I profess I think the diffusion of the wealth arising to the public, and our Modern Athens much obliged to me for having es- the degree of industry which even such a trifling work tablished such an extensive manufacture; and when uni- as the present must stimulate and reward, before the versal suffrage comes in fashion, I intend to stand for a volumes leave the publisher’s shop. Without me it could seat in the House on the interest of all the unwashed not exist, and to this extent I am a benefactor to the artificers connected with literature. country. As for my own emolument, it is won by my toil, and I account myself answerable to Heaven only Captain. This would be called the language of a calico- for the mode in which I expend it. The candid may hope manufacturer. it is not all dedicated to selfish purposes; and, without much pretensions to merit in him who disburses it, a Author. Cant again, my dear son—there is lime in this part may “wander, heaven-directed, to the poor.” sack, too—nothing but sophistication in this world! I do say it, in spite of Adam Smith and his followers, that Captain. Yet it is generally held base to write from the a successful author is a productive labourer, and that mere motives of gain.

26 Sir Walter Scott ment. No man of sense, in any rank of life, is, or ought Author. It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to to be, above accepting a just recompense for his time, make it a principal motive for literary exertion. Nay, I and a reasonable share of the capital which owes its very will venture to say, that no work of imagination, pro- existence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in ceeding from the mere consideration of a certain sum the trenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the nobles, statesmen, and divines, the most distinguished lawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician of their time, have not scorned to square accounts with who prescribes, the clergyman—if such there be—who their bookseller. preaches, without any zeal for his profession, or without any sense of its dignity, and merely on account of Captain. (Sings.) the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to the rank of sordid mechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of “O if it were a mean thing, the learned faculties at least, their services are consid- The gentles would not use it; ered as unappreciable, and are acknowledged, not by And if it were ungodly, any exact estimate of the services rendered, but by a The clergy would refuse it.” honorarium, or voluntary acknowledgment. But let a client or patient make the experiment of omitting this Author. You say well. But no man of honour, genius, or little ceremony of the honorarium, which is cense to be spirit, would make the mere love of gain, the chief, far a thing entirely out of consideration between them, and less the only, purpose of his labours. For myself, I am mark how the learned gentleman will look upon his case. not displeased to find the game a winning one; yet while Cant set apart, it is the same thing with literary emolu- I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely

27 The Fortunes of Nigel for the pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as dance no longer, I will no longer pipe; and I shall not most folks that love of composition, which is perhaps want flappers enough to remind me of the apoplexy. the strongest of all instincts, driving the author to the pen, the painter to the pallet, often without either the Captain. And what will become of us then, your poor chance of fame or the prospect of reward. Perhaps I family? We shall fall into contempt and oblivion. have said too much of this. I might, perhaps, with as much truth as most people, exculpate myself from the Author. Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed charge of being either of a greedy or mercenary dispo- with the number of his family, I cannot help going on sition; but I am not, therefore, hypocrite enough to dis- to increase it—“’Tis my vocation, Hal.”—Such of you claim the ordinary motives, on account of which the as deserve oblivion—perhaps the whole of you—may whole world around me is toiling unremittingly, to the be consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in sacrifice of ease, comfort, health, and life. I do not af- your day, which is more than can be said of some of fect the disinterestedness of that ingenious association your contemporaries, of less fortune and more merit. of gentlemen mentioned by Goldsmith, who sold their They cannot say but that you had the crown. It is al- magazine for sixpence a-piece, merely for their own ways something to have engaged the public attention amusement. for seven years. Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to the established phrase, Captain. I have but one thing more to hint.—The world “the ingenious author of a novel much admired at the say you will run yourself out. time.” I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley is sustained very much by the praises of those, Author. The world say true: and what then? When they who may be inclined to prefer that tale to its successors.

28 Sir Walter Scott serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk Captain. You are willing, then, to barter future reputa- of, is, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of pub- tion for present popularity? lications does the present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed us. Author. Meliora spero. Horace himself expected not to survive in all his works—I may hope to live in some of Captain. I do not see how that is to happen. mine;—non omnis moriar. It is some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries have been the Author. The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those James, of the alarming fertility of the press, were as who have been best received in their own time, have also loud as they are at present—yet look at the shore over continued to be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so which the inundation of that age flowed, and it resembles ill of the present generation, as to suppose that its present now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen— favour necessarily infers future condemnation. —“Besrrew’d all with rich array, Captain. Were all to act on such principles, the public Of pearl and precious stones of great assay; would be inundated. And all the gravel mix’d with golden ore.”

Author. Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of speak as if the public were obliged to read books merely the present age, the next may discover treasures. because they are printed—your friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good. The most Captain. Some books will defy all alchemy.

29 The Fortunes of Nigel

Author. They will be but few in number; since, as for the writ- Captain. Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on ers, who are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they your own principles. publish their works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of annoying the public will be soon Author. Do you act on yours, and take care you do not limited by the difficulty of finding undertaking booksellers. stay idling here till the dinner hour is over.—I will add this work to your patrimony, valeat quantum. Captain. You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to Here our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced your audacity? Apollyon from the Canongate came to demand the proof- sheet on the part of Mr. M’Corkindale; and I heard Mr. Author. There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment of the same honour and virtue. My course is like the enchanted labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to pen- chamber of Britomart— etrate so far into the penetralia of their temple. I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning “Where as she look’d about, she did behold the import of this dialogue, and I cannot but believe I How over that same door was likewise writ, shall meet the wishes of our common parent in prefix- Be Bold—Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold. ing this letter to the work which it concerns. Whereat she mused, and could not construe it; At last she spied at that room’s upper end I am, reverend and dear Sir, Another iron door, on which was writ— Very sincerely and affectionately BE NOT TOO BOLD.” Yours,

30 Sir Walter Scott

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL

CHAPTER I THE FORTUNES OF Now Scot and English are agreed, NIGEL And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed, Where, such the splendours that attend him, Knifegrinder. Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, His very mother scarce had kend him. sir. His metamorphosis behold, Poetry of the Antijacobin. 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.

31 The Fortunes of Nigel

THE LONG-CONTINUED hostilities which had for centuries the contending factions, whose brawls disturbed the separated the south and the north divisions of the Is- Court. But, notwithstanding all his precautions, histori- land of Britain, had been happily terminated by the ans have recorded many instances, where the mutual ha- succession of the pacific James I. to the English Crown. tred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thou- But although the united crown of England and Scot- sand years, had been so very recently united, broke forth land was worn by the same individual, it required a long with a fury which menaced a general convulsion; and, lapse of time, and the succession of more than one gen- spreading from the highest to the lowest classes, as it oc- eration, ere the inveterate national prejudices which had casioned debates in council and parliament, factions in so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were re- the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less pro- moved, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed ductive of riots and brawls amongst the lower orders. brought to regard those upon the opposite bank as While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there friends and as brethren. flourished in the city of London an ingenious but whim- These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate dur- sical and self opinioned mechanic, much devoted to ab- ing the reign of King James. The English subjects ac- stract studies, David Ramsay by name, who, whether cused him of partiality to those of his ancient king- recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the dom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged him courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among the with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neighbours, by his birthplace, in the good town of neglecting those early friends to whose allegiance he had Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James’s household been so much indebted. the post of maker of watches and horologes to his Maj- The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, in- esty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within clined him perpetually to interfere as mediator between Temple Bar, a few yards to the eastward of Saint

32 Sir Walter Scott Dunstan’s Church. stout-bodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who kept The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it up the cry of, “What d’ye lack? what d’ye lack?” ac- may be supposed, was something very different from companied with the appropriate recommendations of those we now see in the same locality. The goods were the articles in which they dealt. exposed to sale in cases, only defended from the weather This direct and personal application for custom to by a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the those who chanced to pass by, is now, we believe, limited stalls and booths now erected for the temporary accom- to Monmouth Street, (if it still exists even in that re- modation of dealers at a country fair, rather than the pository of ancient garments,) under the guardianship established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most of the scattered remnant of Israel. But at the time we of the shopkeepers of note, and David Ramsay amongst are speaking of, it was practised alike by Jew and Gen- others, had their booth connected with a small apart- tile, and served, instead of all our present newspaper ment which opened backward from it, and bore the same puffs and advertisements, to solicit the attention of the resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe’s public in general, and of friends in particular, to the cavern did to the tent which he erected before it. unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they offered To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to re- to sale upon such easy terms, that it might fairly ap- treat to the labour of his abstruse calculations; for he pear that the venders had rather a view to the general aimed at improvements and discoveries in his own art, service of the public, than to their own particular ad- and sometimes pushed his researches, like Napier, and vantage. other mathematicians of the period, into abstract sci- The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their com- ence. When thus engaged, he left the outer posts of his modities, had this advantage over those who, in the commercial establishment to be maintained by two present day, use the public papers for the same purpose,

33 The Fortunes of Nigel that they could in many cases adapt their address to the Living in London, both proper and tall.” peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. [This, as we have said, was also the case in Monmouth Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, espe- Street in our remembrance. We have ourselves been re- cially when the Templars, or other youths connected minded of the deficiencies of our femoral habiliments, with the aristocracy, were insulted, or conceived them- and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more selves to be so. Upon such occasions, bare steel was fre- beseemingly; but this is a digression.] This direct and per- quently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sonal mode of invitation to customers became, however, sometimes ensued on both sides. The tardy and ineffi- a dangerous temptation to the young wags who were cient police of the time had no other resource than by employed in the task of solicitation during the absence the Alderman of the ward calling out the householders, of the principal person interested in the traffic; and, con- and putting a stop to the strife by overpowering num- fiding in their numbers and civic union, the ‘prentices of bers, as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon London were often seduced into taking liberties with the the stage. passengers, and exercising their wit at the expense of those At the period when such was the universal custom of whom they had no hopes of converting into customers the most respectable, as well as the most inconsiderable, by their eloquence. If this were resented by any act of shopkeepers in London, David Ramsay, on the evening violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour to which we solicit the attention of the reader, retiring forth in succour; and in the words of an old song which to more abstruse and private labours, left the adminis- Dr. Johnson was used to hum,— tration of his outer shop, or booth, to the aforesaid sharp-witted, active, able-bodied, and well-voiced ap- “Up then rose the ‘prentices all, prentices, namely, Jenkin Vincent and Frank Tunstall.

34 Sir Walter Scott Vincent had been educated at the excellent founda- purpose of the escapement of a watch, which disposes tion of Christ’s Church Hospital, and was bred, thereof a certain quantity of the extra power of that me- fore, as well as born, a Londoner, with all the acuteness, chanical impulse which puts the whole in motion. address, and audacity which belong peculiarly to the The physiognomy of Jin Vin—by which abbreviation youth of a metropolis. He was now about twenty years he was familiarly known through the ward—corre- old, short in stature, but remarkably strong made, emi- sponded with the sketch we have given of his character. nent for his feats upon holidays at foot-ball, and other His head, upon which his ‘prentice’s flat cap was gener- gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled in the broad-sword ally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of covered with thick hair of raven black, which curled single-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and seques- naturally and closely, and would have grown to great tered court of the ward, better than his catechism; was length, but for the modest custom enjoined by his state alike active in his master’s affairs, and in his own ad- in life and strictly enforced by his master, which com- ventures of fun and mischief; and so managed matters, pelled him to keep it short-cropped,—not unreluctantly, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him out, as he looked with envy on the flowing ringlets, in which or at least served for his apology, when the latter pro- the courtiers, and aristocratic students of the pensity led him into scrapes, of which, however, it is neighbouring Temple, began to indulge themselves, as but fair to state, that they had hitherto inferred noth- marks of superiority and of gentility. ing mean or discreditable. Some aberrations there were, Vincent’s eyes were deep set in his head, of a strong which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to reduce vivid black, full of fire, roguery, and intelligence, and to regular order when he discovered them, and others conveying a humorous expression, even while he was which he winked at—supposing them to answer the uttering the usual small-talk of his trade, as if he ridi-

35 The Fortunes of Nigel culed those who were disposed to give any weight to his Most Sacred Majesty James I. commonplaces. He had address enough, however, to add Jenkin’s companion was the younger apprentice, little touches of his own, which gave a turn of drollery though, perhaps, he might be the elder of the two in even to this ordinary routine of the booth; and the alac- years. At any rate, he was of a much more staid and rity of his manner—his ready and obvious wish to composed temper. Francis Tunstall was of that ancient oblige—his intelligence and civility, when he thought and proud descent who claimed the style of the “un- civility necessary, made him a universal favourite with stained;” because, amid the various chances of the long his master’s customers. and bloody wars of the Roses, they had, with undeviat- His features were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, ing faith, followed the House of Lancaster, to which they his mouth tending to the larger size, and his complexion had originally attached themselves. The meanest sprig inclining to be more dark than was then thought consis- of such a tree attached importance to the root from tent with masculine beauty. But, in despite of his having which it derived itself; and Tunstall was supposed to always breathed the air of a crowded city, his complexion nourish in secret a proportion of that family pride, which had the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health; had exhorted tears from his widowed and almost indi- his turned-up nose gave an air of spirit and raillery to what gent mother, when she saw herself obliged to consign he said, and seconded the laugh of his eyes; and his wide him to a line of life inferior, as her prejudices suggested, mouth was garnished with a pair of well-formed and well- to the course held by his progenitors. Yet, with all this coloured lips, which, when he laughed, disclosed a range aristocratic prejudice, his master found the well-born of teeth strong and well set, and as white as the very pearl. youth more docile, regular, and strictly attentive to his Such was the elder apprentice of David Ramsay, Memory’s duty, than his far more active and alert comrade. Monitor, watchmaker, and constructor of horologes, to his Tunstall also gratified his master by the particular at-

36 Sir Walter Scott tention which he seemed disposed to bestow on the ab- opened light-blue eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and a stract principles of science connected with the trade countenance which expressed both good-humour and which he was bound to study, the limits of which were intelligence, but qualified by a gravity unsuitable to his daily enlarged with the increase of mathematical sci- years, and which almost amounted to dejection. He lived ence. on the best of terms with his companion, and readily Vincent beat his companion beyond the distance-post, stood by him whenever he was engaged in any of the in every thing like the practical adaptation of thorough frequent skirmishes, which, as we have already observed, practice, in the dexterity of hand necessary to execute often disturbed the city of London about this period. the mechanical branches of the art, and doubled-dis- But though Tunstall was allowed to understand quar- tanced him in all respecting the commercial affairs of ter-staff (the weapon of the North country) in a supe- the shop. Still David Ramsay was wont to say, that if rior degree, and though he was naturally both strong Vincent knew how to do a thing the better of the two, and active, his interference in such affrays seemed al- Tunstall was much better acquainted with the principles ways matter of necessity; and, as he never voluntarily on which it ought to be done; and he sometimes objected joined either their brawls or their sports, he held a far to the latter, that he knew critical excellence too well lower place in the opinion of the youth of the ward than ever to be satisfied with practical mediocrity. his hearty and active friend Jin Vin. Nay, had it not The disposition of Tunstall was shy, as well as studi- been for the interest made for his comrade, by the inter- ous; and, though perfectly civil and obliging, he never cession of Vincent, Tunstall would have stood some seemed to feel himself in his place while he went through chance of being altogether excluded from the society the duties of the shop. He was tall and handsome, with of his contemporaries of the same condition, who called fair hair, and well-formed limbs, good features, well- him, in scorn, the Cavaliero Cuddy, and the Gentle

37 The Fortunes of Nigel Tunstall. Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached On the other hand, the lad himself, deprived of the to their master, and he, a good-natured, though an ab- fresh air in which he had been brought up, and forego- sent and whimsical man, was scarce less so to them; and ing the exercise to which he had formerly been accus- when a little warmed with wine at an occasional jun- tomed, while the inhabitant of his native mansion, lost keting, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his gradually the freshness of his complexion, and, with- “twa bonnie lads, and the looks that the court ladies out showing any formal symptoms of disease, grew more threw at them, when visiting his shop in their caroches, thin and pale as he grew older, and at length exhibited when on a frolic into the city.” But David Ramsay never the appearance of indifferent health, without any thing failed, at the same time, to draw up his own tall, thin, of the habits and complaints of an invalid, excepting a lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming disposition to avoid society, and to spend his leisure time grin, and indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and in private study, rather than mingle in the sports of his a twinkle of his little grey eye, that there might be more companions, or even resort to the theatres, then the gen- faces in Fleet Street worth looking at than those of eral rendezvous of his class; where, according to high Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, authority, they fought for half-bitten apples, cracked the sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip- nuts, and filled the upper gallery with their clamours. top revellers of the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, Such were the two youths who called David Ramsay distinguished more deeply the sort of attention paid by master; and with both of whom he used to fret from the females of quality, who so regularly visited David morning till night, as their peculiarities interfered with Ramsay’s shop, to its inmates. “The boy Frank,” she his own, or with the quiet and beneficial course of his admitted, “used to attract the attention of the young traffic. ladies, as having something gentle and downcast in his

38 Sir Walter Scott looks; but then he could not better himself, for the poor Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, youth had not a word to throw at a dog. Now Jin Vin the two youths, who, in a fine April day, having first was so full of his jibes and jeers, and so willing, and so rendered their dutiful service and attendance on the table ready, and so serviceable, and so mannerly all the while, of their master and his daughter, at their dinner at one with a step that sprung like a buck’s in Epping Forest, o’clock,—Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe and his eye that twinkled as black as a gipsy’s, that no discipline undergone by your predecessors!—and hav- woman who knew the world would make a comparison ing regaled themselves upon the fragments, in company betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay him- with two female domestics, one a cook, and maid of all self, the man,” she said, “was a civil neighbour, and a work, the other called Mistress Margaret’s maid, now learned man, doubtless, and might be a rich man if he relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; had common sense to back his learning; and doubtless, and agreeably to the established custom, were solicit- for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, ing, by their entreaties and recommendations of their but he was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with master’s manufacture, the attention and encouragement brass filings, and smeared with lamp-black and oil, that of the passengers. Dame Simmons judged it would require his whole In this species of service it may be easily supposed shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to that Jenkin Vincent left his more reserved and bashful touch the said neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a comrade far in the background. The latter could only pair of tongs.” articulate with difficulty, and as an act of duty which A still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Ben- he was rather ashamed of discharging, the established jamin Suddlechop, the barber, was of exactly the same words of form—“What d’ye lack?—What d’ye lack?— opinion. Clocks—watches—barnacles?—What d’ye lack?—

39 The Fortunes of Nigel Watches—clocks—barnacles?—What d’ye lack, sir? cannot remember the time—when I had a bad fever. What d’ye lack, madam?—Barnacles—watches— Choose me a pair of his most Sacred Majesty’s own wear- clocks?” ing, my good youth.” “This is a pair, and please your But this dull and dry iteration, however varied by di- reverence,” said Jenkin, producing a pair of spectacles versity of verbal arrangement, sounded flat when which he touched with an air of great deference and mingled with the rich and recommendatory oratory of respect, “which his most blessed Majesty placed this day the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-witted Jenkin three weeks on his own blessed nose; and would have Vincent.—“What d’ye lack, noble sir?—What d’ye lack, kept them for his own sacred use, but that the setting beauteous madam?” he said, in a tone at once bold and being, as your reverence sees, of the purest jet, was, as soothing, which often was so applied as both to gratify his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a bishop the persons addressed, and to excite a smile from other than for a secular prince.” hearers.—“God bless your reverence,” to a beneficed cler- “His Sacred Majesty the King,” said the worthy di- gyman; “the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your vine, “was ever a very Daniel in his judgment. Give me reverence’s eyes—Buy a pair of David Ramsay’s bar- the barnacles, my good youth, and who can say what nacles. The King—God bless his Sacred Majesty!—never nose they may bestride in two years hence?—our rever- reads Hebrew or Greek without them.” end brother of Gloucester waxes in years.” He then “Are you well avised of that?” said a fat parson from pulled out his purse, paid for the spectacles, and left the the Vale of Evesham. “Nay, if the Head of the Church shop with even a more important step than that which wears them,—God bless his Sacred Majesty!—I will try had paused to enter it. what they can do for me; for I have not been able to “For shame,” said Tunstall to his companion; “these distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since—I glasses will never suit one of his years.”

40 Sir Walter Scott “You are a fool, Frank,” said Vincent, in reply; “had ter Poet, how long the patience of the audience will en- the good doctor wished glasses to read with, he would dure your next piece at the Black Bull.” The bard have tried them before buying. He does not want to look laughed, and fumbled in the pocket of his slops till he through them himself, and these will serve the purpose chased into a corner, and fairly caught, a small piece of of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best coin. magnifiers in the shop.—What d’ye lack?” he cried, re- “Here is a tester to cherish thy wit, good boy,” he said. suming his solicitations. “Mirrors for your toilette, my “Gramercy,” said Vin; “at the next play of yours I pretty madam; your head-gear is something awry—pity, will bring down a set of roaring boys, that shall make since it is so well fancied.” The woman stopped and all the critics in the pit, and the gallants on the stage, bought a mirror.—“What d’ye lack?—a watch, Master civil, or else the curtain shall smoke for it.” Sergeant—a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as “Now, that I call mean,” said Tunstall, “to take the steady and true as your own eloquence?” poor rhymer’s money, who has so little left behind.” “Hold your peace, sir,” answered the Knight of the “You are an owl, once again,” said Vincent; “if he has Coif, who was disturbed by Vin’s address whilst in deep nothing left to buy cheese and radishes, he will only dine consultation with an eminent attorney; “hold your a day the sooner with some patron or some player, for peace! You are the loudest-tongued varlet betwixt the that is his fate five days out of the seven. It is unnatural Devil’s Tavern and Guildhall.” that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer; I will “A watch,” reiterated the undaunted Jenkin, “that drink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; shall not lose thirteen minutes in a thirteen years’ law- and when his third night comes round, he shall have suit.—He’s out of hearing—A watch with four wheels penniworths for his coin, I promise you.—But here and a bar-movement—a watch that shall tell you, Mas- comes another-guess customer. Look at that strange fel-

41 The Fortunes of Nigel low—see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would And, though a beggar, must be fed.’” swallow the wares.—O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not the images. See how he “Hush!” said Tunstall, “remember our master.” stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply their ding- “Pshaw!” answered his mercurial companion; “he dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that knows on which side his bread is buttered, and I war- same fellow, with his blue cap with a cock’s feather in it, rant you has not lived so long among Englishmen, and to show he’s of gentle blood, God wot—his grey eyes, by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an En- his yellow hair, his sword with a ton of iron in the glish mind. But see, our Scot has done gazing at St. handle—his grey thread-bare cloak—his step like a Dunstan’s, and comes our way. By this light, a proper Frenchman—his look like a Spaniard—a book at his lad and a sturdy, in spite of freckles and sun-burning.— girdle, and a broad dudgeon-dagger on the other side, He comes nearer still, I will have at him.” to show him half-pedant, half-bully. How call you that “And, if you do,” said his comrade, “you may get a pageant, Frank?” broken head—he looks not as if he would carry coals.” “A raw Scotsman,” said Tunstall; “just come up, I sup- “A fig for your threat,” said Vincent, and instantly pose, to help the rest of his countrymen to gnaw old addressed the stranger. “Buy a watch, most noble north- England’s bones; a palmerworm, I reckon, to devour ern Thane—buy a watch, to count the hours of plenty what the locust has spared.” since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind you.— “Even so, Frank,” answered Vincent; “just as the poet Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your sings sweetly,— gripe.—Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days; for, were your pockets as bare as Father Fergus’s, ‘In Scotland he was born and bred, you are a Scot in London, and you will be stocked in

42 Sir Walter Scott that time.” The stranger looked sternly at the waggish sued by the horse-laugh of his tormentors. apprentice, and seemed to grasp his cudgel in rather a “The Scot will not fight till he see his own blood,” said menacing fashion. “Buy physic,” said the undaunted Tunstall, whom his north of England extraction had Vincent, “if you will buy neither time nor light—physic made familiar with all manner of proverbs against those for a proud stomach, sir;—there is a ‘pothecary’s shop who lay yet farther north than himself. on the other side of the way.” “Faith, I know not,” said Jenkin; “he looks danger- Here the probationary disciple of Galen, who stood ous, that fellow—he will hit some one over the noddle at his master’s door in his flat cap and canvass sleeves, before he goes far.—Hark!—hark!—they are rising.” with a large wooden pestle in his hand, took up the ball Accordingly, the well-known cry of, “‘Prentices— which was flung to him by Jenkin, with, “What d’ye ’prentices—Clubs—clubs!” now rang along Fleet Street; lack, sir?—Buy a choice Caledonian salve, Flos sulphvr. and Jenkin, snatching up his weapon, which lay beneath cum butyro quant. suff.” the counter ready at the slightest notice, and calling to “To be taken after a gentle rubbing-down with an En- Tunstall to take his bat and follow, leaped over the hatch- glish oaken towel,” said Vincent. door which protected the outer-shop, and ran as fast as The bonny Scot had given full scope to the play of this he could towards the affray, echoing the cry as he ran, small artillery of city wit, by halting his stately pace, and and elbowing, or shoving aside, whoever stood in his way. viewing grimly, first the one assailant, and then the other, His comrade, first calling to his master to give an eye to as if menacing either repartee or more violent revenge. But the shop, followed Jenkin’s example, and ran after him phlegm or prudence got the better of his indignation, and as fast as he could, but with more attention to the safety tossing his head as one who valued not the raillery to which and convenience of others; while old David Ramsay, with he had been exposed, he walked down Fleet Street, pur- hands and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and

43 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 CHAPTER II the cry of “Clubs” once arose, he would have little aid on the part of his apprentices. 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 appren-

44 Sir Walter Scott tices. “What d’ye lack, sir? Madam, what d’ye lack— richly wrought in filigree. A triple chain of gold hung clocks for hall or table—night-watches—day watches?— round his neck; and, in place of a sword or dagger, he Locking wheel being 48—the power of retort 8—the strik- wore at his belt an ordinary knife for the purpose of the ing pins are 48—What d’ye lack, honoured sir?—The table, with a small silver case, which appeared to con- quotient—the multiplicand—That the knaves should have tain writing materials. He might have seemed some sec- gone out this blessed minute!—the acceleration being at retary or clerk engaged in the service of the public, only the rate of 5 minutes, 55 seconds, 53 thirds, 59 fourths—I that his low, flat, and unadorned cap, and his well- will switch them both when they come back—I will, by blacked, shining shoes, indicated that he belonged to the bones of the immortal Napier!” the city. He was a well-made man, about the middle size, Here the vexed philosopher was interrupted by the and seemed in firm health, though advanced in years. entrance of a grave citizen of a most respectable ap- His looks expressed sagacity and good-humour: and the pearance, who, saluting him familiarly by the name of air of respectability which his dress announced, was well “Davie, my old acquaintance,” demanded what had put supported by his clear eye, ruddy cheek, and grey hair. him so much out of sorts, and gave him at the same He used the Scottish idiom in his first address, but in time a cordial grasp of his hand. such a manner that it could hardly be distinguished The stranger’s dress was, though grave, rather richer whether he was passing upon his friend a sort of jocose than usual. His paned hose were of black velvet, lined mockery, or whether it was his own native dialect, for with purple silk, which garniture appeared at the slashes. his ordinary discourse had little provincialism. His doublet was of purple cloth, and his short cloak of In answer to the queries of his respectable friend, black velvet, to correspond with his hose; and both were Ramsay groaned heavily, answering by echoing back the adorned with a great number of small silver buttons question, “What ails me, Master George? Why, every

45 The Fortunes of Nigel thing ails me! I profess to you that a man may as well “What, man!” replied Master George, “you must take live in Fairyland as in the Ward of Farringdon-With- patience—You are a man that deals in time, and can out. My apprentices are turned into mere goblins—they make it go fast and slow at pleasure; you, of all the world, appear and disappear like spunkies, and have no more have least reason to complain, if a little of it be lost regularity in them than a watch without a scapement. now and then.—But here come your boys, and bringing If there is a ball to be tossed up, or a bullock to be driven in a slain man betwixt them, I think—here has been mad, or a quean to be ducked for scolding, or a head to serious mischief, I am afraid.” be broken, Jenkin is sure to be at the one end or the “The more mischief the better sport,” said the crabbed other of it, and then away skips Francis Tunstall for old watchmaker. “I am blithe, though, that it’s neither company. I think the prize-fighters, bear-leaders, and of the twa loons themselves.—What are ye bringing a mountebanks, are in a league against me, my dear friend, corpse here for, ye fause villains?” he added, addressing and that they pass my house ten times for any other in the two apprentices, who, at the head of a considerable the city. Here’s an Italian fellow come over, too, that mob of their own class, some of whom bore evident marks they call Punchinello; and, altogether—” of a recent fray, were carrying the body betwixt them. “Well,” interrupted Master George, “but what is all “He is not dead yet, sir,” answered Tunstall. this to the present case?” “Carry him into the apothecary’s, then,” replied his “Why,” replied Ramsay, “here has been a cry of thieves master. “D’ye think I can set a man’s life in motion again, or murder, (I hope that will prove the least of it amongst as if he were a clock or a timepiece?” these English pock-pudding swine!) and I have been in- “For godsake, old friend,” said his acquaintance, “let terrupted in the deepest calculation ever mortal man us have him here at the nearest—he seems only in a plunged into, Master George.” swoon.”

46 Sir Walter Scott “A swoon?” said Ramsay, “and what business had he else, the man of pharmacy observed, that it would, at all to swoon in the streets? Only, if it will oblige my friend events, relieve the brain or cerebrum, in case there was a Master George, I would take in all the dead men in St. tendency to the depositation of any extravasated blood, Dunstan’s parish. Call Sam Porter to look after the to operate as a pressure upon that delicate organ. shop.” So saying, the stunned man, being the identical Fortunately he was adequate to performing this op- Scotsman who had passed a short time before amidst eration; and, being powerfully aided by Jenkin Vincent the jeers of the apprentices, was carried into the back (who was learned in all cases of broken heads) with shop of the artist, and there placed in an armed chair plenty of cold water, and a little vinegar, applied ac- till the apothecary from over the way came to his assis- cording to the scientific method practised by the bottle- tance. This gentleman, as sometimes happens to those holders in a modern ring, the man began to raise him- of the learned professions, had rather more lore than self on his chair, draw his cloak tightly around him, and knowledge, and began to talk of the sinciput and oc- look about like one who struggles to recover sense and ciput, and cerebrum and cerebellum, until he exhausted recollection. David Ramsay’s brief stock of patience. “He had better lie down on the bed in the little back “Bell-um! bell-ell-um!” he repeated, with great indig- closet,” said Mr. Ramsay’s visitor, who seemed perfectly nation; “What signify all the bells in London, if you do familiar with the accommodations which the house af- not put a plaster on the child’s crown?” forded. Master George, with better-directed zeal, asked the “He is welcome to my share of the truckle,” said apothecary whether bleeding might not be useful; when, Jenkin,—for in the said back closet were the two ap- after humming and hawing for a moment, and being un- prentices accommodated in one truckle-bed,—“I can able, upon the spur of the occasion, to suggest any thing sleep under the counter.”

47 The Fortunes of Nigel “So can I,” said Tunstall, “and the poor fellow can He muttered a few more learned words, and concluded have the bed all night.” by informing Ramsay’s friend in English far more intel- “Sleep,” said the apothecary, “is, in the opinion of ligible than his Latin, that he would look to him as his Galen, a restorative and febrifuge, and is most naturally paymaster, for medicines, care, and attendance, fur- taken in a truckle-bed.” nished, or to be furnished, to this party unknown. “Where a better cannot be come by,”—said Master Master George only replied by desiring him to send George; “but these are two honest lads, to give up their his bill for what he had already to charge, and to give beds so willingly. Come, off with his cloak, and let us himself no farther trouble unless he heard from him. bear him to his couch—I will send for Dr. Irving, the The pharmacopolist, who, from discoveries made by the king’s chirurgeon—he does not live far off, and that shall cloak falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the be my share of the Samaritan’s duty, neighbour faculty of this chance patient to make reimbursement, Ramsay.” had no sooner seen his case espoused by a substantial “Well, sir,” said the apothecary, “it is at your pleasure citizen, than he showed some reluctance to quit posses- to send for other advice, and I shall not object to con- sion of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from sult with Dr. Irving or any other medical person of skill, Master George, which, with all his good-humour, he was neither to continue to furnish such drugs as may be need- capable of expressing when occasion required, to send ful from my pharmacopeia. However, whatever Dr. Irv- to his own dwelling this Esculapius of Temple Bar. ing, who, I think, hath had his degrees in Edinburgh, or When they were rid of Mr. Raredrench, the charitable Dr. Any-one-beside, be he Scottish or English, may say efforts of Jenkin and Francis, to divest the patient of to the contrary, sleep, taken timeously, is a febrifuge, or his long grey cloak, were firmly resisted on his own sedative, and also a restorative.” part.—“My life suner—my life suner,” he muttered in

48 Sir Walter Scott indistinct murmurs. In these efforts to retain his upper personal liberty! They were wiser than me,” he said, after garment, which was too tender to resist much handling, a moment’s pause, “that counselled me to wear my warst it gave way at length with a loud rent, which almost claithing in the streets of London; and, if I could have threw the patient into a second syncope, and he sat be- got ony things warse than these mean garments,”— fore them in his under garments, the looped and repaired (“which would have been very difficult,” said Jin Vin, wretchedness of which moved at once pity and laugh- in a whisper to his companion,)—“they would have been ter, and had certainly been the cause of his unwilling- e’en ower gude for the grips o’ men sae little acquented ness to resign the mantle, which, like the virtue of char- with the laws of honest civility.” ity, served to cover so many imperfections. “To say the truth,” said Jenkin, unable to forbear any The man himself cast his eyes on his poverty-struck longer, although the discipline of the times prescribed garb, and seemed so much ashamed of the disclosure, to those in his situation a degree of respectful distance that, muttering between his teeth, that he would be too and humility in the presence of parents, masters, or se- late for his appointment, he made an effort to rise and niors, of which the present age has no idea—“to say the leave the shop, which was easily prevented by Jenkin truth, the good gentleman’s clothes look as if they would Vincent and his comrade, who, at the nod of Master not brook much handling.” George, laid hold of and detained him in his chair. “Hold your peace, young man,” said Master George, The patient next looked round him for a moment, and with a tone of authority; “never mock the stranger or then said faintly, in his broad northern language— the poor—the black ox has not trod on your foot yet— ”What sort of usage ca’ ye this, gentlemen, to a stranger you know not what lands you may travel in, or what a sojourner in your town? Ye hae broken my head—ye clothes you may wear, before you die.” hae riven my cloak, and now ye are for restraining my Vincent held down his head and stood rebuked, but

49 The Fortunes of Nigel the stranger did not accept the apology which was made “Ay!” said the interrogator, “and what house may for him. claim the honour of your descent?” “I am a stranger, sir,” said he, “that is certain; though “An ancient coat belongs to it, as the play says,” whis- methinks, that, being such, I have been somewhat fa- pered Vincent to his companion. miliarly treated in this town of yours; but, as for my “Come, Jockey, out with it,” continued Master George, being poor, I think I need not be charged with poverty, observing that the Scot, as usual with his countrymen, till I seek siller of somebody.” when asked a blunt, straightforward question, took a “The dear country all over,” said Master George, in a little time before answering it. whisper, to David Ramsay, “pride and poverty.” “I am no more Jockey, sir, than you are John,” said But David had taken out his tablets and silver pen, the stranger, as if offended at being addressed by a name, and, deeply immersed in calculations, in which he which at that time was used, as Sawney now is, for a rambled over all the terms of arithmetic, from the simple general appellative of the Scottish nation. “My name, unit to millions, billions, and trillions, neither heard nor if you must know it, is Richie Moniplies; and I come of answered the observation of his friend, who, seeing his the old and honourable house of Castle Collop, weel kend abstraction, turned again to the Scot. at the West-Port of Edinburgh.” “I fancy now, Jockey, if a stranger were to offer you a “What is that you call the West-Port?” proceeded the noble, you would chuck it back at his head?” interrogator. “Not if I could do him honest service for it, sir,” said “Why, an it like your honour,” said Richie, who now, the Scot; “I am willing to do what I may to be useful, having recovered his senses sufficiently to observe the though I come of an honourable house, and may be said respectable exterior of Master George, threw more ci- to be in a sort indifferently weel provided for.” vility into his manner than at first, “the West-Port is a

50 Sir Walter Scott gate of our city, as yonder brick arches at Whitehall there was naething wrang in standing up for ane’s ain form the entrance of the king’s palace here, only that country’s credit in a strange land, where all men cry her the West-Port is of stonern work, and mair decorated down?” with architecture and the policy of bigging.” “Do you call it for your country’s credit, to show that “Nouns, man, the Whitehall gateways were planned she has a lying, puffing rascal, for one of her children?” by the great Holbein,” answered Master George; “I sus- said Master George. “But come, man, never look grave pect your accident has jumbled your brains, my good on it,—as you have found a countryman, so you have friend. I suppose you will tell me next, you have at found a friend, if you deserve one—and especially if Edinburgh as fine a navigable river as the Thames, with you answer me truly.” all its shipping?” “The Thames!” exclaimed Richie, in a “I see nae gude it wad do me to speak ought else but tone of ineffable contempt—“God bless your honour’s truth,” said the worthy North Briton. judgment, we have at Edinburgh the Water-of-Leith and “Well, then—to begin,” said Master George, “I sus- the Nor-loch!” pect you are a son of old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher, “And the Pow-Burn, and the Quarry-holes, and the at the West-Port.” Gusedub, ye fause loon!” answered Master George, speak- “Your honour is a witch, I think,” said Richie, grin- ing Scotch with a strong and natural emphasis; “it is such ning. land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and fair fash- “And how dared you, sir, to uphold him for a noble?” ions, bring reproach on our whole country.” “I dinna ken, sir,” said Richie, scratching his head; “I “God forgie me, sir,” said Richie, much surprised at hear muckle of an Earl of Warwick in these southern finding the supposed southron converted into a native parts,—Guy, I think his name was,—and he has great Scot, “I took your honour for an Englisher! But I hope reputation here for slaying dun cows, and boars, and

51 The Fortunes of Nigel such like; and I am sure my father has killed more cows “Troth, sir, I’se no lee about the matter,” answered and boars, not to mention bulls, calves, sheep, ewes, Moniplies. “I was coming along the street here, and ilk ane lambs, and pigs, than the haill Baronage of England.” was at me with their jests and roguery. So I thought to “Go to! you are a shrewd knave,” said Master George; mysell, ye are ower mony for me to mell with; but let me “charm your tongue, and take care of saucy answers. catch ye in Barford’s Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I Your father was an honest burgher, and the deacon of could gar some of ye sing another sang. Sae ae auld hirpling his craft: I am sorry to see his son in so poor a coat.” deevil of a potter behoved just to step in my way and offer “Indifferent, sir,” said Richie Moniplies, looking down me a pig, as he said, just to put my Scotch ointment in, on his garments—“very indifferent; but it is the wonted and I gave him a push, as but natural, and the tottering livery of poor burghers’ sons in our country—one of deevil coupit ower amang his ain pigs, and damaged a score Luckie Want’s bestowing upon us—rest us patient! The of them. And then the reird raise, and hadna these twa king’s leaving Scotland has taken all custom frae gentlemen helped me out of it, murdered I suld hae been, Edinburgh; and there is hay made at the Cross, and a without remeid. And as it was, just when they got haud of dainty crop of fouats in the Grass-market. There is as my arm to have me out of the fray, I got the lick that much grass grows where my father’s stall stood, as might donnerit me from a left-handed lighterman.” have been a good bite for the beasts he was used to kill.” Master George looked to the apprentices as if to de- “It is even too true,” said Master George; “and while mand the truth of this story. we make fortunes here, our old neighbours and their “It is just as he says, sir,” replied Jenkin; “only I heard families are starving at home. This should be thought nothing about pigs.—The people said he had broke some upon oftener.—And how came you by that broken head, crockery, and that—I beg pardon, sir—nobody could Richie?—tell me honestly.” thrive within the kenning of a Scot.”

52 Sir Walter Scott “Well, no matter what they said, you were an honest to call in witnesses to our distress. No that my master is fellow to help the weaker side.—And you, sirrah,” con- in mair than present pinch, sir,” he added, looking to- tinued Master George, addressing his countryman, “will wards the two English apprentices, “having a large sum call at my house to-morrow morning, agreeable to this in the Royal Treasury—that is,” he continued, in a whis- direction.” per to Master George,—“the king is owing him a lot of “I will wait upon your honour,” said the Scot, bowing siller; but it’s ill getting at it, it’s like.—My master is very low; “that is, if my honourable master will permit the young Lord Glenvarloch.” me.” Master George testified surprise at the name.—“You “Thy master?” said George,—“Hast thou any other one of the young Lord Glenvarloch’s followers, and in master save Want, whose livery you say you wear?” such a condition?” “Troth, in one sense, if it please your honour, I serve “Troth, and I am all the followers he has, for the twa masters,” said Richie; “for both my master and me present that is; and blithe wad I be if he were muckle are slaves to that same beldam, whom we thought to better aff than I am, though I were to bide as I am.” show our heels to by coming off from Scotland. So that “I have seen his father with four gentlemen and ten you see, sir, I hold in a sort of black ward tenure, as we lackeys at his heels,” said Master George, “rustling in call it in our country, being the servant of a servant.” their laces and velvets. Well, this is a changeful world, “And what is your master’s name?” said Master but there is a better beyond it.—The good old house of George; and observing that Richie hesitated, he added, Glenvarloch, that stood by king and country five hun- “Nay, do not tell me, if it is a secret.” dred years!” “A secret that there is little use in keeping,” said Richie; “Your honour may say a thousand,” said the follower. “only ye ken that our northern stomachs are ower proud “I will say what I know to be true, friend,” said the

53 The Fortunes of Nigel citizen, “and not a word more.—You seem well recov- “I will take care of that now, sir,” said Richie, with a ered now—can you walk?” look of importance, “having a charge about me. And “Bravely, sir,” said Richie; “it was but a bit dover. I so, wussing ye a’ weel, with special thanks to these twa was bred at the West-Port, and my cantle will stand a young gentlemen—” clour wad bring a stot down.” “I am no gentleman,” said Jenkin, flinging his cap on “Where does your master lodge?” his head; “I am a tight London ‘prentice, and hope to “We pit up, an it like your honour,” replied the Scot, be a freeman one day. Frank may write himself gentle- “in a sma’ house at the fit of ane of the wynds that man, if he will.” gang down to the water-side, with a decent man, John “I was a gentleman once,” said Tunstall, “and I hope Christie, a ship-chandler, as they ca’t. His father came I have done nothing to lose the name of one.” from Dundee. I wotna the name of the wynd, but it’s “Weel, weel, as ye list,” said Richie Moniplies; “but I right anent the mickle kirk yonder; and your honour am mickle beholden to ye baith—and I am not a hair will mind, that we pass only by our family-name of the less like to bear it in mind that I say but little about simple Mr. Nigel Olifaunt, as keeping ourselves retired it just now.—Gude-night to you, my kind countryman.” for the present, though in Scotland we be called the Lord So saying, he thrust out of the sleeve of his ragged dou- Nigel.” blet a long bony hand and arm, on which the muscles “It is wisely done of your master,” said the citizen. “I rose like whip-cord. Master George shook it heartily, will find out your lodgings, though your direction be while Jenkin and Frank exchanged sly looks with each none of the clearest.” So saying, and slipping a piece of other. money at the same time into Richie Moniplies’s hand, Richie Moniplies would next have addressed his thanks he bade him hasten home, and get into no more affrays. to the master of the shop, but seeing him, as he after-

54 Sir Walter Scott wards said, “scribbling on his bit bookie, as if he were knave is stout—should have no better companion than demented,” he contented his politeness with “giving him this swaggering braggadocio humour.—But you mark a hat,” touching, that is, his bonnet, in token of saluta- me not, friend Davie.” tion, and so left the shop. “I do—I do, most heedfully,” said Davie.—“For, as “Now, there goes Scotch Jockey, with all his bad and the sun goeth round the dial-plate in twenty-four hours, good about him,” said Master George to Master David, add, for the moon, fifty minutes and a half—” who suspended, though unwillingly, the calculations “You are in the seventh heavens, man,” said his com- with which he was engaged, and keeping his pen within panion. an inch of the tablets, gazed on his friend with great “I crave your pardon,” replied Davie.—“Let the wheel lack-lustre eyes, which expressed any thing rather than A go round in twenty-four hours—I have it—and the intelligence or interest in the discourse addressed to wheel B in twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half— him.—“That fellow,” proceeded Master George, with- fifty-seven being to fifty-four, as fifty-nine to twenty- out heeding his friend’s state of abstraction, “shows, four hours, fifty minutes and a half, or very nearly,—I with great liveliness of colouring, how our Scotch pride crave your forgiveness, Master George, and heartily wish and poverty make liars and braggarts of us; and yet the you good-even.” knave, whose every third word to an Englishman is a “Good-even?” said Master George; “why, you have not boastful lie, will, I warrant you, be a true and tender wished me good-day yet. Come, old friend, lay by these friend and follower to his master, and has perhaps parted tablets, or you will crack the inner machinery of your with his mantle to him in the cold blast, although he skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case of his himself walked in cuerpo, as the Don says.—Strange! damaged.—Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with that courage and fidelity—for I will warrant that the you so easily. I came to get my four hours’ nunchion

55 The Fortunes of Nigel from you, man, besides a tune on the lute from my god- “But hark ye, Jenkin,” said Tunstall, “I think you are daughter, Mrs. Marget.” but half-bred English yourself. How came you to strike “Good faith! I was abstracted, Master George—but on the Scotsman’s side after all?” you know me. Whenever I get amongst the wheels,” said “Why, you did so, too,” answered Vincent. Mr. Ramsay, “why, ’tis—” “Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no “Lucky that you deal in small ones,” said his friend; Cumberland fashion to fall fifty upon one,” replied as, awakened from his reveries and calculations, Ramsay Tunstall. led the way up a little back-stair to the first storey, oc- “And no Christ Church fashion neither,” said Jenkin. cupied by his daughter and his little household. “Fair play and Old England for ever!—Besides, to tell The apprentices resumed their places in the front-shop, you a secret, his voice had a twang in it—in the dialect and relieved Sam Porter; when Jenkin said to Tunstall— I mean—reminded me of a little tongue, which I think ”Didst see, Frank, how the old goldsmith cottoned in sweeter—sweeter than the last toll of St. Dunstan’s will with his beggarly countryman? When would one of his sound, on the day that I am shot of my indentures— wealth have shaken hands so courteously with a poor Ha!—you guess who I mean, Frank?” Englishman?—Well, I’ll say that for the best of the “Not I, indeed,” answered Tunstall.—“Scotch Janet, Scots, that they will go over head and ears to serve a I suppose, the laundress.” countryman, when they will not wet a nail of their fin- “Off with Janet in her own bucking-basket!—No, no, ger to save a Southron, as they call us, from drowning. no!—You blind buzzard,—do you not know I mean And yet Master George is but half-bred Scot neither in pretty Mrs. Marget?” that respect; for I have known him do many a kind thing “Umph!” answered Tunstall, dryly. to the English too.” A flash of anger, not unmingled with suspicion, shot

56 Sir Walter Scott 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?” CHAPTER III “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, Bobadil. I pray you, possess no gallant of your acquain- “that may be the fashion of you gentlefolks, that are tance with a knowledge of my lodging. taught from your biggin to carry two faces under the same hood, but it shall never be mine.” Master Matthew. Who, I, sir?—Lord, sir! “There are the stairs, then,” said Tunstall, coolly; “go Ben Jonson. 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 THE NEXT MORNING found Nigel Olifaunt, the young Lord fool as that neither. But I will take my own time; and all of Glenvarloch, seated, sad and solitary, in his little the Counts in Cumberland shall not cut my comb, and apartment, in the mansion of John Christie, the ship- this is that which you may depend upon.” chandler; which that honest tradesman, in gratitude Francis made no reply; and they resumed their usual perhaps to the profession from which he derived his chief attention to the business of the shop, and their usual support, appeared to have constructed as nearly as pos- solicitations to the passengers. sible 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

57 The Fortunes of Nigel that part of the city was swept away by the Great Fire pletely, but that the honest ship-chandler could form a in 1666, constituted an extraordinary labyrinth of small, guess that his guest’s quality was superior to his ap- dark, damp, and unwholesome streets and alleys, in one pearance. corner or other of which the plague was then as surely As for Dame Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laugh- found lurking, as in the obscure corners of ter-loving dame, with black eyes, a tight well-laced bod- Constantinople in our own time. But John Christie’s ice, a green apron, and a red petticoat edged with a slight house looked out upon the river, and had the advan- silver lace, and judiciously shortened so as to show that tage, therefore, of free air, impregnated, however, with a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon her the odoriferous fumes of the articles in which the ship- well-burnished shoe,—she, of course, felt interest in a chandler dealt, with the odour of pitch, and the natural young man, who, besides being very handsome, good- scent of the ooze and sludge left by the reflux of the humoured, and easily satisfied with the accommodations tide. her house afforded, was evidently of a rank, as well as Upon the whole, except that his dwelling did not float manners, highly superior to the skippers (or Captains, with the flood-tide, and become stranded with the ebb, as they called themselves) of merchant vessels, who were the young lord was nearly as comfortably accommodated the usual tenants of the apartments which she let to as he was while on board the little trading brig from the hire; and at whose departure she was sure to find her long town of Kirkaldy, in Fife, by which he had come a well-scrubbed floor soiled with the relics of tobacco, passenger to London. He received, however, every at- (which, spite of King James’s Counterblast, was then tention which could be paid him by his honest landlord, forcing itself into use,) and her best curtains impreg- John Christie; for Richie Moniplies had not thought it nated with the odour of Geneva and strong waters, to necessary to preserve his master’s incognito so com- Dame Nelly’s great indignation; for, as she truly said,

58 Sir Walter Scott the smell of the shop and warehouse was bad enough country, an overweening sense of the pride of birth, and without these additions. a disposition to value the worth and consequence of But all Mr. Olifaunt’s habits were regular and cleanly, others according to the number and the fame of their and his address, though frank and simple, showed so deceased ancestors; but this pride of family was well much of the courtier and gentleman, as formed a strong subdued, and in general almost entirely concealed, by contrast with the loud halloo, coarse jests, and boister- his good sense and general courtesy. ous impatience of her maritime inmates. Dame Nelly Such as we have described him, Nigel Olifaunt, or saw that her guest was melancholy also, notwithstand- rather the young Lord Glenvarloch, was, when our nar- ing his efforts to seem contented and cheerful; and, in rative takes him up, under great perplexity respecting short, she took that sort of interest in him, without be- the fate of his trusty and only follower, Richard ing herself aware of the extent, which an unscrupulous Moniplies, who had been dispatched by his young mas- gallant might have been tempted to improve to the preju- ter, early the preceding morning, as far as the court at dice of honest John, who was at least a score of years Westminster, but had not yet returned. His evening ad- older than his helpmate. Olifaunt, however, had not only ventures the reader is already acquainted with, and so other matters to think of, but would have regarded such far knows more of Richie than did his master, who had an intrigue, had the idea ever occurred to him, as an not heard of him for twenty-four hours. abominable and ungrateful encroachment upon the laws Dame Nelly Christie, in the meantime, regarded her of hospitality, his religion having been by his late fa- guest with some anxiety, and a great desire to comfort ther formed upon the strict principles of the national him, if possible. She placed on the breakfast-table a faith, and his morality upon those of the nicest honour. noble piece of cold powdered beef, with its usual guards He had not escaped the predominant weakness of his of turnip and carrot, recommended her mustard as com-

59 The Fortunes of Nigel ing direct from her cousin at Tewkesbury, and spiced better of me—but he is a thriving man and a kind hus- the toast with her own hands—and with her own hands, band—and his father, as I was saying, died as fat as a also, drew a jug of stout and nappy ale, all of which church-warden. Well, sir, but I hope I have not offended were elements of the substantial breakfast of the pe- you for my little joke—and I hope the ale is to your riod. honour’s liking,—and the beef—and the mustard?” When she saw that her guest’s anxiety prevented him “All excellent—all too good,” answered Olifaunt; “you from doing justice to the good cheer which she set be- have every thing so clean and tidy, dame, that I shall fore him, she commenced her career of verbal consola- not know how to live when I go back to my own coun- tion with the usual volubility of those women in her try—if ever I go back there.” station, who, conscious of good looks, good intentions, This was added as it seemed involuntarily, and with a and good lungs, entertain no fear either of wearying deep sigh. themselves or of fatiguing their auditors. “I warrant your honour go back again if you like it,” “Now, what the good year! are we to send you down to said the dame: “unless you think rather of taking a pretty Scotland as thin as you came up?—I am sure it would well-dowered English lady, as some of your countryfolk be contrary to the course of nature. There was my have done. I assure you, some of the best of the city have goodman’s father, old Sandie Christie, I have heard he married Scotsmen. There was Lady Trebleplumb, Sir was an atomy when he came up from the North, and I Thomas Trebleplumb the great Turkey merchant’s widow, am sure he died, Saint Barnaby was ten years, at twenty married Sir Awley Macauley, whom your honour knows, stone weight. I was a bare-headed girl at the time, and doubtless; and pretty Mistress Doublefee, old Sergeant lived in the neighbourhood, though I had little thought Doublefee’s daughter, jumped out of window, and was of marrying John then, who had a score of years the married at May-fair to a Scotsman with a hard name;

60 Sir Walter Scott and old Pitchpost the timber merchant’s daughters did On this occasion she denied stoutly that Richie had little better, for they married two Irishmen; and when been absent altogether twenty hours; and as for people folks jeer me about having a Scotsman for lodger, mean- being killed in the streets of London, to be sure two ing your honour, I tell them they are afraid of their daugh- men had been found in Tower-ditch last week, but that ters and their mistresses; and sure I have a right to stand was far to the east, and the other poor man that had his up for the Scots, since John Christie is half a Scotsman, throat cut in the fields, had met his mishap near by and a thriving man, and a good husband, though there is Islington; and he that was stabbed by the young Templar a score of years between us; and so I would have your in a drunken frolic, by Saint Clement’s in the Strand, honour cast care away, and mend your breakfast with a was an Irishman. All which evidence she produced to morsel and a draught.” show that none of these casualties had occurred in a “At a word, my kind hostess, I cannot,” said Olifaunt; case exactly parallel with that of Richie, a Scotsman, “I am anxious about this knave of mine, who has been and on his return from Westminster. so long absent in this dangerous town of yours.” “My better comfort is, my good dame,” answered It may be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly’s ordi- Olifaunt, “that the lad is no brawler or quarreller, un- nary mode of consolation was to disprove the existence less strongly urged, and that he has nothing valuable of any cause for distress; and she is said to have carried about him to any one but me.” this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who had lost her “Your honour speaks very well,” retorted the inex- husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would haustible hostess, who protracted her task of taking be better to-morrow, which perhaps might not have away, and putting to rights, in order that she might pro- proved an appropriate, even if it had been a possible, long her gossip. “I’ll uphold Master Moniplies to be nei- mode of relief. ther reveller nor brawler, for if he liked such things, he

61 The Fortunes of Nigel might be visiting and junketing with the young folks small cup, not so large as my thimble, of distilled wa- about here in the neighbourhood, and he never dreams ters, to fortify his stomach against the damps, and it of it; and when I asked the young man to go as far as was directed to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty; and my gossip’s, Dame Drinkwater, to taste a glass of ani- so doubtless his Majesty has kept Richie out of civility seed, and a bit of the groaning cheese,—for Dame to consider of your honour’s letter, and send back a fit- Drinkwater has had twins, as I told your honour, sir,— ting reply.” and I meant it quite civilly to the young man, but he Dame Nelly here hit by chance on a more available chose to sit and keep house with John Christie; and I topic of consolation than those she had hitherto touched dare say there is a score of years between them, for your upon; for the youthful lord had himself some vague honour’s servant looks scarce much older than I am. I hopes that his messenger might have been delayed at wonder what they could have to say to each other. I Court until a fitting and favourable answer should be asked John Christie, but he bid me go to sleep.” dispatched back to him. Inexperienced, however, in pub- “If he comes not soon,” said his master, “I will thank lic affairs as he certainly was, it required only a moment’s you to tell me what magistrate I can address myself to; consideration to convince him of the improbability of for besides my anxiety for the poor fellow’s safety, he an expectation so contrary to all he had heard of eti- has papers of importance about him.” quette, as well as the dilatory proceedings in a “O! your honour may be assured he will be back in a court suit, and he answered the good-natured hostess quarter of an hour,” said Dame Nelly; “he is not the lad with a sigh, that he doubted whether the king would to stay out twenty-four hours at a stretch. And for the even look on the paper addressed to him, far less take it papers, I am sure your honour will pardon him for just into his immediate consideration. giving me a peep at the corner, as I was giving him a “Now, out upon you for a faint-hearted gentleman!”

62 Sir Walter Scott said the good dame; “and why should he not do as much sitting alderman, that is always at the Guildhall, which for us as our gracious Queen Elizabeth? Many people is close by Paul’s, and so I warrant you he puts all to say this and that about a queen and a king, but I think rights in the city that wisdom can mend; and for the a king comes more natural to us English folks; and this rest there is no help but patience. But I wish I were as good gentleman goes as often down by water to Green- sure of forty pounds as I am that the young man will wich, and employs as many of the barge-men and wa- come back safe and sound.” ter-men of all kinds; and maintains, in his royal grace, Olifaunt, in great and anxious doubt of what the good John Taylor, the water-poet, who keeps both a sculler dame so strongly averred, flung his cloak on one shoul- and a pair of oars. And he has made a comely Court at der, and was about to belt on his rapier, when first the Whitehall, just by the river; and since the king is so good voice of Richie Moniplies on the stair, and then that faith- a friend to the Thames, I cannot see, if it please your ful emissary’s appearance in the chamber, put the matter honour, why all his subjects, and your honour in spe- beyond question. Dame Nelly, after congratulating cialty, should not have satisfaction by his hands.” Moniplies on his return, and paying several compliments “True, dame—true,—let us hope for the best; but I to her own sagacity for having foretold it, was at length must take my cloak and rapier, and pray your husband pleased to leave the apartment. The truth was, that, bein courtesy to teach me the way to a magistrate.” sides some instinctive feelings of good breeding which “Sure, sir,” said the prompt dame, “I can do that as combated her curiosity, she saw there was no chance of well as he, who has been a slow man of his tongue all his Richie’s proceeding in his narrative while she was in the life, though I will give him his due for being a loving room, and she therefore retreated, trusting that her own husband, and a man as well to pass in the world as any address would get the secret out of one or other of the betwixt us and the top of the lane. And so there is the young men, when she should have either by himself.

63 The Fortunes of Nigel “Now, in Heaven’s name, what is the matter?” said “And at what o’clock might this be?” said Nigel. Nigel Olifaunt.—“Where have you been, or what have “The twa iron carles yonder, at the kirk beside the Port, you been about? You look as pale as death. There is blood were just banging out sax o’ the clock.” on your hand, and your clothes are torn. What barns- “And why came you not home as soon as you recov- breaking have you been at? You have been drunk, Rich- ered?” said Nigel. ard, and fighting.” “In troth, my lord, every why has its wherefore, and “Fighting I have been,” said Richard, “in a small way; this has a gude ane,” answered his follower. “To come but for being drunk, that’s a job ill to manage in this hame, I behoved to ken whare hame was; now, I had town, without money to come by liquor; and as for barns- clean tint the name of the wynd, and the mair I asked, breaking, the deil a thing’s broken but my head. It’s not the mair the folk leugh, and the farther they sent me made of iron, I wot, nor my claithes of chenzie-mail; so a wrang; sae I gave it up till God should send daylight to club smashed the tane, and a claught damaged the tither. help me; and as I saw mysell near a kirk at the lang run, Some misleard rascals abused my country, but I think I I e’en crap in to take up my night’s quarters in the cleared the causey of them. However, the haill hive was kirkyard.” ower mony for me at last, and I got this eclipse on the “In the churchyard?” said Nigel—“But I need not ask crown, and then I was carried, beyond my kenning, to a what drove you to such a pinch.” sma’ booth at the Temple Port, whare they sell the whirli- “It wasna sae much the want o’ siller, my Lord Nigel,” gigs and mony-go-rounds that measure out time as a man said Richie, with an air of mysterious importance, “for wad measure a tartan web; and then they bled me, wold I was no sae absolute without means, of whilk mair I nold I, and were reasonably civil, especially an auld coun- anon; but I thought I wad never ware a saxpence ster- try-man of ours, of whom more hereafter.” ling on ane of their saucy chamberlains at a hostelry,

64 Sir Walter Scott sae lang as I could sleep fresh and fine in a fair, dry, by me but a slash of my Andrew Ferrara, they bid me spring night. Mony a time, when I hae come hame ower good-night for a beggarly Scot; and I was e’en weel late, and faund the West-Port steekit, and the waiter pleased to be sae cheap rid of them. And in the morn- ill-willy, I have garr’d the sexton of Saint Cuthbert’s ing, I cam daikering here, but sad wark I had to find the calf-ward serve me for my quarters. But then there are way, for I had been east as far as the place they ca’ Mile- dainty green graffs in Saint Cuthbert’s kirkyard, whare End, though it is mair like sax-mile-end.” ane may sleep as if they were in a down-bed, till they “Well, Richie,” answered Nigel, “I am glad all this has hear the lavrock singing up in the air as high as the ended so well—go get something to eat. I am sure you Castle; whereas, and behold, these London kirkyards are need it.” causeyed with through-stanes, panged hard and fast “In troth do I, sir,” replied Moniplies; “but, with your thegither; and my cloak being something threadbare, lordship’s leave—” made but a thin mattress, so I was fain to give up my “Forget the lordship for the present, Richie, as I have bed before every limb about me was crippled. Dead folks often told you before.” may sleep yonder sound enow, but deil haet else.” “Faith,” replied Richie, “I could weel forget that your “And what became of you next?” said his master. honour was a lord, but then I behoved to forget that I “I just took to a canny bulkhead, as they ca’ them am a lord’s man, and that’s not so easy. But, however,” here; that is, the boards on the tap of their bits of he added, assisting his description with the thumb and outshots of stalls and booths, and there I sleepit as sound the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after as if I was in a castle. Not but I was disturbed with the fashion of a bird’s claw, while the little finger and some of the night-walking queans and swaggering bil- ring-finger were closed upon the palm, “to the Court I lies, but when they found there was nothing to be got went, and my friend that promised me a sight of his

65 The Fortunes of Nigel Majesty’s most gracious presence, was as gude as his “Weel, my lord,” said Richie, “I did not tell you his name word, and carried me into the back offices, where I got and quality at first, because I thought you would be af- the best breakfast I have had since we came here, and it fronted at the like of him having to do in your lordship’s did me gude for the rest of the day; for as to what I have affairs. But mony a man climbs up in Court by waur help. eaten in this accursed town, it is aye sauced with the It was just Laurie Linklater, one of the yeomen of the disquieting thought that it maun be paid for. After a’, kitchen, that was my father’s apprentice lang syne.” there was but beef banes and fat brose; but king’s cauff, “A yeoman in the kitchen—a scullion!” exclaimed Lord your honour kens, is better than ither folk’s corn; at ony Nigel, pacing the room in displeasure. rate, it was a’ in free awmous.—But I see,” he added, “But consider, sir,” said Richie, composedly, “that a’ stopping short, “that your honour waxes impatient.” your great friends hung back, and shunned to own you, “By no means, Richie,” said the young nobleman, with or to advocate your petition; and then, though I am sure an air of resignation, for he well knew his domestic would I wish Laurie a higher office, for your lordship’s sake not mend his pace for goading; “you have suffered and for mine, and specially for his ain sake, being a enough in the embassy to have a right to tell the story friendly lad, yet your lordship must consider, that a scul- in your own way. Only let me pray for the name of the lion, if a yeoman of the king’s most royal kitchen may friend who was to introduce you into the king’s pres- be called a scullion, may weel rank with a master-cook ence. You were very mysterious on the subject, when elsewhere; being that king’s cauff, as I said before, is you undertook, through his means, to have the Suppli- better than—” cation put into his Majesty’s own hands, since those sent “You are right, and I was wrong,” said the young noble- heretofore, I have every reason to think, went no far- man. “I have no choice of means of making my case ther than his secretary’s.” known, so that they be honest.”

66 Sir Walter Scott “Laurie is as honest a lad as ever lifted a ladle,” said I could not but think your lordship’s Sifflication could Richie; “not but what I dare to say he can lick his fin- not be less than most acceptable; and so I banged in gers like other folk, and reason good. But, in fine, for I among the crowd of lords. Laurie thought me mad, and see your honour is waxing impatient, he brought me to held me by the cloak-lap till the cloth rave in his hand; the palace, where a’ was astir for the king going out to and so I banged in right before the king just as he hunt or hawk on Blackheath, I think they ca’d it. And mounted, and crammed the Sifflication into his hand, there was a horse stood with all the quarries about it, a and he opened it like in amaze; and just as he saw the bonny grey as ever was foaled; and the saddle and the first line, I was minded to make a reverence, and I had stirrups, and the curb and bit, o’ burning gowd, or sil- the ill luck to hit his jaud o’ a beast on the nose with my ver gilded at least; and down, sir, came the king, with all hat, and scaur the creature, and she swarved aside, and his nobles, dressed out in his hunting-suit of green, dou- the king, that sits na mickle better than a draff-pock on bly laced, and laid down with gowd. I minded the very the saddle, was like to have gotten a clean coup, and face o’ him, though it was lang since I saw him. But my that might have cost my craig a raxing-and he flung certie, lad, thought I, times are changed since ye came down the paper amang the beast’s feet, and cried, ‘Away fleeing down the back stairs of auld Holyrood House, wi’ the fause loon that brought it!’ And they grippit in grit fear, having your breeks in your hand without me, and cried treason; and I thought of the Ruthvens time to put them on, and Frank Stewart, the wild Earl that were dirked in their ain house, for, it may be, as of Bothwell, hard at your haunches; and if auld Lord small a forfeit. However, they spak only of scourging Glenvarloch hadna cast his mantle about his arm, and me, and had me away to the porter’s lodge to try the taken bluidy wounds mair than ane in your behalf, you tawse on my back, and I was crying mercy as loud as I wald not have craw’d sae crouse this day; and so saying, could; and the king, when he had righted himself on the

67 The Fortunes of Nigel saddle, and gathered his breath, cried to do me nae harm; ‘For,’ said he, ‘Richie, the king is a weel-natured and for, said he, he is ane of our ain Norland stots, I ken by just man of his ain kindly nature, but he has a wheen the rowt of him,—and they a’ laughed and rowted loud maggots that maun be cannily guided; and then, Richie,’ eneugh. And then he said, ‘Gie him a copy of the Proc- says he, in a very laigh tone, ‘I would tell it to nane but lamation, and let him go down to the North by the next a wise man like yoursell, but the king has them about light collier, before waur come o’t.’ So they let me go, him wad corrupt an angel from heaven; but I could have and rode out, a sniggering, laughing, and rounding in gi’en you avisement how to have guided him, but now ilk ither’s lugs. A sair life I had wi’ Laurie Linklater; for it’s like after meat mustard.’—‘Aweel, aweel, Laurie,’ he said it wad be the ruin of him. And then, when I told said I, ‘it may be as you say’, but since I am clear of the him it was in your matter, he said if he had known be- tawse and the porter’s lodge, sifflicate wha like, deil hae fore he would have risked a scauding for you, because he Richie Moniplies if he come sifflicating here again.’— minded the brave old lord, your father. And then he And so away I came, and I wasna far by the Temple showed how I suld have done,—and that I suld have Port, or Bar, or whatever they ca’ it, when I met with held up my hand to my brow, as if the grandeur of the the misadventure that I tauld you of before.” king and his horse-graith thegither had casten the glaiks “Well, my honest Richie,” said Lord Nigel, “your at- in my een, and mair jackanape tricks I suld hae played, tempt was well meant, and not so ill conducted, I think, instead of offering the Sifflication, he said, as if I had as to have deserved so bad an issue; but go to your beef been bringing guts to a bear.* *I am certain this prudential advice is not original on Mr. splendour of his furniture, saying, “Shall a king cumber him- Linklater’s part, but I am not at present able to produce my self about the petition of a beggar, while the beggar disre- authority. I think it amounted to this, that James flung down gards the king’s splendour?” It is, I think, Sir John a petition presented by some supplicant who paid no compli- Harrington who recommends, as a sure mode to the king’s ments to his horse, and expressed no admiration at the favour, to praise the paces of the royal palfrey. 68 Sir Walter Scott and mustard, and we’ll talk of the rest afterwards.” business I can meet at Paul’s, or in the Court of Re- “There is nae mair to be spoken, sir,” said his follower, quests.” “except that I met ane very honest, fair-spoken, weel- “This is steeking the stable-door when the steed is sto- put-on gentleman, or rather burgher, as I think, that was len,” thought Richie to himself; “but I must put him on in the whigmaleery man’s back-shop; and when he learned another pin.” wha I was, behold he was a kindly Scot himsell, and, what So thinking, he asked the young lord what was in the is more, a town’s-bairn o’ the gude town, and he behoved Proclamation which he still held folded in his hand; “for, to compel me to take this Portugal piece, to drink, having little time to spell at it,” said he, “your lordship forsooth—my certie, thought I, we ken better, for we will well knows I ken nought about it but the grand blazon eat it—and he spoke of paying your lordship a visit.” at the tap—the lion has gotten a claught of our auld “You did not tell him where I lived, you knave?” said Scottish shield now, but it was as weel upheld when it the Lord Nigel, angrily. “‘Sdeath! I shall have every had a unicorn on ilk side of it.” clownish burgher from Edinburgh come to gaze on my Lord Nigel read the Proclamation, and he coloured distress, and pay a shilling for having seen the motion deep with shame and indignation as he read; for the of the Poor Noble!” purport was, to his injured feelings, like the pouring of “Tell him where you lived?” said Richie, evading the ardent spirits upon a recent wound. question; “How could I tell him what I kendna mysell? “What deil’s in the paper, my lord?” said Richie, un- If I had minded the name of the wynd, I need not have able to suppress his curiosity as he observed his master slept in the kirkyard yestreen.” change colour; “I wadna ask such a thing, only the Proc- “See, then, that you give no one notice of our lodg- lamation is not a private thing, but is meant for a’ men’s ing,” said the young nobleman; “those with whom I have hearing.”

69 The Fortunes of Nigel “It is indeed meant for all men’s hearing,” replied Lord audacity with stripes, stocking, or incarceration, accord- Nigel, “and it proclaims the shame of our country, and ing to their demerits—that is to say, I suppose, accord- the ingratitude of our Prince.” ing to the degree of their poverty, for I see no other de- “Now the Lord preserve us! and to publish it in Lon- merit specified.” don, too!” ejaculated Moniplies. “This will scarcely,” said Richie, “square with our old “Hark ye, Richard,” said Nigel Olifaunt, “in this paper proverb— the Lords of the Council set forth, that, ‘in consideration of the resort of idle persons of low condition forth from A King’s face his Majesty’s kingdom of Scotland to his English Court— Should give grace— filling the same with their suits and supplications, and dishonouring the royal presence with their base, poor, and But what says the paper farther, my lord?” beggarly persons, to the disgrace of their country in the “O, only a small clause which especially concerns us, estimation of the English; these are to prohibit the skip- making some still heavier denunciations against those pers, masters of vessels and others, in every part of Scot- suitors who shall be so bold as to approach the Court, land, from bringing such miserable creatures up to Court under pretext of seeking payment of old debts due to under pain of fine and impisonment.”’ them by the king, which, the paper states, is, of all spe- “I marle the skipper took us on board,” said Richie. cies of importunity, that which is most odious to his “Then you need not marvel how you are to get back Majesty.” again,” said Lord Nigel, “for here is a clause which says, “The king has neighbours in that matter,” said Richie; that such idle suitors are to be transported back to Scot- “but it is not every one that can shift off that sort of land at his Majesty’s expense, and punished for their cattle so easily as he does.”

70 Sir Walter Scott 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. CHAPTER IV 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 de- Ay, sir, the clouted shoe hath oft times craft in’t, tected, he made his escape out of the apartment under As says the rustic proverb; and your citizen, pretext of going to his breakfast; and left their land- In’s grogram suit, gold chain, and well-black’d shoes, lady the task of ushering Master George into Lord Bears under his flat cap ofttimes a brain Nigel’s apartment, which she performed with much cour- Wiser than burns beneath the cap and feather, tesy. 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

71 The Fortunes of Nigel said, after a moment’s pause, during which he had looked importance, it is my duty,—it is my pleasure,—to wait attentively at the young man, with respect not on the son of my respected patron; and, as I am some- unmingled with emotion—“You will forgive me for this what known both at the Court, and in the city, to offer rudeness, my lord; but I was endeavouring to trace in him such aid in the furthering of his affairs as my credit your youthful countenance the features of my good old and experience may be able to afford.” lord, your excellent father.” “I have no doubt of either, Master Heriot,” said Lord There was a moment’s pause ere young Glenvarloch Nigel, “and I thank you heartily for the good-will with replied, still with a reserved manner,—“I have been reck- which you have placed them at a stranger’s disposal; oned like my father, sir; and am happy to see any one but my business at Court is done and ended, and I in- that respects his memory. But the business which calls tend to leave London and, indeed, the island, for foreign me to this city is of a hasty as well as a private nature, travel and military service. I may add, that the sudden- and—” ness of my departure occasions my having little time at “I understand the hint, my lord,” said Master George, my disposal.” “and would not be guilty of long detaining you from Master Heriot did not take the hint, but sat fast, with an business, or more agreeable conversation. My errand is embarrassed countenance however, like one who had some- almost done when I have said that my name is George thing to say that he knew not exactly how to make effec- Heriot, warmly befriended, and introduced into the tual. At length he said, with a dubious smile, “You are employment of the Royal Family of Scotland, more fortunate, my lord, in having so soon dispatched your busi- than twenty years since, by your excellent father; and ness at Court. Your talking landlady informs me you have that, learning from a follower of yours that your lord- been but a fortnight in this city. It is usually months and ship was in this city in prosecution of some business of years ere the Court and a suitor shake hands and part.”

72 Sir Walter Scott “My business,” said Lord Nigel, with a brevity which with surprise, saying, “I trust your lordship does not was intended to stop further discussion, “was summarily think this prohibition can extend either to your person dispatched.” or your claims?” “I should scarce have thought so my- Still Master Heriot remained seated, and there was a self,” said the young nobleman; “but so it proves. His cordial good-humour added to the reverence of his ap- Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased pearance, which rendered it impossible for Lord Nigel to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced “Your lordship has not yet had time,” said the citizen, by my father for the service of the State, in the king’s still attempting to sustain the conversation, “to visit utmost emergencies.” the places of amusement,—the playhouses, and other “It is impossible!” said the citizen—“it is absolutely places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship’s impossible!—If the king could forget what was due to hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece,* which your father’s memory, still he would not have wished— they hand about of late—May I ask what play?” would not, I may say, have dared—to be so flagrantly “Oh! a well-known piece,” said Lord Nigel, impatiently unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of been twisting to and fro in his hand,—“an excellent and the Scottish people.” “I should have been of your opin- well-approved piece—A New Way to Pay Old Debts.” ion,” answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; Master Heriot stooped down, saying, “Ah! my old ac- “but there is no fighting with facts.” quaintance, Philip Massinger;” but, having opened the “What was the tenor of this Supplication?” said He- paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel riot; “or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else—” * Meaning, probably, playbills. 73 The Fortunes of Nigel “You may see my original draught,” said the young “By your servant, my lord?” said the citizen; “he seems lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; “the a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely—” technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and “You would say,” said Lord Nigel, “he is no fit mes- sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with senger to a king’s presence?—Surely he is not; but what due deference and modesty.” could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no “Nothing,” he said, “can be more well-tempered and farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that petition with contempt?” would bring him to the king’s presence,—and so—” “He threw it down on the pavement,” said the Lord “I understand,” said Heriot; “but, my lord, why should of Glenvarloch, “and sent me for answer that Procla- you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared mation, in which he classes me with the paupers and at Court, and required an audience, which could not have mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in been denied to you?” the eyes of the proud English—that is all. Had not my The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he which was very plain; and, though in perfect good or- might never have seen the Court of England himself.” der, had the appearance of having seen service. “But by whom was this Supplication presented, my “I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the lord?” said Heriot; “for the distaste taken at the mes- truth,” he said, after a momentary hesitation,—“I had senger will sometimes extend itself to the message.” no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am deter- “By my servant,” said the Lord Nigel; “by the man mined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; you saw, and, I think, were kind to.” and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the

74 Sir Walter Scott palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along “Weel, weel, weel,” replied the domestic, somewhat with those who are in very deed pleading their neces- embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery—“though I think sity, and begging an alms.” that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel “That had been, indeed, unseemly,” said the citizen; “but serve ony ane else.” yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be “Pages lie to their masters by right of custom,” said some mistake.—Can I speak with your domestic?” the citizen; “and you write yourself in that band, though “I see little good it can do,” answered the young lord, I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but “but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sin- to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it cere, and therefore—” He stamped on the floor, and in a end in the whipping-post.” few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from “And that’s e’en a bad resting-place,” said the well- his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the grown page; “so come away with your questions, Mas- froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had ter George.” been employed.—“Will your lordship grant permission,” “Well, then,” demanded the citizen, “I am given to said Heriot, “that I ask your groom a few questions?” understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty’s “His lordship’s page, Master George,” answered hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, “if you are lord, your master.” minded to speak according to the letter.” “Troth, there’s nae gainsaying that, sir,” replied “Hold your saucy tongue,” said his master, “and re- Moniplies; “there were enow to see it besides me.” ply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked.” “And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him “And truly, if it like your pageship,” said the citizen, with contempt?” said the citizen. “Take heed, for I have “for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset.” means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to

75 The Fortunes of Nigel the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than “A supplication of your own, you varlet!” said his mas- tell a leasing where his Majesty’s name is concerned.” ter. “There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the “Ou dear, ay, my lord,” said Richie—“puir bodies hae matter,” answered Moniplies, firmly; “his Majesty e’en their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters.” flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers.” “And pray, what might your worshipful petition im- “You hear, sir,” said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. port?” said Master Heriot.—“Nay, for Heaven’s sake, “Hush!” said the sagacious citizen; “this fellow is not my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the ill named—he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, truth of this strange matter.—Speak out, sirrah, and I fellow,” for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about fin- will stand your friend with my lord.” ishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards “It’s a lang story to tell—but the upshot is, that it’s a the door, “answer me this farther question—When you scrape of an auld accompt due to my father’s yestate by gave your master’s petition to his Majesty, gave you her Majesty the king’s maist gracious mother, when she nothing with it?” lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and fur- “Ou, what should I give wi’ it, ye ken, Master George?” nishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an “That is what I desire and insist to know,” replied his honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it interrogator. will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit “Weel, then—I am not free to say, that maybe I might convenience to me to receive the saam.” not just slip into the king’s hand a wee bit Sifflication “What string of impertinence is this?” said his mas- of mine ain, along with my lord’s—just to save his Maj- ter. esty trouble—and that he might consider them baith at “Every word as true as e’er John Knox spoke,” said ance.” Richie; “here’s the bit double of the Sifflication.”

76 Sir Walter Scott Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow’s “And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave,” said hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth—“‘Hum- Nigel; “am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your bly showeth—um—um—his Majesty’s maist gracious pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns mother—um—um—justly addebted and owing the sum with mine?” of fifteen merks—the compt whereof followeth—Twelve “Nay, nay, nay, my lord,” said the good-humoured citi- nowte’s feet for jellies—ane lamb, being Christmas— zen, interposing, “I have been the means of bringing ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when the fellow’s blunder to light—allow me interest enough my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.’—I think, with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you Page, that you took care to present your own Supplica- will have the better service of him another time, if you tion before your master’s?” overlook this fault—Get you gone, sirrah—I’ll make “Troth did I not,” answered Moniplies. “I thought to your peace.” have given my lord’s first, as was reason gude; and be- “Na, na,” said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, sides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little “if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure bill. But what wi’ the dirdum an’ confusion, an’ the love, for I think there has been little servant’s fee be- loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I tween us, a’ the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by- doing, and see the credit he will get by it—and I would jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) was aught wrang, I am sure I had a’ the fright and a’ stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e’er be said a the risk—” stranger came between us.”

77 The Fortunes of Nigel “Go, then,” said his master, “and get out of my sight.” when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good “Aweel I wot that is sune done,” said Moniplies, retir- lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, ing slowly; “I did not come without I had been ca’d for— for you see yourself how it may chance to fall.” and I wad have been away half an hour since with my “It is but too evident, Master Heriot,” said the young gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his nobleman; “and I am sorry I have done injustice to my interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a’ this stir.” sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scots- And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much man, wise behind hand—the mistake has happened— rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource has done wrong. is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies “There never was a man so plagued as I am with a and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle- malapert knave!—The fellow is shrewd, and I have found front like my ancestors.” him faithful—I believe he loves me, too, and he has given “It were better to live and serve your country like your proofs of it—but then he is so uplifted in his own con- noble father, my lord,” replied Master George. “Nay, nay, ceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems never look down or shake your head—the king has not to become the master and I the man; and whatever blun- refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it—you der he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with his subjects—ay, my lord, and I will say that his natu- himself.” ral temper doth in this hold bias with his duty.” “Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless,” said “I were well pleased to think so, and yet—” said Nigel the citizen; “for believe my grey hairs, that affection Olifaunt,—“I speak not of my own wrongs, but my and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than country hath many that are unredressed.”

78 Sir Walter Scott “My lord,” said Master Heriot, “I speak of my royal and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when master, not only with the respect due from a subject— I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was inter- with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The ested in your lordship’s fortunes. It was last night only king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of jus- that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, tice even; but there are those around him who can throw in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some in- without detection their own selfish wishes and base information respecting the impediments to your suit.” terests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, “Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may and without your knowing it.” be merited,” answered Nigel, still with some reserve; “yet “I am surprised, Master Heriot,” said the young lord, I hardly know how I have deserved this interest.” “to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if “First let me satisfy you that it is real,” said the citi- you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs.” zen; “I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the “My lord,” replied the goldsmith, “the nature of my fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of so- employment affords me direct access to the interior of ciety, when you have met so little friendship from rela- the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues tions, and those of your own rank, bound to have as- or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeav- sisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is oured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on a mortgage over your father’s extensive estate, to the the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hear- Campvere.” ing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, “I know nothing of a mortgage,” said the young lord;

79 The Fortunes of Nigel “but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unre- lor wept when I took leave of him—called me his deemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole pater- cousin—even his son—furnished me with letters, and, nal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value— though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused and it is for that very reason that I press the king’s gov- himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging ernment for a settlement of the debts due to my father, the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I can- that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapa- not believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far.” cious creditor.” “I am not, it is true, of noble blood,” said the citizen; “A wadset in Scotland,” said Heriot, “is the same with “but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not what can be my interest in dishonouring them with false- acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator hood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, un- had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor’s letters?” der cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate “None,” said Nigel Olifaunt, “except cold deeds and himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third fair words. I have thought for some time, their only ob- party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to ject was to get rid of me—one yesterday pressed money take possession, and when the odium of the transaction on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of might not want the means of exiling myself.” Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his “Right,” said Heriot; “rather than you fled not, they obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal.” similar device.” “I will to him this instant,” said the incensed youth, “Can this be possible?” said Lord Nigel; “the Chancel- “and tell him my mind of his baseness.”

80 Sir Walter Scott “Under your favour,” said Heriot, detaining him, “you friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to of me your informer; and though I would venture half accept it at the hands of a stranger.” my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would “We are, I trust, no longer such,” said the goldsmith; hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of “and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves suc- no service to you.” cessful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall The word shop sounded harshly in the ear of the young order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot.” nobleman, who replied hastily—“Damage, sir?—so far “You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot,” am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to said Lord Nigel. Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving “I do not fear that,” replied the goldsmith; “and I am one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting!” glad to see you smile, my lord—methinks it makes you “Leave me alone for that,” said the citizen: “you have look still more like the good old lord your father; and it now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request— this Supplication—I will have it suitably engrossed, and that you would take a homely dinner with me to-mor- take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for plac- row. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, ing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a your follower, in the king’s hand—I will almost answer dish of beef collops for auld Scotland’s sake, and it may for his taking up the matter as you would have him— be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scot- but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up land and England were one nation—Then for company, the good cause.” one or two of our own loving countrymen—and maybe “Sir,” said the young nobleman, “your speech is so my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so.”

81 The Fortunes of Nigel “I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot,” said “Master Heriot,” said the Lord Nigel, “your favour is Nigel, “but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must man gallant—I would not like to let down a Scottish presume that you see your way through this business, nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur bravery for the present.” debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will there- “My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther,” said fore take your money, under the hope and trust that Master George. “I—I owed your father some monies; you will enable me to repay you punctually.” and—nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall “I will convince you, my lord,” said the goldsmith, never tell my story—and, to speak plainly, for I never “that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom could carry a lie well through in my life—it is most fit- I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your ting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. monies, and an obligation to content and repay me.” I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his are settled.” cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred “And if they are never favourably settled?” said Nigel. pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodi- “Then, my lord,” returned the citizen, “the miscar- cally upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help inti- riage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, mating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and compared with other subjects of regret.” that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his

82 Sir Walter Scott obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man’s ’therewithal the water stood in his eyes,’ “it has pleased forms of transacting business. God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one “Bear with me,” he said, “my good lord,—we citizens adopted shild who ives—Ah! woe is me! and well-a- are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my day!—But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth good name for ever within the toll of Paul’s, were I to God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.—I wish you good-mor- bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right row, my lord.” now—and, body of me,” he said, looking out at the win- “One orphan has cause to thank you already,” said dow, “yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one escape. in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your cas- As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where ket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries easy rate with one that has held thousands;—it was the after her husband. The dame of course regretted his good old Sir Faithful Frugal’s;—his spendthrift son sold absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle the shell when he had eaten the kernel—and there is the with a Dutch ship-master. end of a city-fortune.” “Our way of business, sir,” she said, “takes him much “I hope yours will make a better termination, Master from home, and my husband must be the slave of every Heriot,” said the Lord Nigel. tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum.” “I hope it will, my lord,” said the old man, with a “All business must be minded, dame,” said the gold- smile; “but,” to use honest John Bunyan’s phrase— smith. “Make my remembrances—George Heriot, of

83 The Fortunes of Nigel Lombard Street’s remembrances—to your goodman. I any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as have dealt with him—he is just and punctual—true to far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too.” time and engagements;—be kind to your noble guest, “Let your husband come to me, good dame,” said the and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was present to lie private and retired, there be those that somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. “The prov- care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so erb says, ‘House goes mad when women gad;’ and let that you may let me know by your husband, my good his lordship’s own man wait upon his master in his cham- dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught.” ber—it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow.” “And so he is a real lord after all?” said the good dame. “Good-morrow to your worship,” said the dame, some- “I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But what coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hear- why does he not go to Parliament, then?” ing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of “He will, dame,” answered Heriot, “to the Parliament his council, “Marry quep of your advice, for an old of Scotland, which is his own country.” Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and “Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then,” said the good dame; very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is “and that’s the thing makes him ashamed to take the well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now title, as they say.” as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, “Let him not hear you say so, dame,” replied the citi- with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, zen. as well as they do.” “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

84 Sir Walter Scott degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which CHAPTER V 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 Wherefore come ye not to court? piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which Certain ’tis the rarest sport; he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even There are silks and jewels glistening, to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon Prattling fools and wise men listening, his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his Bullies among brave men justling, way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and Beggars amongst nobles bustling; while one of his attendants carried under his arm the Low-breath’d talkers, minion lispers, piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two Cutting honest throats by whispers; gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of Wherefore come ye not to court? the police of the metropolis, that men were often as- Skelton swears ’tis glorious sport. saulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of Skelton Skeltonizeth. plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed fol- IT WAS NOT entirely out of parade that the benevolent lowers. And this custom, which was at first limited to citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle citizens of consideration, who, being understood to

85 The Fortunes of Nigel travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise he said aloud,—“I pray you, neighbour David, when are have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the you and I to have a settlement for the bullion where- street-robber. with I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with Theobald’s, and that other whirligig that you made for this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to ad- mind that you have been eight months behind-hand.” just his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with There is something so sharp and aigre in the demand his master; in consequence of which summons, the old of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, how- Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a ever inaccessible to other tones, can resist the applica- bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and tion. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in and answered in a pettish tone, “Wow, George, man, the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend what needs aw this din about sax score o’ pounds? Aw the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Maj- invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Mar- esty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi’ garet, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna to meet with a noble young countrymen, without re- gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their turning any answer. doors, as ye come to mine.” “I’ll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee,” mut- Heriot laughed, and replied, “Well, David, I see a de- tered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, mand of money is like a bucket of water about your

86 Sir Walter Scott ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And remember your bond, and use me not as you did when now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if my housewife had the sheep’s-head and the cock-a-leeky you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon.” pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, “She had the more credit by her cookery,” answered to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of David, now fully awake; “a sheep’s-head over-boiled, Glenvarloch?” were poison, according to our saying.” “The young Lord of Glenvarloch!” said the old mecha- “Well,” answered Master George, “but as there will be nist; “wi’ aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him no sheep’s-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a again. We have not met these forty years—he was twa dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you years before me at the humanity classes—he is a sweet may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo youth.” Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be “That was his father—his father—his father!—you old sure and bide tryste, Davie.” dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are,” answered the “That will I—I will be true as a chronometer,” said goldsmith. “A sweet youth he would have been by this Ramsay. time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, “I will not trust you, though,” replied Heriot.—”Hear the Lord Nigel.” you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress “His son!” said Ramsay; “maybe he will want some- Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in re- thing of a chronometer, or watch—few gallants care to membrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and be without them now-a-days.” to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they “He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes are to meet a brave young Scots lord.” to his own, for what I know,” said his friend; “but, David, Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered

87 The Fortunes of Nigel by those who are either charged with errands which they “Or, if need be,” said Tunstall, “we have swords as do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not well as the Templars.” enter a dissent. “Fie upon it—fie upon it, young man,” said the citi- “Umph!” repeated Master George—who, as we have zen;—“An apprentice with a sword!—Marry, heaven already noticed, was something of a martinet in domes- forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather.” tic discipline—“what does umph mean? Will you do mine “Well, sir,” said Jenkin—“we will find arms fitting to errand or not, sirrah?” our station, and will defend our master and his daugh- “Sure, Master George Heriot,” said the apprentice, ter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pave- touching his cap, “I only meant, that Mistress Marga- ment.” ret was not likely to forget such an invitation.” “There spoke a London ‘prentice bold,” said the citi- “Why, no,” said Master George; “she is a dutiful girl zen; “and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill- cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I flirt.—And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had have my eye on both of you—you are thriving lads, each best come with your clubs, to see your master and her in his own way.—God be wi’ you, Davie. Forget not to- safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, morrow at noon.” And, so saying, he again turned his and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. mule’s head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers lighter than ever.” to no inconvenience to keep up with him. “We can keep their steel in order with good handbats,” said At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and Jenkin; “and never trouble your servants for the matter.” sought his way into one of the small booths occupied

88 Sir Walter Scott by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with “Ah! sir,” said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled veneration and acquiescence, “how sune ony puir crea- off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal re- ture like mysell may rise in the world, wi’ the instruc- place on his head, and answered with much demonstra- tion of such a man as your worship!” tion of reverence, to the goldsmith’s question of, “How “My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not goes business, Andrew?”—“Aw the better for your hard to practise. Be honest—be industrious—be fru- worship’s kind countenance and maintenance.” gal—and you will soon win wealth and worship.—Here, “Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit hand. I will wait by you till it is done.” the quill up too high, it’s a wastrife course in your trade, The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid Andrew—they that do not mind corn-pickles, never not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a his employer’s satisfaction. The citizen then gave the thousand pages with one quill.”* young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted *A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author’s his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched has this quatrain at the end of the volume— screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open rail- “With one good pen I wrote this book, ing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The And a pen I leave it still.” 89 The Fortunes of Nigel Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of continued street, although it was beginning already to London. assume that character. It still might be considered as an He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer open road, along the south side of which stood various the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gar- wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, dens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to but began to resemble the artery through which, to use the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which Johnson’s expression “pours the full tide of London mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly population.” The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present ap- to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a pearance. long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin’s At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion at- had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular govern- tending improvement. It was just at the time when ment. Houses were rising in every direction; and the James,—little suspecting that he was employed in con- shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not structing a palace, from the window of which his only distant, which should convert the nearly open highway son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaf- on which he travelled, into a connected and regular fold before it,—was busied in removing the ancient and

90 Sir Walter Scott ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king’s per- Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on son, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, igno- or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half- rant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as buildings, and the various confusion attending the erec- the wealthy goldsmith entered. tion of the new pile, which formed at present a laby- No word was spoken on either side; but one of the rinth not easily traversed. ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,—for plain as a look could, “Lies your business that way?” these professions were not as yet separated from each The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving other,—was a person of too much importance to receive on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer- gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the build- Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,— ing, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty ”Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in silver are ever welcome?” an ante-room,—where three or four pages in the royal The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign.

91 The Fortunes of Nigel The scene of confusion amid which he found the king ing-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large James’s own mind. There was much that was rich and balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some criti- dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, cal moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the from the manner in which they were presented to the king wore this highly honoured feather. eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst were mere outward types of those which existed in the notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king- royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to the Royal ‘Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of future historians. He was deeply learned, without pos- poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Eu- sessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual rope, with a list of the names of the king’s hounds, and cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, remedies against canine madness. and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to The king’s dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most to be dagger-proof—which gave him the appearance of unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being but- in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in toned awry, communicated to his figure an air of dis- deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always tortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunt- might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while

92 Sir Walter Scott he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the against the power of which his predecessors had, with ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where so much suited the king’s disposition, yet, during that serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, and yet too often profane in his language; just and be- like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest neficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and in a bloody and universal civil war. oppression of others. He was penurious respecting Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the money which he had to give from his own hand, yet in- name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known considerately and unboundedly profuse of that which custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter- displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehen- native Prince out of his siller. sive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing them- “God forbid, my liege,” said the citizen, “that I should selves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece the character bestowed on him by Sully—that he was of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, the wisest fool in Christendom. both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were

93 The Fortunes of Nigel loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed your Majesty’s pleasure anent it.” to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his “Body o’ me, man, let’s see it, Heriot; though, by my presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen saul, Steenie’s service o’ plate was sae dear a bargain, I whence he had procured it. had ‘maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep “From Italy, may it please your Majesty,” replied Heriot. my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, “It has naething in it tending to papistrie?” said the keep yours.” king, looking graver than his wont. “Respecting the Duke of Buckingham’s plate,” said “Surely not, please your Majesty,” said Heriot; “I were the goldsmith, “your Majesty was pleased to direct that not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had no expense should be spared, and—” the mark of the beast.” “What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man “You would be the mair beast yourself to do so,” said is with fules and bairns, he maun e’en play at the chucks. the king; “it is weel kend that I wrestled wi’ Dagon in But you should have had mair sense and consideration my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, they wad hae floored the very rooms wi’ silver, and I however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.—But here wonder they didna.” comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his Golden Ass of Apuleius.” master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary economy was only a transient and momentary twinge dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty’s view- of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous ing the sculpture.

94 Sir Walter Scott “Saul of my body, man,” said the king, “it is a curious done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!—why, he piece, and, as I think, fit for a king’s chalmer; and the was a fighting fule, man,—a mere fighting fule,—got subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and himsell ta’en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham beseeming—being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon— lang syne;—if they could hae sent him Solomon’s wit, a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a’ leeving mon- and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune archs to walk with emulation.” him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate “But whose footsteps,” said Maxwell, “only one of company than Francis of France.” them—if a subject may say so much—hath ever over- “I trust that such will be his good fortune,” said He- taken.” riot. “Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon!” said “It is a curious and very artificial sculpture,” said the the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the king, in continuation; “but yet, methinks, the carnifex, flattery had done its part. “Look at the bonny piece of or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.—And the king’s face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. whase handiwork may it be, Geordie?” I think less wisdom than Solomon’s wad have taught “It was wrought, sir,” replied the goldsmith, “by the him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a stand farther back.” fitter master.” George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, “Francis of France!” said the king; “send Solomon, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon King of the Jews, to Francis of France!—Body of me, and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for.

95 The Fortunes of Nigel “Gang to the deil wi’ your prospective, man,” said the you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not king; “there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very house- king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and hold servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I months in arrear!” am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objur- to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blink- gation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only ing and winking. But a’thegither it is a brave piece;— answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and de- and what is the price of it, man?” sired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not was true that the party required the money, but he, his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty’s ac- “Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the count, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal double of its worth, I warrant?” answered the king. “I conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man.” the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. “I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty’s sagacity,” “By my honour,” said James, “and that is speaking said Heriot; “the piece is really what I say, and the price like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make Majesty to make present payment.” ae compting of it. Awa wi’ it, Maxwell—awa wi’ it, and “A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it and warlocks to raise them!” said the irritated Monarch. as they return from Richmond.—And now that we are “My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!—How am I to tell that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wis-

96 Sir Walter Scott dom in the country left Scotland, when we took our trav- whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a els to the Southland here.” coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that “the without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing leader.” “Troth, I think there is something in what thou by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the sayest,” said James; “for we ourselves, and those of our horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those would have been laid endlang on the causeway.” we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie- “Your Majesty,” said Heriot, “is their common father, girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil’s and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gra- Sabbath e’en.” cious presence.” “I am sorry to hear this, my liege,” said Heriot. “May “I ken I am pater patriae well enough,” said James; it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have “but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my done to deserve such a character?” puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud’s “They are become frantic, man—clean brain-crazed,” death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can de- answered the king. “I cannot keep them out of the Court liver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves majesty.” hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were “I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough to do so,” said Heriot, “were it but to instruct our poor Edinburgh gutterblood—a ragged rascal, every dud upon countrymen in better fashions.”

97 The Fortunes of Nigel “By my halidome,” said the king, “ye are a ceevileezed ain royal body?—Now, by this light, I had as lief that fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir—ye shall ap- hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld en- proach the presence of majesty thus,—shadowing your ter but at my ain pleasure.” eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the pres- “I trust your Majesty,” said Heriot, as he continued ence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.—Vera weel, George, to kneel, “will forgive my exercising the lesson you con- that is done in a comely manner.—Then, sir, ye sail kneel, descended to give me in the behalf of a friend?” and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, “Of a friend!” said the king; “so much the waur—so the latch of our shoe, or such like.—Very weel enacted— much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing do yoursell good there would have been some sense in it, towards our lieges, prevent thus,—and motion to you and some chance that you wad not have come back on to rise;—whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other.” your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open “Your Majesty, I trust,” said Heriot, “will judge me palm.” The goldsmith, who had complied with great by former experience, and will not suspect me of such accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremo- presumption.” nial, here completed it, to James’s no small astonish- “I kenna,” said the placable monarch; “the world goes ment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of daft, I think—sed semel insanivimus omnes—thou art my Glenvarloch. “What means this, ye fause loon?” said he, old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were’t reddening and sputtering; “hae I been teaching you the any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he

98 Sir Walter Scott cares not that any one should ask favours of me but him- other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, self.—Maxwell,” (for the usher had re-entered after hav- that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all ing carried off the plate,) “get into the ante-chamber wi’ the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale your lang lugs.—In conscience, Geordie, I think as that end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my gold- through him.—Cocksnails, man, when I think of those smith when I might say with the Ethnic poet—Non mea wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we renidet in domo lacunar—for, faith, they had pillaged my lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, mither’s auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our Cantabit vacuus—we had but little to care for.” board, and glad we were of something to put on them, “And if your Majesty please to remember,” said the without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D’ye goldsmith, “the awful task we had to gather silver-vessail mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we and gold-work enough to make some show before the were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Spanish Ambassador.” Lady of Loganhouse’s dowcot and poultry-yard, and “Vera true,” said the king, now in a full tide of gossip, what an awfu’ plaint the poor dame made against Jock “and I mind not the name of the right leal lord that of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as helped us with every unce he had in his house, that his sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder?” native Prince might have some credit in the eyes of them “It was the better for Jock,” said Heriot; “for, if I re- that had the Indies at their beck.” member weel, it saved him from a strapping up at “I think, if your Majesty,” said the citizen, “will cast Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds.” your eye on the paper in your hand, you will recollect “Ay, man, mind ye that?” said the king; “but he had his name.”

99 The Fortunes of Nigel “Ay!” said the king, “say ye sae, man?—Lord is enow between prince and subject—We are not in Glenvarloch, that was his name indeed—Justus et tenax meditatione fugae, man, to be arrested thus perempto- propositi—A just man, but as obstinate as a baited bull. rily.” He stood whiles against us, that Lord Randal Olifaunt “Alas! an it please your Majesty,” said the goldsmith, of Glenvarloch, but he was a loving and a leal subject in shaking his head, “it is the poor young nobleman’s ex- the main. But this supplicator maun be his son—Randal treme necessity, and not his will, that makes him im- has been long gone where king and lord must go, Geordie, portunate; for he must have money, and that briefly, to as weel as the like of you—and what does his son want discharge a debt due to Peregrine Peterson, Conserva- with us?” tor of the Privileges at Campvere, or his haill heredi- “The settlement,” answered the citizen, “of a large tary barony and estate of Glenvarloch will be evicted in debt due by your Majesty’s treasury, for money advanced virtue of an unredeemed wadset.” to your Majesty in great State emergency, about the time “How say ye, man—how say ye?” exclaimed the king, of the Raid of Ruthven.” impatiently; “the carle of a Conservator, the son of a “I mind the thing weel,” said King James—“Od’s Low-Dutch skipper, evict the auld estate and lordship death, man, I was just out of the clutches of the Master of the house of Olifaunt?—God’s bread, man, that maun of Glamis and his complices, and there was never siller not be—we maun suspend the diligence by writ of mair welcome to a born prince,—the mair the shame favour, or otherwise.” and pity that crowned king should need sic a petty sum. “I doubt that may hardly be,” answered the citizen, But what need he dun us for it, man, like a baxter at the “if it please your Majesty; your learned counsel in the breaking? We aught him the siller, and will pay him wi’ law of Scotland advise, that there is no remeid but in our convenience, or make it otherwise up to him, whilk paying the money.”

100 Sir Walter Scott “Ud’s fish,” said the king, “let him keep haud by the ing the breeks aff a wild Highlandman—they that come strong hand against the carle, until we can take some to me for siller, should tell me how to come by it—the order about his affairs.” city ye maun try, Heriot; and donna think to be called “Alas!” insisted the goldsmith, “if it like your Maj- Jingling Geordie for nothing—and in verbo regis I will esty, your own pacific government, and your doing of pay the lad if you get me the loan—I wonnot haggle on equal justice to all men, has made main force a kittle the terms; and, between you and me, Geordie, we will line to walk by, unless just within the bounds of the redeem the brave auld estate of Glenvarloch.—But Highlands.” wherefore comes not the young lord to Court, Heriot— “Well—weel—weel, man,” said the perplexed mon- is he comely—is he presentable in the presence?” arch, whose ideas of justice, expedience, and conve- “No one can be more so,” said George Heriot; “but—” nience, became on such occasions strangely embroiled; “Ay, I understand ye,” said his Majesty—“I under- “just it is we should pay our debts, that the young man stand ye—Res angusta domi—puir lad-puir lad!—and may pay his; and he must be paid, and in verbo regis he his father a right true leal Scots heart, though stiff in shall be paid—but how to come by the siller, man, is a some opinions. Hark ye, Heriot, let the lad have twa difficult chapter—ye maun try the city, Geordie.” hundred pounds to fit him out. And, here—here”—(tak- “To say the truth,” answered Heriot, “please your gra- ing the carcanet of rubies from his old hat)—“ye have cious Majesty, what betwixt loans and benevolences, and had these in pledge before for a larger sum, ye auld Levite subsidies, the city is at this present—” that ye are. Keep them in gage, till I gie ye back the “Donna tell me of what the city is,” said King James; siller out of the next subsidy.” “our Exchequer is as dry as Dean Giles’s discourses on “If it please your Majesty to give me such directions the penitentiary psalms—Ex nihilo nihil fit—It’s ill tak- in writing,” said the cautious citizen.

101 The Fortunes of Nigel “The deil is in your nicety, George,” said the king; “ye Majesty’s present use, not to be under 50,000 merks, are as preceese as a Puritan in form, and a mere but as much more as could conveniently be procured. Nullifidian in the marrow of the matter. May not a king’s “And has he ony lair, this Lord Nigel of ours?” said word serve ye for advancing your pitiful twa hundred the king. pounds?” George Heriot could not exactly answer this question; “But not for detaining the crown jewels,” said George but believed “the young lord had studied abroad.” Heriot. “He shall have our own advice,” said the king, “how And the king, who from long experience was inured to to carry on his studies to maist advantage; and it may dealing with suspicious creditors, wrote an order upon be we will have him come to Court, and study with George Heriot, his well-beloved goldsmith and jeweller, Steenie and Babie Charles. And, now we think on’t, for the sum of two hundred pounds, to be paid pres- away—away, George—for the bairns will be coming ently to Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of Glenvarloch, to be im- hame presently, and we would not as yet they kend of puted as so much debts due to him by the crown; and this matter we have been treating anent. Propera fedem, authorizing the retention of a carcanet of balas rubies, O Geordie. Clap your mule between your boughs, and with a great diamond, as described in a Catalogue of his god-den with you.” Majesty’s Jewels, to remain in possession of the said Thus ended the conference betwixt the gentle King George Heriot, advancer of the said sum, and so forth, Jamie and his benevolent jeweller and goldsmith. until he was lawfully contented and paid thereof. By another rescript, his Majesty gave the said George He- riot directions to deal with some of the monied men, upon equitable terms, for a sum of money for his

102 Sir Walter Scott ern persons of fashion, turning themselves upon their pillow, begin to think, not without a great many doubts CHAPTER VI 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 O I do know him—tis the mouldy lemon quality than he had formerly worn, accompanied by his Which our court wits will wet their lips withal, servant Moniplies, whose outside also was considerably When they would sauce their honied conversation improved. His solemn and stern features glared forth With somewhat sharper flavour—Marry sir, from under a blue velvet bonnet, fantastically placed That virtue’s wellnigh left him—all the juice sideways on his head—he had a sound and tough coat That was so sharp and poignant, is squeezed out, of English blue broad-cloth, which, unlike his former While the poor rind, although as sour as ever, vestment, would have stood the tug of all the appren- Must season soon the draff we give our grunters, tices in Fleet Street. The buckler and broadsword he wore For two legg’d things are weary on’t. as the arms of his condition, and a neat silver badge, The Chamberlain—A Comedy bearing his lord’s arms, announced that he was an ap- pendage of aristocracy. He sat down in the good citizen’s buttery, not a little pleased to find his attendance upon THE GOOD COMPANY invited by the hospitable citizen as- the table in the hall was likely to be rewarded with his sembled at his house in Lombard Street at the “hollow share of a meal such as he had seldom partaken of. and hungry hour” of noon, to partake of that meal Mr. David Ramsay, that profound and ingenious me- which divides the day, being about the time when mod- chanic, was safely conducted to Lombard Street, accord-

103 The Fortunes of Nigel ing to promise, well washed, brushed, and cleaned, from as the clock began to strike twelve, and was seated in the soot of the furnace and the forge. His daughter, who his chair ere the last stroke had chimed. This gave the came with him, was about twenty years old, very pretty, knight an excellent opportunity of making sarcastic very demure, yet with lively black eyes, that ever and observations on all who came later than himself, not to anon contradicted the expression of sobriety, to which mention a few rubs at the expense of those who had silence, reserve, a plain velvet hood, and a cambric ruff, been so superfluous as to appear earlier. had condemned Mistress Marget, as the daughter of a Having little or no property save his bare designation, quiet citizen. Sir Mungo had been early attached to Court in the ca- There were also two citizens and merchants of Lon- pacity of whipping-boy, as the office was then called, to don, men ample in cloak, and many-linked golden chain, King James the Sixth, and, with his Majesty, trained to well to pass in the world, and experienced in their craft all polite learning by his celebrated preceptor, George of merchandise, but who require no particular descrip- Buchanan. The office of whipping-boy doomed its un- tion. There was an elderly clergyman also, in his gown fortunate occupant to undergo all the corporeal punish- and cassock, a decent venerable man, partaking in his ment which the Lord’s Anointed, whose proper person manners of the plainness of the citizens amongst whom was of course sacred, might chance to incur, in the course he had his cure. of travelling through his grammar and prosody. Under These may be dismissed with brief notice; but not so the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan, who did Sir Mungo Malagrowther, of Girnigo Castle, who claims not approve of the vicarious mode of punishment, James a little more attention, as an original character of the bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo time in which he flourished. Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James’s other That good knight knocked at Master Heriot’s door just pedagogue, Master Patrick Young, went more ceremo-

104 Sir Walter Scott niously to work, and appalled the very soul of the youth- self acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting ful king by the floggings which he bestowed on the whip- humour, a malicious wit, and an envy of others more ping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably per- prosperous than the possessor of such amiable quali- formed. And be it told to Sir Mungo’s praise, that there ties, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a were points about him in the highest respect suited to courtier’s rise; but then they must be amalgamated with his official situation. He had even in youth a naturally a degree of selfish cunning and prudence, of which Sir irregular and grotesque set of features, which, when Mungo had no share. His satire ran riot, his envy could distorted by fear, pain, and anger, looked like one of the not conceal itself, and it was not long after his majority whimsical faces which present themselves in a Gothic till he had as many quarrels upon his hands as would cornice. His voice also was high-pitched and querulous, have required a cat’s nine lives to answer. In one of these so that, when smarting under Master Peter Young’s rencontres he received, perhaps we should say fortu- unsparing inflictions, the expression of his grotesque nately, a wound, which served him as an excuse for an- physiognomy, and the superhuman yells which he ut- swering no invitations of the kind in future. Sir Rullion tered, were well suited to produce all the effects on the Rattray, of Ranagullion, cut off, in mortal combat, three Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be of the fingers of his right hand, so that Sir Mungo never produced by seeing another and an innocent individual could hold sword again. At a later period, having writ- suffering for his delict. ten some satirical verses upon the Lady Cockpen, he re- Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for such he became, thus ceived so severe a chastisement from some persons em- got an early footing at Court, which another would have ployed for the purpose, that he was found half dead on improved and maintained. But, when he grew too big the spot where they had thus dealt with him, and one to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering him- of his thighs having been broken, and ill set, gave him a

105 The Fortunes of Nigel hitch in his gait, with which he hobbled to his grave. Malagrowther. He grew old, deaf, and peevish—lost even The lameness of his leg and hand, besides that they the spirit which had formerly animated his strictures— added considerably to the grotesque appearance of this and was barely endured by James, who, though himself original, procured him in future a personal immunity nearly as far stricken in years, retained, to an unusual from the more dangerous consequences of his own and even an absurd degree, the desire to be surrounded humour; and he gradually grew old in the service of the by young people. Court, in safety of life and limb, though without either Sir Mungo, thus fallen into the yellow leaf of years making friends or attaining preferment. Sometimes, in- and fortune, showed his emaciated form and faded em- deed, the king was amused with his caustic sallies, but broidery at Court as seldom as his duty permitted; and he had never art enough to improve the favourable op- spent his time in indulging his food for satire in the pub- portunity; and his enemies (who were, for that matter, lic walks, and in the aisles of Saint Paul’s, which were the whole Court) always found means to throw him out then the general resort of newsmongers and characters of favour again. The celebrated Archie Armstrong of- of all descriptions, associating himself chiefly with such fered Sir Mungo, in his generosity, a skirt of his own of his countrymen as he accounted of inferior birth and fool’s coat, proposing thereby to communicate to him rank to himself. In this manner, hating and contemning the privileges and immunities of a professed jester— commerce, and those who pursued it, he nevertheless ”For,” said the man of motley, “Sir Mungo, as he goes lived a good deal among the Scottish artists and mer- on just now, gets no more for a good jest than just the chants, who had followed the Court to London. To these king’s pardon for having made it.” he could show his cynicism without much offence; for Even in London, the golden shower which fell around some submitted to his jeers and ill-humour in deference him did not moisten the blighted fortunes of Sir Mungo to his birth and knighthood, which in those days con-

106 Sir Walter Scott ferred high privileges—and others, of more sense, pit- himself into the conversation of the latter, to observe ied and endured the old man, unhappy alike in his for- he had heard in Paul’s, that the bankrupt concern of tunes and his temper. Pindivide, a great merchant,—who, as he expressed it, Amongst the latter was George Heriot, who, though had given the crows a pudding, and on whom he knew, his habits and education induced him to carry from the same authority, each of the honest citizens has aristocratical feelings to a degree which would now be some unsettled claim,—was like to prove a total loss— thought extravagant, had too much spirit and good sense “stock and block, ship and cargo, keel and rigging, all to permit himself to be intruded upon to an unautho- lost, now and for ever.” rized excess, or used with the slightest improper free- The two citizens grinned at each other; but, too pru- dom, by such a person as Sir Mungo, to whom he was, dent to make their private affairs the subject of public nevertheless, not only respectfully civil, but essentially discussion, drew their heads together, and evaded far- kind, and even generous. ther conversation by speaking in a whisper. Accordingly, this appeared from the manner in which The old Scots knight next attacked the watchmaker Sir Mungo Malagrowther conducted himself upon en- with the same disrespectful familiarity.—“Davie,” he tering the apartment. He paid his respects to Master said,—“Davie, ye donnard auld idiot, have ye no gane Heriot, and a decent, elderly, somewhat severe-looking mad yet, with applying your mathematical science, as female, in a coif, who, by the name of Aunt Judith, did ye call it, to the book of Apocalypse? I expected to have the honours of his house and table, with little or no por- heard ye make out the sign of the beast, as clear as a tion of the supercilious acidity, which his singular physi- tout on a bawbee whistle.” ognomy assumed when he made his bow successively to “Why, Sir Mungo,” said the mechanist, after making David Ramsay and the two sober citizens. He thrust an effort to recall to his recollection what had been said

107 The Fortunes of Nigel to him, and by whom, “it may be, that ye are nearer the for the beauty of the young citizen made even Sir Mungo mark than ye are yoursell aware of; for, taking the ten Malagrowther’s grim features relax themselves a little, horns o’ the beast, ye may easily estimate by your digi- “is your father always as entertaining as he seems just tals—” now?” “My digits! you d—d auld, rusty, good-for-nothing Mistress Margaret simpered, bridled, looked to either time-piece!” exclaimed Sir Mungo, while, betwixt jest side, then straight before her; and, having assumed all and earnest, he laid on his hilt his hand, or rather his the airs of bashful embarrassment and timidity which claw, (for Sir Rullion’s broadsword has abridged it into were necessary, as she thought, to cover a certain shrewd that form,)—“D’ye mean to upbraid me with my muti- readiness which really belonged to her character, at lation?” length replied: “That indeed her father was very Master Heriot interfered. “I cannot persuade our friend thoughtful, but she had heard that he took the habit of David,” he said, “that scriptural prophecies are intended mind from her grandfather.” to remain in obscurity, until their unexpected accom- “Your grandfather!” said Sir Mungo,—after doubting plishment shall make, as in former days, that fulfilled if he had heard her aright,—“Said she her grandfather! which was written. But you must not exert your knightly The lassie is distraught!—I ken nae wench on this side valour on him for all that.” of Temple Bar that is derived from so distant a rela- “By my saul, and it would be throwing it away,” said tion.” Sir Mungo, laughing. “I would as soon set out, with “She has got a godfather, however, Sir Mungo,” said hound and horn, to hunt a sturdied sheep; for he is in a George Heriot, again interfering; “and I hope you will doze again, and up to the chin in numerals, quotients, allow him interest enough with you, to request you will and dividends.—Mistress Margaret, my pretty honey,” not put his pretty godchild to so deep a blush.”

108 Sir Walter Scott “The better—the better,” said Sir Mungo. “It is a credit maimed in foot and hand could do; and, observing he to her, that, bred and born within the sound of Bow- had known my lord, his father, bid him welcome to Lon- bell, she can blush for any thing; and, by my saul, Mas- don, and hoped he should see him at Court. ter George,” he continued, chucking the irritated and Nigel in an instant comprehended, as well from Sir reluctant damsel under the chin, “she is bonny enough Mungo’s manner, as from a strict compression of their to make amends for her lack of ancestry—at least, in entertainer’s lips, which intimated the suppression of a such a region as Cheapside, where, d’ye mind me, the desire to laugh, that he was dealing with an original of kettle cannot call the porridge-pot—” no ordinary description, and accordingly, returned his The damsel blushed, but not so angrily as before. Mas- courtesy with suitable punctiliousness. Sir Mungo, in ter George Heriot hastened to interrupt the conclusion the meanwhile, gazed on him with much earnestness; of Sir Mungo’s homely proverb, by introducing him per- and, as the contemplation of natural advantages was as sonally to Lord Nigel. odious to him as that of wealth, or other adventitious Sir Mungo could not at first understand what his host benefits, he had no sooner completely perused the hand- said,—“Bread of Heaven, wha say ye, man?” some form and good features of the young lord, than Upon the name of Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, like one of the comforters of the man of Uz, he drew being again hollowed into his ear, he drew up, and, re- close up to him, to enlarge on the former grandeur of garding his entertainer with some austerity, rebuked him the Lords of Glenvarloch, and the regret with which he for not making persons of quality acquainted with each had heard, that their representative was not likely to other, that they might exchange courtesies before they possess the domains of his ancestry. Anon, he enlarged mingled with other folks. He then made as handsome upon the beauties of the principal mansion of and courtly a congee to his new acquaintance as a man Glenvarloch—the commanding site of the old castle—

109 The Fortunes of Nigel the noble expanse of the lake, stocked with wildfowl for Here, seated on the left hand of Aunt Judith, he beheld hawking—the commanding screen of forest, terminat- Nigel occupy the station of yet higher honour on the ing in a mountain-ridge abounding with deer—and all right, dividing that matron from pretty Mistress Mar- the other advantages of that fine and ancient barony, garet; but he saw this with the more patience, that there till Nigel, in spite of every effort to the contrary, was stood betwixt him and the young lord a superb larded unwillingly obliged to sigh. capon. Sir Mungo, skilful in discerning when the withers of The dinner proceeded according to the form of the those he conversed with were wrung, observed that his times. All was excellent of the kind; and, besides the new acquaintance winced, and would willingly have Scottish cheer promised, the board displayed beef and pressed the discussion; but the cook’s impatient knock pudding, the statutory dainties of Old England. A small upon the dresser with the haft of his dudgeon-knife, now cupboard of plate, very choicely and beautifully gave a signal loud enough to be heard from the top of wrought, did not escape the compliments of some of the house to the bottom, summoning, at the same time, the company, and an oblique sneer from Sir Mungo, as the serving-men to place the dinner upon the table, and intimating the owner’s excellence in his own mechani- the guests to partake of it. cal craft. Sir Mungo, who was an admirer of good cheer,—a taste “I am not ashamed of the workmanship, Sir Mungo,” which, by the way, might have some weight in reconcil- said the honest citizen. “They say, a good cook knows ing his dignity to these city visits,—was tolled off by how to lick his own fingers; and, methinks, it were un- the sound, and left Nigel and the other guests in peace, seemly that I, who have furnished half the cupboards until his anxiety to arrange himself in his due place of in broad Britain, should have my own covered with pal- pre-eminence at the genial board was duly gratified. try pewter.”

110 Sir Walter Scott The blessing of the clergyman now left the guests at tatious, or which seemed inconsistent with the degree liberty to attack what was placed before them; and the of an opulent burgher. meal went forward with great decorum, until Aunt While the collation proceeded, Nigel, according to the Judith, in farther recommendation of the capon, assured good-breeding of the time, addressed his discourse prin- her company that it was of a celebrated breed of poul- cipally to Mrs. Judith, whom he found to be a woman try, which she had herself brought from Scotland. of a strong Scottish understanding, more inclined to- “Then, like some of his countrymen, madam,” said wards the Puritans than was her brother George, (for in the pitiless Sir Mungo, not without a glance towards his that relation she stood to him, though he always called landlord, “he has been well larded in England.” her aunt,) attached to him in the strongest degree, and “There are some others of his countrymen,” answered sedulously attentive to all his comforts. As the conver- Master Heriot, “to whom all the lard in England has sation of this good dame was neither lively nor fasci- not been able to render that good office.” nating, the young lord naturally addressed himself next Sir Mungo sneered and reddened, the rest of the com- to the old horologer’s very pretty daughter, who sat upon pany laughed; and the satirist, who had his reasons for his left hand. From her, however, there was no extract- not coming to extremity with Master George, was silent ing any reply beyond the measure of a monosyllable; for the rest of the dinner. and when the young gallant had said the best and most The dishes were exchanged for confections, and wine complaisant things which his courtesy supplied, the of the highest quality and flavour; and Nigel saw the smile that mantled upon her pretty mouth was so slight entertainments of the wealthiest burgomasters, which and evanescent, as scarce to be discernible. he had witnessed abroad, fairly outshone by the hospi- Nigel was beginning to tire of his company, for the tality of a London citizen. Yet there was nothing osten- old citizens were speaking with his host of commercial

111 The Fortunes of Nigel matters in language to him totally unintelligible, when self; “he would have had an easy office when I first kend Sir Mungo Malagrowther suddenly summoned their at- ye.—But,” said he, speaking aloud, “will you not come tention. to the window, at least? for Knighton has trundled a That amiable personage had for some time withdrawn piece of silver-plate into your house—ha! ha! ha!— from the company into the recess of a projecting win- trundled it upon its edge, as a callan’ would drive a hoop. dow, so formed and placed as to command a view of the I cannot help laughing—ha! ha! ha!—at the fellow’s door of the house, and of the street. This situation was impudence.” probably preferred by Sir Mungo on account of the num- “I believe you could not help laughing,” said George ber of objects which the streets of a metropolis usually Heriot, rising up and leaving the room, “if your best offer, of a kind congenial to the thoughts of a splenetic friend lay dying.” man. What he had hitherto seen passing there, was prob- “Bitter that, my lord—ha?” said Sir Mungo, address- ably of little consequence; but now a trampling of horse ing Nigel. “Our friend is not a goldsmith for nothing— was heard without, and the knight suddenly ex- he hath no leaden wit. But I will go down, and see what claimed,—“By my faith, Master George, you had bet- comes on’t.” ter go look to shop; for here comes Knighton, the Duke Heriot, as he descended the stairs, met his cash-keeper of Buckingham’s groom, and two fellows after him, as coming up, with some concern in his face.—“Why, how if he were my Lord Duke himself.” now, Roberts,” said the goldsmith, “what means all this, “My cash-keeper is below,” said Heriot, without dis- man?” turbing himself, “and he will let me know if his Grace’s “It is Knighton, Master Heriot, from the Court— commands require my immediate attention.” Knighton, the Duke’s man. He brought back the salver “Umph!—cash-keeper?” muttered Sir Mungo to him- you carried to Whitehall, flung it into the entrance as if

112 Sir Walter Scott it had been an old pewter platter, and bade me tell you tyrannical disposition, was accounted haughty, violent, the king would have none of your trumpery.” and vindictive. It pressed on Nigel’s heart, that he him- “Ay, indeed,” said George Heriot—“None of my trum- self, though he could not conceive how, nor why, might pery!—Come hither into the compting-room, Roberts.— be the original cause of the resentment of the Duke Sir Mungo,” he added, bowing to the knight, who had against his benefactor. The others made their comments joined, and was preparing to follow them, “I pray your in whispers, until the sounds reached Ramsay, who had forgiveness for an instant.” not heard a word of what had previously passed, but, In virtue of this prohibition, Sir Mungo, who, as well plunged in those studies with which he connected every as the rest of the company, had overheard what passed other incident and event, took up only the catchword, betwixt George Heriot and his cash-keeper, saw him- and replied,—“The Duke—the Duke of Buckingham— self condemned to wait in the outer business-room, George Villiers—ay—I have spoke with Lambe about where he would have endeavoured to slake his eager cu- him.” riosity by questioning Knighton; but that emissary of “Our Lord and our Lady! Now, how can you say so, greatness, after having added to the uncivil message of father?” said his daughter, who had shrewdness enough his master some rudeness of his own, had again scam- to see that her father was touching upon dangerous pered westward, with his satellites at his heels. ground. In the meanwhile, the name of the Duke of “Why, ay, child,” answered Ramsay; “the stars do but Buckingham, the omnipotent favourite both of the king incline, they cannot compel. But well you wot, it is com- and the Prince of Wales, had struck some anxiety into monly said of his Grace, by those who have the skill to the party which remained in the great parlour. He was cast nativities, that there was a notable conjunction of more feared than beloved, and, if not absolutely of a Mars and Saturn—the apparent or true time of which,

113 The Fortunes of Nigel reducing the calculations of Eichstadius made for the “It is not good to speak of such things,” said Heriot, latitude of Oranienburgh, to that of London, gives seven “especially of the great; stone walls have ears, and a hours, fifty-five minutes, and forty-one seconds—” bird of the air shall carry the matter.” “Hold your peace, old soothsayer,” said Heriot, who Several of the guests seemed to be of their host’s opin- at that instant entered the room with a calm and steady ion. The two merchants took brief leave, as if under countenance; “your calculations are true and undeni- consciousness that something was wrong. Mistress Mar- able when they regard brass and wire, and mechanical garet, her body-guard of ‘prentices being in readiness, force; but future events are at the pleasure of Him who plucked her father by the sleeve, and, rescuing him from bears the hearts of kings in his hands.” a brown study, (whether referring to the wheels of Time, “Ay, but, George,” answered the watchmaker, “there or to that of Fortune, is uncertain,) wished good-night was a concurrence of signs at this gentleman’s birth, to her friend Mrs. Judith, and received her godfather’s which showed his course would be a strange one. Long blessing, who, at the same time, put upon her slender has it been said of him, he was born at the very meeting finger a ring of much taste and some value; for he sel- of night and day, and under crossing and contending dom suffered her to leave him without some token of influences that may affect both us and him. his affection. Thus honourably dismissed, and accompanied by her escort, she set forth on her return to Fleet ‘Full moon and high sea, Street. Great man shalt thou be; Sir Mungo had bid adieu to Master Heriot as he came Red dawning, stormy sky, out from the back compting-room, but such was the Bloody death shalt thou die.’” interest which he took in the affairs of his friend, that, when Master George went upstairs, he could not help

114 Sir Walter Scott walking into that sanctum sanctorum, to see how Mas- Driver, we not dealing in the article.” ter Roberts was employed. The knight found the cash- He would have proceeded; but Sir Mungo, not prepared keeper busy in making extracts from those huge brass- to endure the recital of the catalogue of his own petty clasped leathern-bound manuscript folios, which are the debts, and still less willing to satisfy them on the spot, pride and trust of dealers, and the dread of customers wished the bookkeeper, cavalierly, good-night, and left whose year of grace is out. The good knight leant his the house without farther ceremony. The clerk looked elbows on the desk, and said to the functionary in a con- after him with a civil city sneer, and immediately re- doling tone of voice,—“What! you have lost a good cus- sumed the more serious labours which Sir Mungo’s in- tomer, I fear, Master Roberts, and are busied in making trusion had interrupted. 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

115 The Fortunes of Nigel prayers of the church for the evening before we separate. Your excellent father, my lord, would not have de- CHAPTER VII parted before family worship—I hope the same from your lordship.” “With pleasure, sir,” answered Nigel; “and you add in Things needful we have thought on; but the thing the invitation an additional obligation to those with Of all most needful—that which Scripture terms, which you have loaded me. When young men forget what As if alone it merited regard, is their duty, they owe deep thanks to the friend who The ONE thing needful—that’s yet unconsider’d. will remind them of it.” The Chamberlain. While they talked together in this manner, the serving-men had removed the folding-tables, brought for- WHEN THE REST of the company had taken their depar- ward a portable reading-desk, and placed chairs and ture from Master Heriot’s house, the young Lord of hassocks for their master, their mistress, and the noble Glenvarloch also offered to take leave; but his host de- stranger. Another low chair, or rather a sort of stool, tained him for a few minutes, until all were gone ex- was placed close beside that of Master Heriot; and cepting the clergyman. though the circumstance was trivial, Nigel was induced “My lord,” then said the worthy citizen, “we have had to notice it, because, when about to occupy that seat, our permitted hour of honest and hospitable pastime, he was prevented by a sign from the old gentleman, and and now I would fain delay you for another and graver motioned to another of somewhat more elevation. The purpose, as it is our custom, when we have the benefit clergyman took his station behind the reading-desk. The of good Mr. Windsor’s company, that he reads the domestics, a numerous family both of clerks and ser-

116 Sir Walter Scott vants, including Moniplies, attended, with great grav- the throat, face, and hands. Her form was rather be- ity, and were accommodated with benches. neath than above the middle size, but so justly propor- The household were all seated, and, externally at least, tioned and elegantly made, that the spectator’s atten- composed to devout attention, when a low knock was tion was entirely withdrawn from her size. In contra- heard at the door of the apartment; Mrs. Judith looked diction of the extreme plainness of all the rest of her anxiously at her brother, as if desiring to know his plea- attire, she wore a necklace which a duchess might have sure. He nodded his head gravely, and looked to the door. envied, so large and lustrous were the brilliants of which Mrs. Judith immediately crossed the chamber, opened it was composed; and around her waist a zone of rubies the door, and led into the apartment a beautiful crea- of scarce inferior value. ture, whose sudden and singular appearance might have When this singular figure entered the apartment, she made her almost pass for an apparition. She was deadly cast her eyes on Nigel, and paused, as if uncertain pale-there was not the least shade of vital red to enliven whether to advance or retreat. The glance which she took features, which were exquisitely formed, and might, but of him seemed to be one rather of uncertainty and hesi- for that circumstance, have been termed transcendently tation, than of bashfulness or timidity. Aunt Judith took beautiful. Her long black hair fell down over her shoul- her by the hand, and led her slowly forward—her dark ders and down her back, combed smoothly and regu- eyes, however, continued to be fixed on Nigel, with an larly, but without the least appearance of decoration or expression of melancholy by which he felt strangely af- ornament, which looked very singular at a period when fected. Even when she was seated on the vacant stool, head-gear, as it was called, of one sort or other, was gen- which was placed there probably for her accommoda- erally used by all ranks. Her dress was of white, of the tion, she again looked on him more than once with the simplest fashion, and hiding all her person excepting same pensive, lingering, and anxious expression, but

117 The Fortunes of Nigel without either shyness or embarrassment, not even so short space, the mysterious visitant arose ere any other much as to call the slightest degree of complexion into person stirred; and Nigel remarked that none of the her cheek. domestics left their places, oreven moved, until she had So soon as this singular female had taken up the first kneeled on one knee to Heriot, who seemed to bless prayer-book, which was laid upon her cushion, she her with his hand laid on her head, and a melancholy seemed immersed in devotional duty; and although solemnity of look and action. She then bended her body, Nigel’s attention to the service was so much disturbed but without kneeling, to Mrs. Judith, and having per- by this extraordinary apparition, that he looked towards formed these two acts of reverence, she left the room; her repeatedly in the course of the service, he could never yet just in the act of her departure, she once more turned observe that her eyes or her thoughts strayed so much her penetrating eyes on Nigel with a fixed look, which as a single moment from the task in which she was en- compelled him to turn his own aside. When he looked gaged. Nigel himself was less attentive, for the appear- towards her again, he saw only the skirt of her white ance of this lady seemed so extraordinary, that, strictly mantle as she left the apartment. as he had been bred up by his father to pay the most The domestics then rose and dispersed themselves— reverential attention during performance of divine ser- wine, and fruit, and spices, were offered to Lord Nigel vice, his thoughts in spite of himself were disturbed by and to the clergyman, and the latter took his leave. The her presence, and he earnestly wished the prayers were young lord would fain have accompanied him, in hope ended, that his curiosity might obtain some gratifica- to get some explanation of the apparition which he had tion. When the service was concluded, and each had re- beheld, but he was stopped by his host, who requested mained, according to the decent and edifying practice to speak with him in his compting-room. of the church, concentrated in mental devotion for a “I hope, my lord,” said the citizen, “that your prepa-

118 Sir Walter Scott rations for attending Court are in such forwardness that find difficulty, and I can point out the proper manner you can go thither the day after to-morrow. It is, per- and time of approaching the king. But I do not know,” haps, the last day, for some time, that his Majesty will he added, smiling, “whether these little advantages will hold open Court for all who have pretensions by birth, not be overbalanced by the incongruity of a nobleman rank, or office to attend upon him. On the subsequent receiving them from the hands of an old smith.” day he goes to Theobald’s, where he is so much occu- “From the hands rather of the only friend I have found pied with hunting and other pleasures, that he cares not in London,” said Nigel, offering his hand. to be intruded on.” “Nay, if you think of the matter in that way,” replied “I shall be in all outward readiness to pay my duty,” the honest citizen, “there is no more to be said—I will said the young nobleman, “yet I have little heart to do come for you to-morrow, with a barge proper to the oc- it. The friends from whom I ought to have found en- casion.—But remember, my good young lord, that I do couragement and protection, have proved cold and not, like some men of my degree, wish to take opportu- false—I certainly will not trouble them for their counte- nity to step beyond it, and associate with my superiors nance on this occasion—and yet I must confess my child- in rank, and therefore do not fear to mortify my pre- ish unwillingness to enter quite alone upon so new a sumption, by suffering me to keep my distance in the scene.” presence, and where it is fitting for both of us to sepa- “It is bold of a mechanic like me to make such an rate; and for what remains, most truly happy shall I be offer to a nobleman,” said Heriot; “but I must attend at in proving of service to the son of my ancient patron.” Court to-morrow. I can accompany you as far as the The style of conversation led so far from the point presence-chamber, from my privilege as being of the which had interested the young nobleman’s curiosity, household. I can facilitate your entrance, should you that there was no returning to it that night. He there-

119 The Fortunes of Nigel fore exchanged thanks and greetings with George He- Edinburgh gutterblood, I should have been well pleased riot, and took his leave, promising to be equipped and to have seen how his feet were shaped, and whether he in readiness to embark with him on the second succes- had not a cloven cloot under the braw roses and cordo- sive morning at ten o’clock. van shoon of his.” The generation of linkboys, celebrated by Count An- “Why, you rascal,” answered Nigel, “you have been thony Hamilton, as peculiar to London, had already, in too kindly treated, and now that you have filled your the reign of James I., begun their functions, and the ravenous stomach, you are railing on the good gentle- service of one of them with his smoky torch, had been man that relieved you.” secured to light the young Scottish lord and his follower “Under favour, no, my lord,” said Moniplies,—“I to their lodgings, which, though better acquainted than would only like to see something mair about him. I have formerly with the city, they might in the dark have run eaten his meat, it is true—more shame that the like of some danger of missing. This gave the ingenious Mr. him should have meat to give, when your lordship and Moniplies an opportunity of gathering close up to his me could scarce have gotten, on our own account, brose master, after he had gone through the form of slipping and a bear bannock—I have drunk his wine, too.” his left arm into the handles of his buckler, and loosen- “I see you have,” replied his master, “a great deal more ing his broadsword in the sheath, that he might be ready than you should have done.” for whatever should befall. “Under your patience, my lord,” said Moniplies, “you “If it were not for the wine and the good cheer which are pleased to say that, because I crushed a quart with we have had in yonder old man’s house, my lord,” said that jolly boy Jenkin, as they call the ‘prentice boy, and this sapient follower, “and that I ken him by report to that was out of mere acknowledgment for his former be a just living man in many respects, and a real kindness—I own that I, moreover, sung the good old

120 Sir Walter Scott song of Elsie Marley, so as they never heard it chanted would say and suffer more under pretence of holding in their lives—” your peace, than when you get an unbridled license. How And withal (as John Bunyan says) as they went on is it, then? What have you to say against Master He- their way, he sung— riot?” It seems more than probable, that in permitting this “O, do ye ken Elsie Marley, honey— license, the young lord hoped his attendant would The wife that sells the barley, honey? stumble upon the subject of the young lady who had For Elsie Marley’s grown sae fine, appeared at prayers in a manner so mysterious. But She winna get up to feed the swine.— whether this was the case, or whether he merely desired O, do ye ken—” that Moniplies should utter, in a subdued and under tone of voice, those spirits which might otherwise have vented Here in mid career was the songster interrupted by the themselves in obstreperous song, it is certain he permit- stern gripe of his master, who threatened to baton him ted his attendant to proceed with his story in his own to death if he brought the city-watch upon them by his way. ill-timed melody. “And therefore,” said the orator, availing himself of “I crave pardon, my lord—I humbly crave pardon— his immunity, “I would like to ken what sort of carle only when I think of that Jen Win, as they call him, I this Maister Heriot is. He hath supplied your lordship can hardly help humming—‘O, do ye ken’—But I crave with wealth of gold, as I can understand; and if he has, your honour’s pardon, and will be totally dumb, if you I make it for certain he hath had his ain end in it, ac- command me so.” cording to the fashion of the world. Now, had your lord- “No, sirrah!” said Nigel, “talk on, for I well know you ship your own good lands at your guiding, doubtless this

121 The Fortunes of Nigel person, with most of his craft—goldsmiths they call doubtless, they like the food that they rage so much themselves—I say usurers—wad be glad to exchange so about—and, my lord, they say,” added Moniplies, draw- many pounds of African dust, by whilk I understand ing up still closer to his master’s side, “they say that gold, against so many fair acres, and hundreds of acres, Master Heriot has one spirit in his house already.” of broad Scottish land.” “How, or what do you mean?” said Nigel; “I will break “But you know I have no land,” said the young lord, your head, you drunken knave, if you palter with me “at least none that can be affected by any debt which I any longer.” can at present become obliged for—I think you need “Drunken?” answered his trusty adherent, “and is this not have reminded me of that.” the story?—why, how could I but drink your lordship’s “True, my lord, most true; and, as your lordship says, health on my bare knees, when Master Jenkin began it open to the meanest capacity, without any unnecessary to me?—hang them that would not—I would have cut expositions. Now, therefore, my lord, unless Maister the impudent knave’s hams with my broadsword, that George Heriot has something mair to allege as a motive should make scruple of it, and so have made him kneel for his liberality, vera different from the possession of when he should have found it difficult to rise again. But your estate—and moreover, as he could gain little by touching the spirit,” he proceeded, finding that his mas- the capture of your body, wherefore should it not be ter made no answer to his valorous tirade, “your lord- your soul that he is in pursuit of?” ship has seen her with your own eyes.” “My soul, you rascal!” said the young lord; “what good “I saw no spirit,” said Glenvarloch, but yet breathing should my soul do him?” thick as one who expects some singular disclosure, “what “What do I ken about that?” said Moniplies; “they go mean you by a spirit?” about roaring and seeking whom they may devour— “You saw a young lady come in to prayers, that spoke

122 Sir Walter Scott not a word to any one, only made becks and bows to the with butcher-meat, was against him. But yon divine has old gentleman and lady of the house—ken ye wha she another airt from powerful Master Rollock, and Mess is?” David Black, of North Leith, and sic like.—Alack-a- “No, indeed,” answered Nigel; “some relation of the day! wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether sic family, I suppose.” prayers as the Southron read out of their auld blethering “Deil a bit—deil a bit,” answered Moniplies, hastily, black mess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite “not a blood-drop’s kin to them, if she had a drop of fiends, as a right red-het prayer warm fraw the heart, blood in her body—I tell you but what all human be- may be powerful to drive them away, even as the Evil ings allege to be truth, that swell within hue and cry of Spirit was driven by he smell of the fish’s liver from the Lombard Street—that lady, or quean, or whatever you bridal-chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel? As to choose to call her, has been dead in the body these many whilk story, nevertheless, I make scruple to say whether a year, though she haunts them, as we have seen, even it be truth or not, better men than I am having doubted at their very devotions.” on that matter.” “You will allow her to be a good spirit at least,” said “Well, well, well,” said his master, impatiently, “we Nigel Olifaunt, “since she chooses such a time to visit are now near home, and I have permitted you to speak her friends?” of this matter for once, that we may have an end to “For that I kenna, my lord,” answered the supersti- your prying folly, and your idiotical superstitions, for tious follower; “I ken no spirit that would have faced ever. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or in- the right down hammer-blow of Mess John Knox, whom formers, take this lady?” my father stood by in his very warst days, bating a “I can sae naething preceesely as to that,” answered chance time when the Court, which my father supplied Moniplies; “certain it is her body died and was laid in

123 The Fortunes of Nigel the grave many a day since, notwithstanding she still “In troth, I kenna, my lord,” answered Moniplies; “but wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst Maister Heriot’s there is the coffin, as they told me who have seen it: it is family, though she hath been seen in other places by made of heben-wood, with silver nails, and lined all them that well knew her. But who she is, I will not war- through with three-piled damask, might serve a prin- rant to say, or how she becomes attached, like a High- cess to rest in.” land Brownie, to some peculiar family. They say she has “Singular,” said Nigel, whose brain, like that of most a row of apartments of her own, ante-room, parlour, active young spirits, was easily caught by the singular and bedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own and the romantic; “does she not eat with the family?” coffin, and the walls, doors, and windows are so chinked “Who!—she!”—exclaimed Moniplies, as if surprised up, as to prevent the least blink of daylight from enter- at the question; “they would need a lang spoon would ing; and then she dwells by torchlight—” sup with her, I trow. Always there is something put for “To what purpose, if she be a spirit?” said Nigel her into the Tower, as they call it, whilk is a whigmaleery Olifaunt. of a whirling-box, that turns round half on the tae side “How can I tell your lordship?” answered his atten- o’ the wa’, half on the tother.” dant. “I thank God I know nothing of her likings, or “I have seen the contrivance in foreign nunneries,” said mislikings—only her coffin is there; and I leave your the Lord of Glenvarloch. “And is it thus she receives her lordship to guess what a live person has to do with a food?” coffin. As little as a ghost with a lantern, I trow.” “They tell me something is put in ilka day, for fashion’s “What reason,” repeated Nigel, “can a creature, so sake,” replied the attendant; “but it’s no to be supposed young and so beautiful, have already habitually to con- she would consume it, ony mair than the images of Bel template her bed of last-long rest?” and the Dragon consumed the dainty vivers that were

124 Sir Walter Scott 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, CHAPTER VIII besides their wives and children.” “And she is never seen in the family but when the hour of prayer arrives?” said the master. Ay! mark the matron well—and laugh not, Harry, “Never, that I hear of,” replied the servant. At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard— “It is singular,” said Nigel Olifaunt, musing. “Were it I’ve call’d her like the ear of Dionysius; not for the ornaments which she wears, and still more I mean that ear-form’d vault, built o’er his dungeon, for her attendance upon the service of the Protestant To catch the groans and discontented murmurs Church, I should know what to think, and should be- Of his poor bondsmen—Even so doth Martha lieve her either a Catholic votaress, who, for some co- Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes, gent reason, was allowed to make her cell here in Lon- Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city— don, or some unhappy Popish devotee, who was in the She can retail it too, if that her profit course of undergoing a dreadful penance. As it is, I know Shall call on her to do so; and retail it not what to deem of it.” For your advantage, so that you can make His reverie was interrupted by the linkboy knocking Your profit jump with hers. at the door of honest John Christie, whose wife came The Conspiracy. forth with “quips, and becks, and wreathed smiles,” to welcome her honoured guest on his return to his apartment. WE MUST NOW introduce to the reader’s acquaintance

125 The Fortunes of Nigel another character, busy and important far beyond her cases, that her character for trustiness remained as un- ostensible situation in society—in a word, Dame Ursula impeached as that for honesty and benevolence. Suddlechop, wife of Benjamin Suddlechop, the most In fact, she was a most admirable matron, and could renowned barber in all Fleet Street. This dame had her be useful to the impassioned and the frail in the rise, own particular merits, the principal part of which was progress, and consequences of their passion. She could (if her own report could be trusted) an infinite desire to contrive an interview for lovers who could show proper be of service to her fellow-creatures. Leaving to her thin reasons for meeting privately; she could relieve the frail half-starved partner the boast of having the most dex- fair one of the burden of a guilty passion, and perhaps terous snap with his fingers of any shaver in London, establish the hopeful offspring of unlicensed love as the and the care of a shop where starved apprentices flayed heir of some family whose love was lawful, but where the faces of those who were boobies enough to trust an heir had not followed the union. More than this she them, the dame drove a separate and more lucrative could do, and had been concerned in deeper and dearer trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, secrets. She had been a pupil of Mrs. Turner, and learned that it seemed in many respects to contradict itself. from her the secret of making the yellow starch, and, it Its highest and most important duties were of a very may be, two or three other secrets of more consequence, secret and confidential nature, and Dame Ursula though perhaps none that went to the criminal extent Suddlechop was never known to betray any transaction of those whereof her mistress was accused. But all that intrusted to her, unless she had either been indifferently was deep and dark in her real character was covered by paid for her service, or that some one found it conve- the show of outward mirth and good-humour, the hearty nient to give her a double douceur to make her disgorge laugh and buxom jest with which the dame knew well the secret; and these contingencies happened in so few how to conciliate the elder part of her neighbours, and

126 Sir Walter Scott the many petty arts by which she could recommend from, Dame Ursley. The rich rewarded her services with herself to the younger, those especially of her own sex. rings, owches, or gold pieces, which she liked still bet- Dame Ursula was, in appearance, scarce past forty, ter; and she very generously gave her assistance to the and her full, but not overgrown form, and still comely poor, on the same mixed principles as young practitio- features, although her person was plumped out, and her ners in medicine assist them, partly from compassion, face somewhat coloured by good cheer, had a joyous and partly to keep her hand in use. expression of gaiety and good-humour, which set off Dame Ursley’s reputation in the city was the greater the remains of beauty in the wane. Marriages, births, that her practice had extended beyond Temple Bar, and and christenings were seldom thought to be performed that she had acquaintances, nay, patrons and patron- with sufficient ceremony, for a considerable distance esses, among the quality, whose rank, as their members round her abode, unless Dame Ursley, as they called her, were much fewer, and the prospect of approaching the was present. She could contrive all sorts of pastimes, courtly sphere much more difficult, bore a degree of con- games, and jests, which might amuse the large compa- sequence unknown to the present day, when the toe of nies which the hospitality of our ancestors assembled the citizen presses so close on the courtier’s heel. Dame together on such occasions, so that her presence was lit- Ursley maintained her intercourse with this superior erally considered as indispensable in the families of all rank of customers, partly by driving a small trade in citizens of ordinary rank, at such joyous periods. So perfumes, essences, pomades, head-gears from France, much also was she supposed to know of life and its laby- dishes or ornaments from China, then already begin- rinths, that she was the willing confidant of half the ning to be fashionable; not to mention drugs of various loving couples in the vicinity, most of whom used to descriptions, chiefly for the use of the ladies, and partly communicate their secrets to, and receive their counsel by other services, more or less connected with the eso-

127 The Fortunes of Nigel teric branches of her profession heretofore alluded to. roasted, while a little mulatto girl watched, still more Possessing such and so many various modes of thriv- attentively, the process of dressing a veal sweetbread, ing, Dame Ursley was nevertheless so poor, that she in a silver stewpan which occupied the other side of the might probably have mended her own circumstances, chimney. With these viands, doubtless, Dame Ursula as well as her husband’s, if she had renounced them all, proposed concluding the well spent day, of which she and set herself quietly down to the care of her own reckoned the labour over, and the rest at her own com- household, and to assist Benjamin in the concerns of mand. She was deceived, however; for just as the ale, or, his trade. But Ursula was luxurious and genial in her to speak technically, the lamb’s-wool, was fitted for habits, and could no more have endured the stinted drinking, and the little dingy maiden intimated that the economy of Benjamin’s board, than she could have rec- sweetbread was ready to be eaten, the thin cracked voice onciled herself to the bald chat of his conversation. of Benjamin was heard from the bottom of the stairs. It was on the evening of the day on which Lord Nigel “Why, Dame Ursley—why, wife, I say—why, dame— Olifaunt dined with the wealthy goldsmith, that we must why, love, you are wanted more than a strop for a blunt introduce Ursula Suddlechop upon the stage. She had razor—why, dame—” that morning made a long tour to Westminster, was fa- “I would some one would draw a razor across thy wind- tigued, and had assumed a certain large elbow-chair, pipe, thou bawling ass!” said the dame to herself, in the rendered smooth by frequent use, placed on one side of first moment of irritation against her clamorous her chimney, in which there was lit a small but bright helpmate; and then called aloud,—“Why, what is the fire. Here she observed, betwixt sleeping and waking, matter, Master Suddlechop? I am just going to slip into the simmering of a pot of well-spiced ale, on the brown bed; I have been daggled to and fro the whole day.” surface of which bobbed a small crab-apple, sufficiently “Nay, sweetheart, it is not me,” said the patient Ben-

128 Sir Walter Scott jamin, “but the Scots laundry-maid from neighbour and maun gae down the waterside for auld Mother Red- Ramsay’s, who must speak with you incontinent.” cap, at the Hungerford Stairs, that deals in comforting At the word sweetheart, Dame Ursley cast a wistful young creatures, e’en as you do yoursell, hinny; for ane look at the mess which was stewed to a second in the o’ ye the bairn maun see before she sleeps, and that’s a’ stewpan, and then replied, with a sigh,—“Bid Scots Jenny that I ken on’t.” come up, Master Suddlechop. I shall be very happy to So saying, the old emissary, without farther entreaty, hear what she has to say;” then added in a lower tone, turned on her heel, and was about to retreat, when Dame “and I hope she will go to the devil in the flame of a tar- Ursley exclaimed,—“No, no—if the sweet child, your barrel, like many a Scots witch before her!” mistress, has any necessary occasion for good advice and The Scots laundress entered accordingly, and having kind tendance, you need not go to Mother Redcap, Janet. heard nothing of the last kind wish of Dame She may do very well for skippers’ wives, chandlers’ Suddlechop, made her reverence with considerable re- daughters, and such like; but nobody shall wait on pretty spect, and said, her young mistress had returned home Mistress Margaret, the daughter of his most Sacred unwell, and wished to see her neighbour, Dame Ursley, Majesty’s horologer, excepting and saving myself. And directly. so I will but take my chopins and my cloak, and put on “And why will it not do to-morrow, Jenny, my good my muffler, and cross the street to neighbour Ramsay’s woman?” said Dame Ursley; “for I have been as far as in an instant. But tell me yourself, good Jenny, are you Whitehall to-day already, and I am well-nigh worn off not something tired of your young lady’s frolics and my feet, my good woman.” change of mind twenty times a-day?” “Aweel!” answered Jenny, with great composure, “and “In troth, not I,” said the patient drudge, “unless it if that sae be sae, I maun take the langer tramp mysell, may be when she is a wee fashious about washing her

129 The Fortunes of Nigel laces; but I have been her keeper since she was a bairn, “And so the fire went out, too,”—said Jenny. neighbour Suddlechop, and that makes a difference.” “Which was the most natural of the whole,” said Dame “Ay,” said Dame Ursley, still busied putting on addi- Suddlechop; “and so, to cut the matter short, Jenny, I’ll tional defences against the night air; “and you know for carry over the little bit of supper that I was going to certain that she has two hundred pounds a-year in good eat. For dinner I have tasted none, and it may be my land, at her own free disposal?” young pretty Mistress Marget will eat a morsel with me; “Left by her grandmother, heaven rest her soul!” said for it is mere emptiness, Mistress Jenny, that often puts the Scotswoman; “and to a daintier lassie she could not these fancies of illness into young folk’s heads.” So say- have bequeathed it.” ing, she put the silver posset-cup with the ale into Jenny’s “Very true, very true, mistress; for, with all her little hands and assuming her mantle with the alacrity of one whims, I have always said Mistress Margaret Ramsay determined to sacrifice inclination to duty, she hid the was the prettiest girl in the ward; and, Jenny, I warrant stewpan under its folds, and commanded Wilsa, the little the poor child has had no supper?” mulatto girl, to light them across the street. Jenny could not say but it was the case, for, her mas- “Whither away, so late?” said the barber, whom they ter being out, the twa ‘prentice lads had gone out after passed seated with his starveling boys round a mess of shutting shop, to fetch them home, and she and the other stockfish and parsnips, in the shop below. maid had gone out to Sandy MacGivan’s, to see a friend “If I were to tell you, Gaffer,” said the dame, with frae Scotland. most contemptuous coolness, “I do not think you could “As was very natural, Mrs. Janet,” said Dame Ursley, do my errand, so I will e’en keep it to myself.” Ben- who found her interest in assenting to all sorts of propo- jamin was too much accustomed to his wife’s indepen- sitions from all sorts of persons. dent mode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther;

130 Sir Walter Scott nor did the dame tarry for farther question, but marched hundred pounds a-year in dirty land, and the father is out at the door, telling the eldest of the boys “to sit up held a close chuff, though a fanciful—he is our landlord till her return, and look to the house the whilst.” besides, and she has begged a late day from him for our The night was dark and rainy, and although the dis- rent; so, God help me, I must be comfortable—besides, tance betwixt the two shops was short, it allowed Dame the little capricious devil is my only key to get at Mas- Ursley leisure enough, while she strode along with high- ter George Heriot’s secret, and it concerns my character tucked petticoats, to embitter it by the following grum- to find that out; and so, ANDIAMOS, as the lingua bling reflections—”I wonder what I have done, that I franca hath it.” must needs trudge at every old beldam’s bidding, and Thus pondering, she moved forward with hasty strides every young minx’s maggot! I have been marched from until she arrived at the watchmaker’s habitation. The Temple Bar to Whitechapel, on the matter of a attendant admitted them by means of a pass-key. On- pinmaker’s wife having pricked her fingers—marry, her ward glided Dame Ursula, now in glimmer and now in husband that made the weapon might have salved the gloom, not like the lovely Lady Cristabelle through wound.—And here is this fantastic ape, pretty Mistress Gothic sculpture and ancient armour, but creeping and Marget, forsooth—such a beauty as I could make of a stumbling amongst relics of old machines, and models Dutch doll, and as fantastic, and humorous, and con- of new inventions in various branches of mechanics with ceited, as if she were a duchess. I have seen her in the which wrecks of useless ingenuity, either in a broken or same day as changeful as a marmozet and as stubborn half-finished shape, the apartment of the fanciful as a mule. I should like to know whether her little con- though ingenious mechanist was continually lumbered. ceited noddle, or her father’s old crazy calculating jolter- At length they attained, by a very narrow staircase, pate, breeds most whimsies. But then there’s that two pretty Mistress Margaret’s apartment, where she, the

131 The Fortunes of Nigel cynosure of the eyes of every bold young bachelor in The attendants retired as directed, and Dame Ursula, Fleet Street, sat in a posture which hovered between having availed herself of the embers of charcoal, to place the discontented and the disconsolate. For her pretty her stewpan to the best advantage, drew herself as close back and shoulders were rounded into a curve, her round as she could to her patient, and began in a low, sooth- and dimpled chin reposed in the hollow of her little palm, ing, and confidential tone of voice, to inquire what ailed while the fingers were folded over her mouth; her elbow her pretty flower of neighbours. rested on a table, and her eyes seemed fixed upon the “Nothing, dame,” said Margaret somewhat pettishly, dying charcoal, which was expiring in a small grate. She and changing her posture so as rather to turn her back scarce turned her head when Dame Ursula entered, and upon the kind inquirer. when the presence of that estimable matron was more “Nothing, lady-bird!” answered Dame Suddlechop; precisely announced in words by the old Scotswoman, “and do you use to send for your friends out of bed at Mistress Margaret, without changing her posture, mut- this hour for nothing?” tered some sort of answer that was wholly unintelligible. “It was not I who sent for you, dame,” replied the “Go your ways down to the kitchen with Wilsa, good malecontent maiden. Mistress Jenny,” said Dame Ursula, who was used to all “And who was it, then?” said Ursula; “for if I had not sorts of freaks, on the part of her patients or clients, been sent for, I had not been here at this time of night, whichever they might be termed; “put the stewpan and I promise you!” the porringer by the fireside, and go down below—I must “It was the old Scotch fool Jenny, who did it out of speak to my pretty love, Mistress Margaret, by myself— her own head, I suppose,” said Margaret; “for she has and there is not a bachelor betwixt this and Bow but been stunning me these two hours about you and Mother will envy me the privilege.” Redcap.”

132 Sir Walter Scott “Me and Mother Redcap!” said Dame Ursula, “an old Ursula, offended in her turn, “but not so very many fool indeed, that couples folk up so.—But come, come, years older than yourself, mistress.” my sweet little neighbour, Jenny is no such fool after “Oh! we are angry, are we?” said the beauty; “and all; she knows young folks want more and better advice pray, Madam Ursula, how come you, that are not so than her own, and she knows, too, where to find it for many years older than me, to talk about such nonsense them; so you must take heart of grace, my pretty to me, who am so many years younger, and who yet have maiden, and tell me what you are moping about, and too much sense to care about head-gears and Islington?” then let Dame Ursula alone for finding out a cure.” “Well, well, young mistress,” said the sage counsellor, “Nay, an ye be so wise, Mother Ursula,” replied the rising, “I perceive I can be of no use here; and methinks, girl, “you may guess what I ail without my telling you.” since you know your own matters so much better than “Ay, ay, child,” answered the complaisant matron, “no other people do, you might dispense with disturbing folks one can play better than I at the good old game of What at midnight to ask their advice.” is my thought like? Now I’ll warrant that little head of “Why, now you are angry, mother,” said Margaret, de- yours is running on a new head-tire, a foot higher than taining her; “this comes of your coming out at eventide those our city dames wear—or you are all for a trip to without eating your supper—I never heard you utter a Islington or Ware, and your father is cross and will not cross word after you had finished your little morsel.— consent—or—” Here, Janet, a trencher and salt for Dame Ursula;—and “Or you are an old fool, Dame Suddlechop,” said Mar- what have you in that porringer, dame?—Filthy clammy garet, peevishly, “and must needs trouble yourself about ale, as I would live. —Let Janet fling it out of the win- matters you know nothing of.” dow, or keep it for my father’s morning draught; and “Fool as much as you will, mistress,” said Dame she shall bring you the pottle of sack that was set ready

133 The Fortunes of Nigel for him—good man, he will never find out the differ- So saying, she turned away from Dame Ursula once ence, for ale will wash down his dusty calculations quite more, and resumed her musing posture, with her hand as well as wine.” on her elbow, and her back, at least one shoulder, turned “Truly, sweetheart, I am of your opinion,” said Dame towards her confidant. Ursula, whose temporary displeasure vanished at once “Nay, then,” said Dame Ursula, “I must exert my skill before these preparations for good cheer; and so, set- in good earnest.—You must give me this pretty hand, tling herself on the great easy-chair, with a three-legged and I will tell you by palmistry, as well as any gipsy of table before her, she began to dispatch, with good appe- them all, what foot it is you halt upon.” tite, the little delicate dish which she had prepared for “As if I halted on any foot at all,” said Margaret, some- herself. She did not, however, fail in the duties of civil- thing scornfully, but yielding her left hand to Ursula, ity, and earnestly, but in vain, pressed Mistress Marga- and continuing at the same time her averted position. ret to partake her dainties. The damsel declined the in- “I see brave lines here,” said Ursula, “and not ill to vitation. read neither—pleasure and wealth, and merry nights “At least pledge me in a glass of sack,” said Dame and late mornings to my Beauty, and such an equipage Ursula; “I have heard my grandame say, that before the as shall shake Whitehall. O, have I touched you there?— gospellers came in, the old Catholic father confessors and and smile you now, my pretty one?—for why should not their penitents always had a cup of sack together be- he be Lord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, fore confession; and you are my penitent.” as others have done before him?” “I shall drink no sack, I am sure,” said Margaret; “and “Lord Mayor? pshaw!” replied Margaret. I told you before, that if you cannot find out what ails “And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or me, I shall never have the heart to tell it.” perhaps you pshaw at my prophecy; but there is a cross

134 Sir Walter Scott in every one’s line of life as well as in yours, darling. he is third cousin to a knighthood, and come of a good And what though I see a ‘prentice’s flat cap in this pretty house; and so mayhap you may be for northward ho!” palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath “Maybe I may”—answered Margaret, “but not with not its match in the Ward of Farringdon-Without.” my father’s ‘prentice—I thank you, Dame Ursula.” “Whom do you mean, dame?” said Margaret coldly. “Nay, then, the devil may guess your thoughts for me,” “Whom should I mean,” said Dame Ursula, “but the said Dame Ursula; “this comes of trying to shoe a filly prince of ‘prentices, and king of good company, Jenkin that is eternally wincing and shifting ground!” Vincent?” “Hear me, then,” said Margaret, “and mind what I “Out, woman—Jenkin Vincent?—a clown—a Cock- say.—This day I dined abroad—” ney!” exclaimed the indignant damsel. “I can tell you where,” answered her counsellor,— “Ay, sets the wind in that quarter, Beauty!” quoth the ”with your godfather the rich goldsmith—ay, you see I dame; “why, it has changed something since we spoke know something—nay, I could tell you, as I would, with together last, for then I would have sworn it blew fairer whom, too.” for poor Jin Vin; and the poor lad dotes on you too, and “Indeed!” said Margaret, turning suddenly round with would rather see your eyes than the first glimpse of the an accent of strong surprise, and colouring up to the sun on the great holiday on May-day.” eyes. “I would my eyes had the power of the sun to blind “With old Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said the oracu- his, then,” said Margaret, “to teach the drudge his lar dame,—“he was trimmed in my Benjamin’s shop in place.” his way to the city.” “Nay,” said Dame Ursula, “there be some who say that “Pshaw! the frightful old mouldy skeleton!” said the Frank Tunstall is as proper a lad as Jin Vin, and of surety damsel.

135 The Fortunes of Nigel “Indeed you say true, my dear,” replied the confi- desirous to have, and you know I can make it worth dant,—“it is a shame to him to be out of Saint Pancras’s your while.” charnel-house, for I know no other place he is fit for, the “O, it is not for the sake of lucre, Mistress Margaret,” foul-mouthed old railer. He said to my husband—” answered the obliging dame; “but truly I would have “Somewhat which signifies nothing to our purpose, I you listen to some advice—bethink you of your own dare say,” interrupted Margaret. “I must speak, then.— condition.” There dined with us a nobleman—” “My father’s calling is mechanical,” said Margaret, “A nobleman! the maiden’s mad!” said Dame Ursula. “but our blood is not so. I have heard my father say “There dined with us, I say,” continued Margaret, that we are descended, at a distance indeed, from the without regarding the interruption, “a nobleman—a great Earls of Dalwolsey.”* Scottish nobleman.” “Ay, ay,” said Dame Ursula; “even so—I never knew a “Now Our Lady keep her!” said the confidant, “she is Scot of you but was descended, as ye call it, from some quite frantic!—heard ever any one of a watchmaker’s great house or other; and a piteous descent it often is— daughter falling in love with a nobleman—and a Scots and as for the distance you speak of, it is so great as to nobleman, to make the matter complete, who are all as put you out of sight of each other. Yet do not toss your proud as Lucifer, and as poor as Job?—A Scots noble- pretty head so scornfully, but tell me the name of this man, quotha? I had lief you told me of a Jew pedlar. I *The head of the ancient and distinguished house of Ramsay, would have you think how all this is to end, pretty one, and to whom, as their chief, the individuals of that name before you jump in the dark.” look as their origin and source of gentry. Allan Ramsay, the “That is nothing to you, Ursula—it is your assistance,” pastoral poet, in the same manner, makes said Mistress Margaret, “and not your advice, that I am “Dalhousie of an auld descent, My chief, my stoup, my ornament.” 136 Sir Walter Scott lordly northern gallant, and we will try what can be “Romances have cracked her brain!” said Dame done in the matter.” Ursula; “she is a castaway girl—utterly distraught— “It is Lord Glenvarloch, whom they call Lord Nigel loves a Scots lord—and likes him the better for being Olifaunt,” said Margaret in a low voice, and turning unfortunate! Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter away to hide her blushes. I cannot aid you in—it goes against my conscience, and “Marry, Heaven forefend!” exclaimed Dame it is an affair above my condition, and beyond my man- Suddlechop; “this is the very devil, and something agement;—but I will keep your counsel.” worse!” “You will not be so base as to desert me, after having “How mean you?” said the damsel, surprised at the drawn my secret from me?” said Margaret, indignantly; vivacity of her exclamation. “if you do, I know how to have my revenge; and if you “Why, know ye not,” said the dame, “what powerful do not, I will reward you well. Remember the house your enemies he has at Court? know ye not—But blisters on husband dwells in is my father’s property.” my tongue, it runs too fast for my wit—enough to say, “I remember it but too well, Mistress Margaret,” said that you had better make your bridal-bed under a fall- Ursula, after a moment’s reflection, “and I would serve ing house, than think of young Glenvarloch.” you in any thing in my condition; but to meddle with “He IS unfortunate then?” said Margaret; “I knew such high matters—I shall never forget poor Mistress it—I divined it—there was sorrow in his voice when he Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her!— said even what was gay—there was a touch of misfor- she had the ill-luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset tune in his melancholy smile—he had not thus clung to and Overbury, and so the great earl and his lady slipt my thoughts had I seen him in all the mid-day glare of their necks out of the collar, and left her and some half- prosperity.” dozen others to suffer in their stead. I shall never forget

137 The Fortunes of Nigel the sight of her standing on the scaffold with the ruff be a spy on my kind godfather’s secrets—No, Ursula— round her pretty neck, all done up with the yellow starch that I will never pry into, which he desires to keep hid- which I had so often helped her to make, and that was den. But thou knowest that I have a fortune, of my so soon to give place to a rough hempen cord. Such a own, which must at no distant day come under my own sight, sweetheart, will make one loath to meddle with management—think of some other recompense.” matters that are too hot or heavy for their handling.” “Ay, that I well know,” said the counsellor—“it is that “Out, you fool!” answered Mistress Margaret; “am I two hundred per year, with your father’s indulgence, that one to speak to you about such criminal practices as makes you so wilful, sweetheart.” that wretch died for? All I desire of you is, to get me “It may be so,”—said Margaret Ramsay; “meanwhile, precise knowledge of what affair brings this young noble- do you serve me truly, and here is a ring of value in man to Court.” pledge, that when my fortune is in my own hand, I will “And when you have his secret,” said Ursula, “what redeem the token with fifty broad pieces of gold.” will it avail you, sweetheart?—and yet I would do your “Fifty broad pieces of gold!” repeated the dame; “and errand, if you could do as much for me.” this ring, which is a right fair one, in token you fail not “And what is it you would have of me?” said Mistress of your word!—Well, sweetheart, if I must put my Margaret. throat in peril, I am sure I cannot risk it for a friend “What you have been angry with me for asking be- more generous than you; and I would not think of more fore,” answered Dame Ursula. “I want to have some light than the pleasure of serving you, only Benjamin gets about the story of your godfather’s ghost, that is only more idle every day, and our family—” seen at prayers.” “Say no more of it,” said Margaret; “we understand “Not for the world,” said Mistress Margaret, “will I each other. And now, tell me what you know of this

138 Sir Walter Scott young man’s affairs, which made you so unwilling to So saying, she kissed the reluctant cheek of her young meddle with them?” friend, or patroness, and took her departure with the “Of that I can say no great matter as yet,” answered light and stealthy pace of one accustomed to accommo- Dame Ursula; “only I know, the most powerful among date her footsteps to the purposes of dispatch and se- his own countrymen are against him, and also the most crecy. powerful at the Court here. But I will learn more of it; Margaret Ramsay looked after her for some time, in for it will be a dim print that I will not read for your anxious silence. “I did ill,” she at length murmured, “to sake, pretty Mistress Margaret. Know you where this let her wring this out of me; but she is artful, bold and gallant dwells?” serviceable—and I think faithful—or, if not, she will be “I heard by accident,” said Margaret, as if ashamed true at least to her interest, and that I can command. I of the minute particularity of her memory upon such would I had not spoken, however—I have begun a hope- an occasion,—“he lodges, I think—at one Christie’s— less work. For what has he said to me, to warrant my if I mistake not—at Paul’s Wharf—a ship-chandler’s.” meddling in his fortunes?—Nothing but words of the “A proper lodging for a young baron!—Well, but cheer most ordinary import—mere table-talk, and terms of you up, Mistress Margaret—If he has come up a caterpil- course. Yet who knows”—she said, and then broke off, lar, like some of his countrymen, he may cast his slough looking at the glass the while, which, as it reflected back like them, and come out a butterfly.—So I drink good-night, a face of great beauty, probably suggested to her mind and sweet dreams to you, in another parting cup of sack; a more favourable conclusion of the sentence than she and you shall hear tidings of me within four-and-twenty cared to trust her tongue withal. hours. And, once more, I commend you to your pillow, my pearl of pearls, and Marguerite of Marguerites!”

139 The Fortunes of Nigel

ON THE MORNING of the day on which George Heriot had CHAPTER IX 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 de- So pitiful a thing is suitor’s state! pend on this cast, felt himself more than usually anx- Most miserable man, whom wicked fate ious. He rose early, made his toilette with uncommon Hath brought to Court to sue, for had I wist, care, and, being enabled, by the generosity of his more That few have found, and many a one hath miss’d! plebeian countryman, to set out a very handsome per- Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, son to the best advantage, he obtained a momentary What hell it is, in sueing long to bide: approbation from himself as he glanced at the mirror, To lose good days that might be better spent; and a loud and distinct plaudit from his landlady, who To waste long nights in pensive discontent; declared at once, that, in her judgment, he would take To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; the wind out of the sail of every gallant in the pres- To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; ence—so much had she been able to enrich her discourse To have thy Prince’s grace, yet want her Peers’; with the metaphors of those with whom her husband To have thy asking, yet wait many years; dealt. To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares— At the appointed hour, the barge of Master George To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs. Heriot arrived, handsomely manned and appointed, hav- To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, ing a tilt, with his own cipher, and the arms of his com- To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. pany, painted thereupon. Mother Hubbard’s Tale. 140 Sir Walter Scott The young Lord of Glenvarloch received the friend, On they glided, by the assistance of the oars of four who had evinced such disinterested attachment, with stout watermen, along the Thames, which then served the kind courtesy which well became him. for the principal high-road betwixt London and Master Heriot then made him acquainted with the Westminster; for few ventured on horseback through the bounty of his sovereign; which he paid over to his young narrow and crowded streets of the city, and coaches were friend, declining what he had himself formerly advanced then a luxury reserved only for the higher nobility, and to him. Nigel felt all the gratitude which the citizen’s to which no citizen, whatever was his wealth, presumed disinterested friendship had deserved, and was not want- to aspire. The beauty of the banks, especially on the ing in expressing it suitably. northern side, where the gardens of the nobility de- Yet, as the young and high-born nobleman embarked scended from their hotels, in many places, down to the to go to the presence of his prince, under the patronage water’s edge, was pointed out to Nigel by his kind con- of one whose best, or most distinguished qualification, ductor, and was pointed out in vain. The mind of the was his being an eminent member of the Goldsmiths’ young Lord of Glenvarloch was filled with anticipations, Incorporation, he felt a little surprised, if not abashed, not the most pleasant, concerning the manner in which at his own situation; and Richie Moniplies, as he stepped he was likely to be received by that monarch, in whose over the gangway to take his place forward in the boat, behalf his family had been nearly reduced to ruin; and could not help muttering,—“It was a changed day be- he was, with the usual mental anxiety of those in such twixt Master Heriot and his honest father in the a situation, framing imaginary questions from the king, Kraemes;—but, doubtless, there was a difference be- and over-toiling his spirit in devising answers to them. tween clinking on gold and silver, and clattering upon His conductor saw the labour of Nigel’s mind, and pewter.” avoided increasing it by farther conversation; so that,

141 The Fortunes of Nigel when he had explained to him briefly the ceremonies thing in it, trifling and commonplace as it might appear observed at Court on such occasions of presentation, to practised courtiers, embarrassing, and even alarm- the rest of their voyage was performed in silence. ing, to one, who went through these forms for the first They landed at Whitehall Stairs, and entered the Pal- time, and who was doubtful what sort of reception was ace after announcing their names,—the guards paying to accompany his first appearance before his sovereign. to Lord Glenvarloch the respect and honours due to his Heriot, in anxious attention to save his young friend rank. from any momentary awkwardness, had taken care to The young man’s heart beat high and thick within him give the necessary password to the warders, grooms of as he came into the royal apartments. His education the chambers, ushers, or by whatever name they were abroad, conducted, as it had been, on a narrow and lim- designated; so they passed on without interruption. ited scale, had given him but imperfect ideas of the gran- In this manner they passed several ante-rooms, filled deur of a Court; and the philosophical reflections which chiefly with guards, attendants of the Court, and their taught him to set ceremonial and exterior splendour at acquaintances, male and female, who, dressed in their defiance, proved, like other maxims of mere philosophy, best apparel, and with eyes rounded by eager curiosity ineffectual, at the moment they were weighed against to make the most of their opportunity, stood, with the impression naturally made on the mind of an inex- beseeming modesty, ranked against the wall, in a man- perienced youth, by the unusual magnificence of the ner which indicated that they were spectators, not per- scene. The splendid apartments through which they formers, in the courtly exhibition. passed, the rich apparel of the grooms, guards, and do- Through these exterior apartments Lord Glenvarloch mestics in waiting, and the ceremonial attending their and his city friend advanced into a large and splendid passage through the long suite of apartments, had some- withdrawing-room, communicating with the presence-

142 Sir Walter Scott chamber, into which ante-room were admitted those only singular and unamiable as he was, was not entirely in- who, from birth, their posts in the state or household, different to Lord Glenvarloch, since the absolute and or by the particular grant of the kings, had right to somewhat constrained silence of his good friend Heriot, attend the Court, as men entitled to pay their respects which left him at liberty to retire painfully to his own to their sovereign. agitating reflections, was now relieved; while, on the Amid this favoured and selected company, Nigel ob- other hand, he could not help feeling interest in the sharp served Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who, avoided and dis- and sarcastic information poured upon him by an ob- countenanced by those who knew how low he stood in servant, though discontented courtier, to whom a pa- Court interest and favour, was but too happy in the op- tient auditor, and he a man of title and rank, was as portunity of hooking himself upon a person of Lord much a prize, as his acute and communicative disposi- Glenvarloch’s rank, who was, as yet, so inexperienced tion rendered him an entertaining companion to Nigel as to feel it difficult to shake off an intruder. Olifaunt. Heriot, in the meantime, neglected by Sir The knight forthwith framed his grim features to a Mungo, and avoiding every attempt by which the grate- ghastly smile, and, after a preliminary and patronising ful politeness of Lord Glenvarloch strove to bring him nod to George Heriot, accompanied with an aristocratic into the conversation, stood by, with a kind of half smile wave of the hand, which intimated at once superiority on his countenance; but whether excited by Sir Mungo’s and protection, he laid aside altogether the honest citi- wit, or arising at his expense, did not exactly appear. zen, to whom he owed many a dinner, to attach himself In the meantime, the trio occupied a nook of the ante- exclusively to the young lord, although he suspected he room, next to the door of the presence-chamber, which might be occasionally in the predicament of needing one was not yet thrown open, when Maxwell, with his rod as much as himself. And even the notice of this original, of office, came bustling into the apartment, where most

143 The Fortunes of Nigel men, excepting those of high rank, made way for him. ting his hand on the tarnished embroidery on the old He stopped beside the party in which we are interested, knight’s sleeve,—“when such fellows see men in office looked for a moment at the young Scots nobleman, then dressed in cast-off suits, like paltry stage-players, it is made a slight obeisance to Heriot, and lastly, address- no wonder the Court is thronged with intruders.” ing Sir Mungo Malagrowther, began a hurried complaint “Were you lauding the taste of my embroidery, Maister to him of the misbehaviour of the gentlemen-pension- Maxwell?” answered the knight, who apparently inter- ers and warders, who suffered all sort of citizens, suit- preted the deputy-chamberlain’s meaning rather from his ors, and scriveners, to sneak into the outer apartments, action than his words;—“it is of an ancient and liberal without either respect or decency.—“The English,” he pattern, having been made by your mother’s father, auld said, “were scandalised, for such a thing durst not be James Stitchell, a master-fashioner of honest repute, in attempted in the queen’s days. In her time, there was Merlin’s Wynd, whom I made a point to employ, as I am then the court-yard for the mobility, and the apartments now happy to remember, seeing your father thought fit for the nobility; and it reflects on your place, Sir Mungo,” to intermarry with sic a person’s daughter.” he added, “belonging to the household as you do, that Maxwell looked stern; but, conscious there was noth- such things should not be better ordered.” ing to be got of Sir Mungo in the way of amends, and Here Sir Mungo, afflicted, as was frequently the case that prosecuting the quarrel with such an adversary on such occasions, with one of his usual fits of deafness, would only render him ridiculous, and make public a answered, “It was no wonder the mobility used freedoms, mis-alliance of which he had no reason to be proud, he when those whom they saw in office were so little better covered his resentment with a sneer; and, expressing his in blood and havings than themselves.” regret that Sir Mungo was become too deaf to under- “You are right, sir—quite right,” said Maxwell, put- stand or attend to what was said to him, walked on, and

144 Sir Walter Scott planted himself beside the folding-doors of the presence- “Master Heriot’s name will pass current for much gold chamber, at which he was to perform the duty of deputy- and silver, my lord,” replied Maxwell, with a civil sneer, chamberlain, or usher, so soon as they should be opened. “but not for birth and rank. I am compelled by my of- “The door of the presence is about to open,” said the fice to be peremptory.—The entrance is impeded—I am goldsmith, in a whisper, to his young friend; “my condi- much concerned to say it—your lordship must stand tion permits me to go no farther with you. Fail not to back.” present yourself boldly, according to your birth, and “What is the matter?” said an old Scottish nobleman, offer your Supplication; which the king will not refuse who had been speaking with George Heriot, after he had to accept, and, as I hope, to consider favourably.” separated from Nigel, and who now came forward, ob- As he spoke, the door of the presence-chamber opened serving the altercation betwixt the latter and Maxwell. accordingly, and, as is usual on such occasions, the court- “It is only Master Deputy-Chamberlain Maxwell,” iers began to advance towards it, and to enter in a slow, said Sir Mungo Malagrowther, “expressing his joy to see but continuous and uninterrupted stream. Lord Glenvarloch at Court, whose father gave him his As Nigel presented himself in his turn at the entrance, office—at least I think he is speaking to that purport— and mentioned his name and title, Maxwell seemed to for your lordship kens my imperfection.” A subdued hesitate. “You are not known to any one,” he said. “It is laugh, such as the situation permitted, passed round my duty to suffer no one to pass to the presence, my amongst those who heard this specimen of Sir Mungo’s lord, whose face is unknown to me, unless upon the word sarcastic temper. But the old nobleman stepped still of a responsible person.” more forward, saying,—“What!—the son of my gallant “I came with Master George Heriot,” said Nigel, in old opponent, Ochtred Olifaunt—I will introduce him some embarrassment at this unexpected interruption. to the presence myself.”

145 The Fortunes of Nigel So saying, he took Nigel by the arm, without farther broad-swords, and plate-coats, and the crests on our ceremony, and was about to lead him forward, when burgonets.” Maxwell, still keeping his rod across the door, said, but “Too loud, my Lord of Huntinglen,” whispered a with hesitation and embarrassment—“My lord, this gentleman of the chamber,—“The King!—the King!” gentleman is not known, and I have orders to be scru- The old earl (for such he proved) took the hint, and pulous.” was silent; and James, advancing from a side-door, re- “Tutti—taiti, man,” said the old lord, “I will be an- ceived in succession the compliments of strangers, while swerable he is his father’s son, from the cut of his eye- a little group of favourite courtiers, or officers of the brow—and thou, Maxwell, knewest his father well household, stood around him, to whom he addressed enough to have spared thy scruples. Let us pass, man.” himself from time to time. Some more pains had been So saying, he put aside the deputy-chamberlain’s rod, bestowed on his toilette than upon the occasion when and entered the presence-room, still holding the young we first presented the monarch to our readers; but there nobleman by the arm. was a natural awkwardness about his figure which pre- “Why, I must know you, man,” he said; “I must know vented his clothes from sitting handsomely, and the pru- you. I knew your father well, man, and I have broke a dence or timidity of his disposition had made him adopt lance and crossed a blade with him; and it is to my credit the custom already noticed, of wearing a dress so thickly that I am living to brag of it. He was king’s-man and I quilted as might withstand the stroke of a dagger, which was queen’s-man during the Douglas wars—young fel- added an ungainly stiffness to his whole appearance, con- lows both, that feared neither fire nor steel; and we had trasting oddly with the frivolous, ungraceful, and fidg- some old feudal quarrels besides, that had come down eting motions with which he accompanied his conversa- from father to son, with our seal-rings, two-harided tion. And yet, though the king’s deportment was very

146 Sir Walter Scott undignified, he had a manner so kind, familiar, and good- “I mind it weel,” said the king; “I mind it weel—it humoured, was so little apt to veil over or conceal his was a blessed day, being the nineteen of September, of own foibles, and had so much indulgence and sympathy all days in the year—and it was a blithe sport to see for those of others, that his address, joined to his learn- how some of the carles girned as they clapped loofs to- ing, and a certain proportion of shrewd mother-wit, gether. By my saul, I thought some of them, mair spe- failed not to make a favourable impression on those who cial the Hieland chiels, wad have broken out in our own approached his person. presence; but we caused them to march hand in hand to When the Earl of Huntinglen had presented Nigel to the Cross, ourselves leading the way, and there drink a his sovereign, a ceremony which the good peer took upon blithe cup of kindness with ilk other, to the stanching himself, the king received the young lord very graciously, of feud, and perpetuation of amity. Auld John Ander- and observed to his introducer, that he “was fain to see son was Provost that year—the carle grat for joy, and them twa stand side by side; for I trow, my Lord the bailies and councillors danced bare-headed in our Huntinglen,” continued he, “your ancestors, ay, and e’en presence like five-year-auld colts, for very triumph.” your lordship’s self and this lad’s father, have stood front “It was indeed a happy day,” said Lord Huntinglen, to front at the sword’s point, and that is a worse pos- “and will not be forgotten in the history of your ture.” Majesty’s reign.” “Until your Majesty,” said Lord Huntinglen, “made “I would not that it were, my lord,” replied the mon- Lord Ochtred and me cross palms, upon the memorable arch—“I would not that it were pretermitted in our an- day when your Majesty feasted all the nobles that were nals. Ay, ay—BEATI PACIFICI. My English lieges here at feud together, and made them join hands in your pres- may weel make much of me, for I would have them to ence—” know, they have gotten the only peaceable man that ever

147 The Fortunes of Nigel came of my family. If James with the Fiery Face had ten, the sapient monarch prosecuted his inquiries as fol- come amongst you,” he said, looking round him, “or lows:— my great grandsire, of Flodden memory!” “Hem! hem! salve bis, quaterque salve, glenvarlochides “We should have sent him back to the north again,” noster! Nuperumne ab lugduno batavorum britanniam whispered one English nobleman. rediisti?” “At least,” said another, in the same inaudible tone, The young nobleman replied, bowing low— “we should have had a MAN to our sovereign, though “Imo, rex augustissime—biennium fere apud he were but a Scotsman.” lugdunenses Moratus sum.” “And now, my young springald,” said the king to Lord James proceeded— Glenvarloch, “where have you been spending your calf- “Biennium dicis? Bene, bene, optume factum est—non time?” uno Die, quod dicunt,—intelligisti, domine “At Leyden, of late, may it please your Majesty,” an- glenvarlochiensis? Aha!” swered Lord Nigel. Nigel replied by a reverent bow, and the king, turning “Aha! a scholar,” said the king; “and, by my saul, a to those behind him, said— modest and ingenuous youth, that hath not forgotten “Adolescens quidem ingenui vultus ingenuique pudoris.” how to blush, like most of our travelled Monsieurs. We Then resumed his learned queries. “Et quid hodie will treat him conformably.” lugdunenses loquuntur—vossius vester nihilne novi Then drawing himself up, coughing slightly, and look- scripsit?—nihil certe, quod doleo, typis recenter editit.” ing around him with the conscious importance of supe- “Valet quidem vossius, rex benevole.” replied Nigel, “ast rior learning, while all the courtiers who understood, or senex veneratissimus annum agit, ni fallor, understood not, Latin, pressed eagerly forward to lis- septuagesimum.”

148 Sir Walter Scott “Virum, mehercle, vix tam grandaevum crediderim,” This last tribute to his polemical powers completed replied the monarch. “et vorstius iste?—arminii improbi James’s happiness, which the triumph of exhibiting his successor aeque ac sectator—herosne adhuc, ut cum homero erudition had already raised to a considerable height. loquar, ?” He rubbed his hands, snapped his fingers, fidgeted, text in Greek chuckled, exclaimed— “Euge! Belle! Optime!” and turn- Nigel, by good fortune, remembered that Vorstius, the ing to the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford, who stood divine last mentioned in his Majesty’s queries about the behind him, he said.—“Ye see, my lords, no bad speci- state of Dutch literature, had been engaged in a per- men of our Scottish Latinity, with which language we sonal controversy with James, in which the king had would all our subjects of England were as well embued taken so deep an interest, as at length to hint in his public as this, and other youths of honourable birth, in our correspondence with the United States, that they would auld kingdom; also, we keep the genuine and Roman do well to apply the secular arm to stop the progress of pronunciation, like other learned nations on the conti- heresy by violent measures against the Professor’s per- nent, sae that we hold communing with any scholar in son—a demand which their Mighty Mightinesses’ prin- the universe, who can but speak the Latin tongue; ciples of universal toleration induced them to elude, whereas ye, our learned subjects of England, have in- though with some difficulty. Knowing all this, Lord troduced into your universities, otherwise most learned, Glenvarloch, though a courtier of only five minutes’ standing, had address enough to reply— *Lest any lady or gentleman should suspect there is aught of “Vivum quidem, haud diu est, hominem videbam—vigere mystery concealed under the sentences printed in Italics, they autem quis dicat qui sub fulminibus eloquentiae tuae, rex will be pleased to understand that they contain only a few commonplace Latin phrases, relating to the state of letters magne, jamdudum pronus jacet, et prostratus?”* in Holland, which neither deserve, nor would endure, a literal translation. 149 The Fortunes of Nigel a fashion of pronouncing like unto the ‘nippit foot and King James more, but could (setting apart the fright) clippit foot’ of the bride in the fairy tale, whilk manner hardly have been more unpleasing to his indolent dispo- of speech, (take it not amiss that I be round with you) sition. can be understood by no nation on earth saving your- “And is it even so, man?” said he; “and can no single selves; whereby Latin, quoad anglos, ceaseth to be com- man, were it but for the rarity of the case, ever come up munis lingua, the general dragoman, or interpreter, be- frae Scotland, excepting EX PROPOSITO—on set pur- tween all the wise men of the earth.” pose, to see what he can make out of his loving sover- The Bishop of Exeter bowed, as in acquiescence to eign? It is but three days syne that we had weel nigh the royal censure; but he of Oxford stood upright, as lost our life, and put three kingdoms into dule-weeds, mindful over what subjects his see extended, and as be- from the over haste of a clumsy-handed peasant, to ing equally willing to become food for fagots in defence thrust a packet into our hand, and now we are beset by of the Latinity of the university, as for any article of the like impediment in our very Court. To our Secretary his religious creed. with that gear, my lord—to our Secretary with that The king, without awaiting an answer from either prel- gear.” ate, proceeded to question Lord Nigel, but in the ver- “I have already offered my humble Supplication to nacular tongue,—“Weel, my likely Alumnus of the your Majesty’s Secretary of State,” said Lord Muses, and what make you so far from the north?” Glenvarloch—“but it seems—” “To pay my homage to your Majesty,” said the young “That he would not receive it, I warrant?” said the nobleman, kneeling on one knee, “and to lay before you,” king, interrupting him; “bu my saul, our Secretary kens he added, “this my humble and dutiful Supplication.” that point of king-craft, called refusing, better than we The presenting of a pistol would certainly have startled do, and will look at nothing but what he likes himsell—

150 Sir Walter Scott I think I wad make a better Secretary to him than he to “May it please your Majesty to remember, that upon me.—Weel, my lord, you are welcome to London; and, one certain occasion you did promise to grant me a boon as ye seem an acute and learned youth, I advise ye to every year of your sacred life?” turn your neb northward as soon as ye like, and settle “I mind it weel, man,” answered James, “I mind it weel, yoursell for a while at Saint Andrews, and we will be and good reason why—it was when you unclasped the right glad to hear that you prosper in your studies.— fause traitor Ruthven’s fangs from about our royal throat, Incumbite Remis Fortiter.” and drove your dirk into him like a true subject. We did While the king spoke thus, he held the petition of the then, as you remind us, (whilk was unnecessary,) being young lord carelessly, like one who only delayed till the partly beside ourselves with joy at our liberation, prom- supplicant’s back was turned, to throw it away, or at ise we would grant you a free boon every year; whilk prom- least lay it aside to be no more looked at. The petitioner, ise, on our coming to menseful possession of our royal who read this in his cold and indifferent looks, and in faculties, we did confirm, restrictive always and the manner in which he twisted and crumpled together conditionaliter, that your lordship’s demand should be such the paper, arose with a bitter sense of anger and disap- as we, in our royal discretion, should think reasonable.” pointment, made a profound obeisance, and was about “Even so, gracious sovereign,” said the old earl, “and to retire hastily. But Lord Huntinglen, who stood by may I yet farther crave to know if I have ever exceeded him, checked his intention by an almost imperceptible the bounds of your royal benevolence?” touch upon the skirt of his cloak, and Nigel, taking the “By my word, man, no!’” said the king; “I cannot re- hint, retreated only a few steps from the royal presence, member you have asked much for yourself, if it be not a and then made a pause. In the meantime, Lord dog or a hawk, or a buck out of our park at Theobald’s, Huntinglen kneeled before James, in his turn, and said— or such like. But to what serves this preface?”

151 The Fortunes of Nigel “To the boon to which I am now to ask of your Grace,” “Why, neither shall they mine,” replied the monarch; said Lord Huntinglen; “which is, that your Majesty “by my father’s saul, none of them all shall play Rex would be pleased, on the instant, to look at the placet with me—I will do what I will, and what I ought, like a of Lord Glenvarloch, and do upon it what your own just free king.” and royal nature shall think meet and just, without ref- “Your Majesty will then grant me my boon?” said the erence to your Secretary or any other of your Council.” Lord Huntinglen. “By my saul, my lord, this is strange,” said the king; “Ay, marry will I—marry will I,” said the king; “but “ye are pleading for the son of your enemy!” follow me this way, man, where we may be more pri- “Of one who WAS my enemy till your Majesty made vate.” him my friend,” answered Lord Huntinglen. He led Lord Huntinglen with rather a hurried step “Weel spoken, my lord!” said the king; “and with, a through the courtiers, all of whom gazed earnestly on true Christian spirit. And, respecting the Supplication of this unwonted scene, as is the fashion of all Courts on this young man, I partly guess where the matter lies; and similar occasions. The king passed into a little cabinet, in plain troth I had promised to George Heriot to be good and bade, in the first moment, Lord Huntinglen lock or to the lad—But then, here the shoe pinches. Steenie and bar the door; but countermanded his direction in the Babie Charles cannot abide him—neither can your own next, saying,—“No, no, no—bread o’ life, man, I am a son, my lord; and so, methinks, he had better go down to free king—will do what I will and what I should—I am Scotland before he comes toill luck by them.” justus et tenax propositi, man—nevertheless, keep by the “My son, an it please your Majesty, so far as he is con- door, Lord Huntinglen, in case Steenie should come in cerned, shall not direct my doings,” said the earl, “nor with his mad humour.” any wild-headed young man of them all.” “O my poor master!” groaned the Earl of Huntinglen.

152 Sir Walter Scott “When you were in your own cold country, you had Court; or if he has such an eard hunger, wouns! man, warmer blood in your veins.” we’ll stuff his stomach with English land, which is worth The king hastily looked over the petition or memo- twice as much, ay, ten times as much, as these accursed rial, every now and then glancing his eye towards the hills and heughs, and mosses and muirs, that he is sae door, and then sinking it hastily on the paper, ashamed keen after.” that Lord Huntinglen, whom he respected, should sus- All this while the poor king ambled up and down the pect him of timidity. apartment in a piteous state of uncertainty, which was “To grant the truth,” he said, after he had finished his made more ridiculous by his shambling circular mode hasty perusal, “this is a hard case; and harder than it of managing his legs, and his ungainly fashion on such was represented to me, though I had some inkling of it occasions of fiddling with the bunches of ribbons which before. And so the lad only wants payment of the siller fastened the lower part of his dress. due from us, in order to reclaim his paternal estate? But Lord Huntinglen listened with great composure, and then, Huntinglen, the lad will have other debts—and answered, “An it please your Majesty, there was an an- why burden himsell with sae mony acres of barren wood- swer yielded by Naboth when Ahab coveted his vine- land? let the land gang, man, let the land gang; Steenie yard—’ The Lord forbid that I should give the inherit- has the promise of it from our Scottish Chancellor—it ance of my fathers unto thee.’” is the best hunting-ground in Scotland—and Babie “Ey, my lord—ey, my lord!” ejaculated James, while Charles and Steenie want to kill a buck there this next all the colour mounted both to his cheek and nose; “I year—they maun hae the land—they maun hae the hope ye mean not to teach me divinity? Ye need not land; and our debt shall be paid to the young man plack fear, my lord, that I will shun to do justice to every man; and bawbee, and he may have the spending of it at our and, since your lordship will give me no help to take up

153 The Fortunes of Nigel this in a more peaceful manner—whilk, methinks, would raised his faithful servant from the ground, “that is what be better for the young man, as I said before,—why— ye all say when I do any thing to please ye. There— since it maun be so—’sdeath, I am a free king, man, and there, take the sign-manual, and away with you and this he shall have his money and redeem his land, and make young fellow. I wonder Steenie and Babie Charles have a kirk and a miln of it, an he will.” So saying, he hastily not broken in on us before now.” wrote an order on the Scottish Exchequer for the sum Lord Huntinglen hastened from the cabinet, foreseeing in question, and then added, “How they are to pay it, I a scene at which he was unwilling to be present, but which see not; but I warrant he will find money on the order sometimes occurred when James roused himself so far as among the goldsmiths, who can find it for every one but to exert his own free will, of which he boasted so much, me.—And now you see, my Lord of Huntinglen, that I in spite of that of his imperious favourite Steenie, as he am neither an untrue man, to deny you the boon whilk called the Duke of Buckingham, from a supposed resem- I became bound for, nor an Ahab, to covet Naboth’s vine- blance betwixt his very handsome countenance, and that yard; nor a mere nose-of-wax, to be twisted this way with which the Italian artists represented the protomartyr and that, by favourites and counsellors at their plea- Stephen. In fact, the haughty favourite, who had the sure. I think you will grant now that I am none of unusual good fortune to stand as high in the opinion of those?” the heir-apparent as of the existing monarch, had con- “You are my own native and noble prince,” said siderably diminished in his respect towards the latter; and Huntinglen, as he knelt to kiss the royal hand—“just it was apparent, to the more shrewd courtiers, that James and generous, whenever you listen to the workings of endured his domination rather from habit, timidity, and your own heart.” a dread of encountering his stormy passions, than from “Ay, ay,” said the king, laughing good-naturedly, as he any heartfelt continuation of regard towards him, whose

154 Sir Walter Scott greatness had been the work of his own hands. To save They both followed the earl without speaking, and himself the pain of seeing what was likely to take place were in the second ante-room when the important anon the duke’s return, and to preserve the king from the nunciation of the ushers, and the hasty murmur with additional humiliation which the presence of such a wit- which all made ample way as the company repeated to ness must have occasioned, the earl left the cabinet as each other,—“The Duke—the Duke!” made them aware speedily as possible, having first carefully pocketed the of the approach of the omnipotent favourite. important sign-manual. He entered, that unhappy minion of Court favour, No sooner had he entered the presence-room, than he sumptuously dressed in the picturesque attire which will hastily sought Lord Glenvarloch, who had withdrawn into live for ever on the canvas of Vandyke, and which marks the embrasure of one of the windows, from the general so well the proud age, when aristocracy, though under- gaze of men who seemed disposed only to afford him the mined and nodding to its fall, still, by external show notice which arises from surprise and curiosity, and, tak- and profuse expense, endeavoured to assert its para- ing him by the arm, without speaking, led him out of the mount superiority over the inferior orders. The hand- presence-chamber into the first ante-room. Here they some and commanding countenance, stately form, and found the worthy goldsmith, who approached them with graceful action and manners of the Duke of looks of curiosity, which were checked by the old lord, Buckingham, made him become that picturesque dress who said hastily, “All is well.—Is your barge in waiting?” beyond any man of his time. At present, however, his Heriot answered in the affirmative. “Then,” said Lord countenance seemed discomposed, his dress a little more Huntinglen, “you shall give me a cast in it, as the disordered than became the place, his step hasty, and watermen say; and I, in requital, will give you both your his voice imperative. dinner; for we must have some conversation together.” All marked the angry spot upon his brow, and bore

155 The Fortunes of Nigel back so suddenly to make way for him, that the Earl of “O, you do yourself less than justice, my good Master Huntinglen, who affected no extraordinary haste on the Heriot,” continued the duke, in the same tone of irony; occasion, with his companions, who could not, if they “you have a marvellous court-faction, to be the son of would, have decently left him, remained as it were by an Edinburgh tinker. Have the goodness to prefer me to themselves in the middle of the room, and in the very the knowledge of the high-born nobleman who is path of the angry favourite. He touched his cap sternly honoured and advantaged by your patronage.” as he looked on Huntinglen, but unbonneted to Heriot, “That shall be my task,” said Lord Huntinglen, with and sunk his beaver, with its shadowy plume, as low as emphasis. “My lord duke, I desire you to know Nigel the floor, with a profound air of mock respect. In re- Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, representative of one of the turning his greeting, which he did simply and unaffect- most ancient and powerful baronial houses in Scot- edly, the citizen only said,—“Too much courtesy, my land.—Lord Glenvarloch, I present you to his Grace the lord duke, is often the reverse of kindness.” Duke of Buckingham, representative of Sir George “I grieve you should think so, Master Heriot,” an- Villiers, Knight of Brookesby, in the county of Leices- swered the duke; “I only meant, by my homage, to claim ter.” your protection, sir—your patronage. You are become, The duke coloured still more high as he bowed to Lord I understand, a solicitor of suits—a promoter—an un- Glenvarloch scornfully, a courtesy which the other re- dertaker—a fautor of court suitors of merit and qual- turned haughtily, and with restrained indignation. “We ity, who chance to be pennyless. I trust your bags will know each other, then,” said the duke, after a moment’s bear you out in your new boast.” pause; and as if he had seen something in the young “They will bear me the farther, my lord duke,” an- nobleman which merited more serious notice than the swered the goldsmith, “that my boast is but small.” bitter raillery with which he had commenced—“we

156 Sir Walter Scott know each other—and you know me, my lord, for your we can neither be friends nor enemies—you have your enemy.” path, and I have mine.” “I thank you for your plainness, my lord duke,” re- Buckingham only replied by throwing on his bonnet, plied Nigel; “an open enemy is better than a hollow and shaking its lofty plume with a careless and scornful friend.” toss of the head. They parted thus; the duke walking “For you, my Lord Huntinglen,” said the duke, onwards through the apartments, and the others leav- “methinks you have but now overstepped the limits of ing the Palace and repairing to Whitehall Stairs, where the indulgence permitted to you, as the father of the they embarked on board the barge of the citizen. 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—

157 The Fortunes of Nigel The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand as if to congratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then CHAPTER X 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 Bid not thy fortune troll upon the wheels strictly correct and formal,” he said, looking to the Earl Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone; of Huntinglen; “and I sincerely rejoice at it.” And drown it not, like Egypt’s royal harlot, “I doubt nothing of its formality,” said the earl; “the king Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm’d wine-cup. understands business well, and, if he does not practise it These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres often, it is only because indolence obscures parts which are Into brief yards—bring sterling pounds to farthings, naturally well qualified for the discharge of affairs. But what Credit to infamy; and the poor gull, is next to be done for our young friend, Master Heriot? You Who might have lived an honour’d, easy life, know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living at the To ruin, and an unregarded grave. English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless The Changes. 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.” WHEN THEY WERE fairly embarked on the Thames, the “It is true,” said Heriot, in some embarrassment; earl took from his pocket the Supplication, and, point- “there is a large sum wanted in redemption—yet, if it is ing out to George Heriot the royal warrant indorsed not raised, there will be an expiry of the legal, as our thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular form? lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted.”

158 Sir Walter Scott “My noble—my worthy friends, who have taken up “It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made my cause so undeservedly, so unexpectedly,” said Nigel, me pick up a few of them,” said Heriot. “do not let me be a burden on your kindness. You have “Ay, and of better things along with them, Master already done too much where nothing was merited.” George,” replied Lord Huntinglen; “but what means it?” “Peace, man, peace,” said Lord Huntinglen, “and let “Simply this,” resumed the citizen; “that the lender old Heriot and I puzzle this scent out. He is about to of this money will transact with the holder of the mort- open—hark to him!” gage, or wadset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, and “My lord,” said the citizen, “the Duke of Buckingham obtain from him such a conveyance to his right as shall sneers at our city money-bags; yet they can sometimes leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant open, to prop a falling and a noble house.” upon the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproduc- “We know they can,” said Lord Huntinglen—“mind tive. I fear, in this uncertainty of public credit, that not Buckingham, he is a Peg-a-Ramsay—and now for without some such counter security, it will be very diffi- the remedy.” cult to find so large a sum.” “I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already,” said “Ho la!” said the Earl of Huntinglen, “halt there! a Heriot, “that the redemption money might be advanced thought strikes me.—What if the new creditor should upon such a warrant as the present, and I will engage admire the estate as a hunting-field, as much as my Lord my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure the Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and should wish to lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to me, he advances payment.” that on your plan, Master George, our new friend will “Come in his shoes!” replied the earl; “why, what have be as well entitled to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his boots or shoes to do with this matter, my good friend?” inheritance as the present holder of the mortgage.”

159 The Fortunes of Nigel The citizen laughed. “I will engage,” he said, “that readily assented; and, as they now landed upon the pri- the keenest sportsman to whom I may apply on this vate stairs leading down to the river from the gardens occasion, shall not have a thought beyond the Lord of the handsome hotel which he inhabited, the messen- Mayor’s Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But your ger was dispatched without loss of time. lordship’s caution is reasonable. The creditor must be Nigel, who had sat almost stupefied while these zeal- bound to allow Lord Glenvarloch sufficient time to re- ous friends volunteered for him in arranging the mea- deem his estate by means of the royal warrant, and must sures by which his fortune was to be disembarrassed, wave in his favour the right of instant foreclosure, which now made another eager attempt to force upon them may be, I should think, the more easily managed, as the his broken expressions of thanks and gratitude. But he right of redemption must be exercised in his own name.” was again silenced by Lord Huntinglen, who declared “But where shall we find a person in London fit to he would not hear a word on that topic, and proposed draw the necessary writings?” said the earl. “If my old instead, that they should take a turn in the pleached friend Sir John Skene of Halyards had lived, we should alley, or sit upon the stone bench which overlooked the have had his advice; but time presses, and—” Thames, until his son’s arrival should give the signal for “I know,” said Heriot, “an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dinner. dwells by Temple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the “I desire to introduce Dalgarno and Lord Glenvarloch English and Scottish fashion, and I have trusted him to each other,” he said, “as two who will be near often in matters of weight and of importance. I will neighbours, and I trust will be more kind ones than their send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutual fathers were formerly. There is but three Scots miles deeds may be executed in your lordship’s presence; for, betwixt the castles, and the turrets of the one are vis- as things stand, there should be no delay.” His lordship ible from the battlements of the other.”

160 Sir Walter Scott The old earl was silent for a moment, and appeared to first of my family that could so write himself—my grey muse upon the recollections which the vicinity of the beard falls on a cambric ruff and a silken doublet—my castles had summoned up. father’s descended upon a buff coat and a breast-plate. “Does Lord Dalgarno follow the Court to Newmarket I would not that those days of battle returned; but I next week?” said Heriot, by way of removing the con- should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of versation. Dalgarno ring once more with halloo, and horn, and “He proposes so, I think,” answered Lord Huntinglen, hound, and to have the old stone-arched hall return the relapsed into his reverie for a minute or two, and then hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the bicker addressed Nigel somewhat abruptly— and the quaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I “My young friend, when you attain possession of your should like to see the broad Tay once more before I die— inheritance, as I hope you soon will, I trust you will not not even the Thames can match it, in my mind.” add one to the idle followers of the Court, but reside on “Surely, my lord,” said the citizen, “all this might be your patrimonial estate, cherish your ancient tenants, easily done—it costs but a moment’s resolution, and the relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor journey of some brief days, and you will be where you against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers desire to be—what is there to prevent you?” used to do, with fewer lights and with less means than “Habits, Master George, habits,” replied the earl, we have.” “which to young men are like threads of silk, so lightly “And yet the advice to keep the country,” said Heriot, are they worn, so soon broken; but which hang on our “comes from an ancient and constant ornament of the old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves of Court.” iron. To go to Scotland for a brief space were but labour “From an old courtier, indeed,” said the earl, “and the in vain; and when I think of abiding there, I cannot

161 The Fortunes of Nigel bring myself to leave my old master, to whom I fancy ruse his countenance and figure. He was dressed point- myself sometimes useful, and whose weal and woe I have device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scot- of the time, which suited well with his age, probably tish noble.” about five-and-twenty, with a noble form and fine coun- “Has he visited the North?” said Heriot. tenance, in which last could easily be traced the manly “He was there last year and made such a report of the features of his father, but softened by a more habitual country, that the prince has expressed a longing to see air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had it.” “Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his Highness ever condescended to assume towards the world in gen- and the Duke of Buckingham?” observed the goldsmith. eral. In other respects, his address was gallant, free, and “He is so,” answered the earl,—“I pray it may be for unencumbered either by pride or ceremony—far remote the advantage of them all. The prince is just and equi- certainly from the charge either of haughty coldness or table in his sentiments, though cold and stately in his forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly manners, and very obstinate in his most trifling pur- freed him from the marked faults which he ascribed to poses; and the duke, noble and gallant, and generous the manners of the prince and his favourite and open, is fiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno Buckingham. has none of these faults, and such as he may have of his While the old earl presented his young acquaintance own, may perchance be corrected by the society in which Lord Glenvarloch to his son, as one whom he would have he moves.—See, here he comes.” him love and honour, Nigel marked the countenance of Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aught end of the alley to the bench on which his father and his of that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his guests were seated, so that Nigel had full leisure to pe- broken expostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising

162 Sir Walter Scott from a clashing of interests betwixt his new friend and private and reserved manner. How he had passed his time the great Buckingham. But nothing of this was visible; in London, the reader is acquainted with. But this mel- on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his new acquain- ancholy and secluded course of life was neither agree- tance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes able to his age nor to his temper, which was genial and conquest at once, when addressed to the feelings of an sociable. He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the ingenuous young man. approaches which a young man of his own age and rank It need hardly be told that his open and friendly ad- made towards him; and when he had exchanged with dress met equally ready and cheerful acceptation from Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by Nigel Olifaunt. For many months, and while a youth which, as surely as by those of freemasonry, young not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained people recognise a mutual wish to be agreeable to each by circumstances from the conversation of his equals. other, it seemed as if the two noblemen had been ac- When, on his father’s sudden death, he left the Low quainted for some time. Countries for Scotland, he had found himself involved, Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one to all appearance inextricably, with the details of the of Lord Huntinglen’s attendants came down the alley, law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of marshalling onwards a man dressed in black buckram, the patrimony which should support his hereditary rank. who followed him with tolerable speed, considering that, His term of sincere mourning, joined to injured pride, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, he kept and the swelling of the heart under unexpected and un- his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the mo- deserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty at- ment that he came in sight of the company to which he tending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young was about to be presented. Lord of Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very “Who is this, you cuckoldy knave,” said the old lord,

163 The Fortunes of Nigel who had retained the keen appetite and impatience of a low-coloured as before; nay, what seemed stranger, his Scottish baron even during a long alienation from his very hair, when he raised his head, hung down on either native country; “and why does John Cook, with a mur- cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was rain to him, keep back dinner?” when we first introduced him to our readers, seated at “I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person’s his quiet and humble desk. intrusion,” said George Heriot; “this is the scrivener Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the whom we desired to see.—Look up, man, and see us in ridiculous and puritanical figure which presented itself the face as an honest man should, instead of beating like a starved anatomy to the company, and whispered thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering- at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch’s ear— ram.” The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon, of an automaton which suddenly obeys the impulse of Where got’st thou that goose-look?” a pressed spring. But, strange to tell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron’s mandate, a busi- Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage ness, as Master Heriot’s message expressed, of weight to understand a quotation which had already grown and importance—nay not even the state of depression matter of common allusion in London. Lord Dalgarno in which, out of sheer humility, doubtless, he had his saw that he was not understood, and continued, “That head stooped to the earth, from the moment he had trod fellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had called any hypocritical rogue—and such is my excellent opinion colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow of human nature, that I always suspect the worst. But from haste and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tal- they seem deep in business. Will you take a turn with

164 Sir Walter Scott me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member “He is right,” said Lord Huntinglen; “our young friend of the serious conclave?” is right, in confiding these matters to you and me, Mas- “With you, my lord, most willingly,” said Nigel; and ter George Heriot—he has not misplaced his confidence.” they were turning away accordingly, when George He- Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two riot, with the formality belonging to his station, ob- young noblemen, who had now walked down the alley served, that, “as their business concerned Lord arm-in-arm, and at length said, “He hath not, indeed, Glenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and truly master of it, and witness to it.” says—but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for “My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, it behoves every man to become acquainted with his own my best friend, Master Heriot,” said the young noble- affairs, so soon as he hath any that are worth attending man, “I shall understand nothing the better for cum- to.” bering you with my ignorance in these matters; and can When he had made this observation, they applied only say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that themselves, with the scrivener, to look into various pa- I dare not take the helm out of the hand of the kind pers, and to direct in what manner writings should be pilots who have already guided my course within sight drawn, which might at once afford sufficient security to of a fair and unhoped-for haven. Whatever you recom- those who were to advance the money, and at the same mend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the im- time preserve the right of the young nobleman to report of the deeds I shall better learn by a brief explana- deem the family estate, provided he should obtain the tion from Master Heriot, if he will bestow so much means of doing so, by the expected reimbursement from trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learned words the Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is needless to and law terms from this person of skill.” enter into those details. But it is not unimportant to

165 The Fortunes of Nigel mention, as an illustration of character, that Heriot went was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing into the most minute legal details with a precision which him to engross the necessary deeds, the two young men showed that experience had made him master even of walked together on the terrace which overhung the river, the intricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the and talked on the topics which Lord Dalgarno, the el- Earl of Huntinglen, though far less acquainted with der, and the more experienced, thought most likely to technical detail, suffered no step of the business to pass interest his new friend. over, until he had attained a general but distinct idea of These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a its import and its propriety. Court life; and Lord Dalgarno expressed much surprise They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevo- at understanding that Nigel proposed an instant return lent intentions towards the young Lord Glenvarloch, by to Scotland. the skill and eager zeal of the scrivener, whom Heriot “You are jesting with me,” he said. “All the Court had introduced to this piece of business, the most impor- rings—it is needless to mince it—with the extraordi- tant which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and nary success of your suit—against the highest interest, the particulars of which were moreover agitated in his it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall. Men presence between an actual earl, and one whose wealth think of you—talk of you—fix their eyes on you—ask and character might entitle him to be an alderman of his each other, who is this young Scottish lord, who has ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn. stepped so far in a single day? They augur, in whispers While they were thus in eager conversation on busi- to each other, how high and how far you may push your ness, the good earl even forgetting the calls of his appe- fortune—and all that you design to make of it, is, to tite, and the delay of dinner, in his anxiety to see that return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon the scrivener received proper instructions, and that all a peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a

166 Sir Walter Scott blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin, though your He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale, tone qualified to allay Lord Dalgarno’s extreme mirth: eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, “This is all well, my lord; but how am I to understand ride upon a galloway, and be called my right honourable your merriment?” Lord Dalgarno only answered him and maist worthy lord!” with redoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by “There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I Lord Glenvarloch’s cloak, as if to prevent his falling confess,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “even if your father down on the ground, in the extremity of his convulsion. and good Master Heriot should succeed in putting my At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half an- affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet I trust gry, at becoming thus the subject of his new to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before acquaintance’s ridicule, and was only restrained from me, and to teach my children, as I have myself been expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense of taught, to make some personal sacrifices, if they be nec- the obligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno re- essary, in order to maintain with dignity the situation covered himself, and spoke in a half-broken voice, his in which they are placed by Providence.” eyes still running with tears: “I crave your pardon, my Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his dear Lord Glenvarloch—ten thousand times do I crave laughter during this speech, at length broke out into a your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, ac- fit of mirth, so hearty and so resistless, that, angry as companied by your grave and angry surprise at my he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel along with laughing at what would have made any court-bred him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to join hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon in a burst of laughter, which he thought not only cause- once from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame less, but almost impertinent. me. Why, my liefest and dearest lord, you, a young and

167 The Fortunes of Nigel handsome fellow, with high birth, a title, and the name mortified, and, to say truth, half ashamed of his more of an estate, so well received by the king at your first manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and flat- starting, as makes your further progress scarce matter tered himself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a of doubt, if you know how to improve it—for the king rigid moral patriot, in presence of a young man whose has already said you are a ‘braw lad, and well studied in current fluency of language, as well as his experience in the more humane letters’—you, too, whom all the the highest circles of society, gave him, in spite of Nigel’s women, and the very marked beauties of the Court, better and firmer thoughts, a temporary ascendency over desire to see, because you came from Leyden, were born him. He sought, therefore, to compromise the matter, in Scotland, and have gained a hard-contested suit in and avoid farther debate, by frankly owning, that, if to England—you, I say, with a person like a prince, an eye return to his own country were not his choice, it was at of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your least a matter of necessity. “His affairs,” he said, “were cards on the table when the game is in your very hand, unsettled, his income precarious.” running back to the frozen north, and marrying—let “And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose me see—a tall, stalking, blue-eyed, fair-skinned bony income is less than precarious, that is to be found in wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort attendance on the Court?” said Lord Dalgarno; “all are of Lot’s wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and either losing or winning. Those who have wealth, come with her to shut yourself up in your tapestried cham- hither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who, ber! Uh, gad!—Swouns, I shall never survive the idea!” like you and I, dear Glenvarloch, have little or none, It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, have every chance to be sharers in their spoils.” from mere strength of character and principle, to sup- “I have no ambition of that sort,” said Nigel, “and if port itself against the force of ridicule. Half angry, half I had, I must tell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not

168 Sir Walter Scott the means to do so. I can scarce as yet call the suit I Court with him, followed by a round score of old blue- wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot blush to say so, to bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers the friendship of yonder good man.” and broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt “I will not laugh again, if I can help it,” said Lord age and strong waters, can make no use of—as many Dalgarno. “But, Lord! that you should have gone to a huge silver badges on their arms, to show whose fools wealthy goldsmith for your habit—why, I could have they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard of brought you to an honest, confiding tailor, who should plate—rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-cham- have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love bers with the flavour of onions and genievre—pah!” of the little word, ‘lordship,’ which you place before your “The poor knaves!” said Lord Glenvarloch; “they have name;—and then your goldsmith, if he be really a served your father, it may be, in the wars. What would friendly goldsmith, should have equipped you with such become of them were he to turn them off?” a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have bought you “Why, let them go to the hospital,” said Dalgarno, thrice as many suits, or done better things for you.” “or to the bridge-end, to sell switches. The king is a bet- “I do not understand these fashions, my lord,” said ter man than my father, and you see those who have Nigel, his displeasure mastering his shame; “were I to served in HIS wars do so every day; or, when their blue attend the Court of my sovereign, it should be when I coats were well worn out, they would make rare scare- could maintain, without shifting or borrowing, the dress crows. Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the and retinue which my rank requires.” stoutest raven dared not come within a yard of that “Which my rank requires!” said Lord Dalgarno, re- copper nose. I tell you, there is more service, as you will peating his last words; “that, now, is as good as if my soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a lither father had spoke it. I fancy you would love to move to lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these

169 The Fortunes of Nigel old memorials of the Douglas wars,* where they cut each and lochs; but you shall see better cheer to-morrow. other’s throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Where lodge you? I will call for you. I must be your Scots on the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make guide through the peopled desert, to certain enchanted amends, they will eat mouldy victuals, and drink stale lands, which you will scarce discover without chart and ale, as if their bellies were puncheons.—But the dinner- pilot. Where lodge you?” bell is going to sound—hark, it is clearing its rusty “I will meet you in Paul’s,” said Nigel, a good deal throat, with a preliminary jowl. That is another clam- embarrassed, “at any hour you please to name.” orous relic of antiquity, that, were I master, should soon “O, you would be private,” said the young lord; “nay, be at the bottom of the Thames. How the foul fiend can fear not me—I will be no intruder. But we have attained it interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to this huge larder of flesh, fowl, and fish. I marvel the know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to oaken boards groan not under it.” dinner? But my father looks our way—we must not be They had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you mansion, where the table was superabundantly loaded, will forgive a quibble which would have made his Maj- and where the number of attendants, to a certain ex- esty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and, having tent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young nobleman. been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the you should witness our larded capons, our mountains party. The latter complimented Lord Glenvarloch upon of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills the impression he had made at Court. “One would have * The cruel civil wars waged by the Scottish barons during thought ye had brought the apple of discord in your the minority of James VI., had the name from the figure pouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of Morton. Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy whilk Althea was delivered, and that she had lain-in in or favour. 170 Sir Walter Scott a barrel of gunpowder, for the king, and the prince, and forthwith proceeded in his own way to convey this agree- the duke, have been by the lugs about ye, and so have able intelligence to the earl, observing, that his son was many more, that kendna before this blessed day that a better maker of bargains than his lordship, for he had there was such a man living on the face of the earth.” bought a doublet as rich as that his lordship wore when “Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo,” said the earl; “they the Spanish ambassador was at Holyrood, and it had get cold while you talk.” “Troth, and that needsna, my cost him but fifty pounds Scots;—“that was no fool’s lord,” said the knight; “your lordship’s dinners seldom bargain, my lord.” scald one’s mouth—the serving-men are turning auld, “Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo,” answered like oursells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen the earl, calmly; “and a fool’s bargain it is, in all the and the ha’.” tenses. Dalgarno WAS a fool when he bought—I will be With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo re- a fool when I pay—and you, Sir Mungo, craving your mained satisfied, until the dishes were removed, when, pardon, are a fool in praesenti, for speaking of what con- fixing his eyes on the brave new doublet of Lord cerns you not.” Dalgarno, he complimented him on his economy, pre- So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious tending to recognise it as the same which his father had business of the table and sent the wine around with a worn in Edinburgh in the Spanish ambassador’s time. profusion which increased the hilarity, but rather threat- Lord Dalgarno, too much a man of the world to be ened the temperance, of the company, until their jovi- moved by any thing from such a quarter, proceeded to ality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scriv- crack some nuts with great deliberation, as he replied, ener had engrossed such deeds as required to be pres- that the doublet was in some sort his father’s, as it was ently executed. likely to cost him fifty pounds some day soon. Sir Mungo George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that

171 The Fortunes of Nigel wine-cups and legal documents were unseemly sum for which it stood pledged, and that at the term of neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if they had laid Lambmas, and at the hour of noon, and beside the tomb a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and re- of the Regent Earl of Murray, in the High Kirk of Saint ceived the respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should Giles, at Edinburgh, being the day and place assigned be such an ungracious beast as to eat or drink until his for such redemption.* lordship’s pleasure was performed. When this business was transacted, the old earl would “Thou shalt eat before thou goest,” said Lord fain have renewed his carouse; but the citizen, alleging Huntinglen; “and I will have thee try, moreover, whether the importance of the deeds he had about him, and the a cup of sack cannot bring some colour into these cheeks business he had to transact betimes the next morning, of thine. It were a shame to my household, thou shouldst not only refused to return to table, but carried with him glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion as to his barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have thou now wearest—Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour been otherwise found more tractable. of our roof is concerned.” When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should more afloat on the river, George Heriot looked back se- be attended to. Lord Glenvarloch and the citizen, in the riously on the mansion they had left—“There live,” he meanwhile, signed and interchanged, and thus closed a said, “the old fashion and the new. The father is like a transaction, of which the principal party concerned noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from ne- understood little, save that it was under the manage- glect and inactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well- ment of a zealous and faithful friend, who undertook that the money should be forthcoming, and the estate *As each covenant in those days of accuracy had a special place nominated for execution, the tomb of the Regent Earl released from forfeiture, by payment of the stipulated of Murray in Saint Giles’s Church was frequently assigned for the purpose. 172 Sir Walter Scott 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 CHAPTER XI the family.” Nothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch, landing at Paul’s Wharf, took leave You are not for the manner nor the times, of his friend the citizen, and retired to his own apart- They have their vices now most like to virtues; ment, where his attendant, Richie, not a little elevated You cannot know them apait by any difference, with the events of the day, and with the hospitality of They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat— Lord Huntinglen’s house-keeping, gave a most splendid Sleep i’ the self-same beds, ride in those coaches, account of them to the buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced Or very like four horses in a coach, to hear that the sun at length was shining upon what As the best men and women. Richie called “the right side of the hedge.” 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, blush- ing like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out—“A young nobleman, sir—no one less,” she added, drawing her

173 The Fortunes of Nigel hand slightly over her lips, “would be so saucy—a young Dalgarno; “I am no tell-tale, nor shall I cross your walk; nobleman, sir, to wait on you!” there is game enough in the forest, thank Heaven, and I And she was followed into the little cabin by Lord can strike a doe for myself.” Dalgarno, gay, easy, disembarrassed, and apparently as All this he said in so significant a manner, and the much pleased to rejoin his new acquaintance as if he explanation which he had adopted seemed to put Lord had found him in the apartments of a palace. Nigel, on Glenvarloch’s gallantry on so respectable a footing, that the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circumstances,) Nigel ceased to try to undeceive him; and less ashamed, was discountenanced and mortified at being surprised perhaps, (for such is human weakness,) of supposed vice by so splendid a gallant in a chamber which, at the mo- than of real poverty, changed the discourse to something ment the elegant and high-dressed cavalier appeared in else, and left poor Dame Nelly’s reputation and his own it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower, narrower, darker, at the mercy of the young courtier’s misconstruction. and meaner than it had ever shown before. He would He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord have made some apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno had long since breakfasted, but had just come Dalgarno cut him short— from playing a set of tennis, he said, and would will- “Not a word of it,” he said, “not a single word—I ingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess’s single beer. This know why you ride at anchor here—but I can keep coun- was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, sel—so pretty a hostess would recommend worse quar- as the hostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord ters.” Dalgarno profited by the opportunity to take a second “On my word—on my honour,” said Lord and more attentive view of her, and then gravely drank Glenvarloch— to her husband’s health, with an almost imperceptible “Nay, nay, make no words of the matter,” said Lord nod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much

174 Sir Walter Scott honoured, smoothed her apron down with her hands, lies of my own, when I should rather make excuse for and said being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came.” “Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their So saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for lordships—he was a kind painstaking man for his fam- Lord Glenvarloch, in spite of his anxious haste to an- ily, as was in the alley, or indeed, as far north as Paul’s ticipate this act of courtesy, he proceeded in the same Chain.” tone of easy familiarity:— She would have proceeded probably to state the dif- “We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known ference betwixt their ages, as the only alloy to their nup- to each other. Now, I know enough of the dear North, to tial happiness; but her lodger, who had no mind to be be well aware that Scottish neighbours must be either farther exposed to his gay friend’s raillery, gave her, con- dear friends or deadly enemies—must either walk hand- trary to his wont, a signal to leave the room. in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at the hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer.” Glenvarloch, shook his head, and repeated the well- “How were it possible, my lord,” said Lord known lines— Glenvarloch, “to refuse what is offered so frankly, even if your father had not been a second father to me?”— “‘My lord, beware of jealousy— And, as he took Lord Dalgarno’s hand, he added—“I It is the green-eyed monster which doth make have, I think, lost no time, since, during one day’s at- The meat it feeds on.’ tendance at Court, I have made a kind friend and a powerful enemy.” “But come,” he said, changing his tone, “I know not “The friend thanks you,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “for why I should worry you thus—I who have so many fol- your just opinion; but, my dear Glenvarloch—or rather,

175 The Fortunes of Nigel for titles are too formal between us of the better file— “I told you, my lord,” said Glenvarloch firmly, and what is your Christian name?” with some haughtiness, “the Duke of Buckingham, “Nigel,” replied Lord Glenvarloch. without the least offence, declared himself my enemy “Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other,” in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that ag- said his visitor, “and my lord to the plebeian world gression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the around us. But I was about to ask you whom you sup- slightest advance towards him.” pose your enemy?” “You would act becomingly in every other case,” said “No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Lord Dalgarno, “but here you are wrong. In the Court Duke of Buckingham.” horizon Buckingham is Lord of the Ascendant, and as “You dream! What could possess you with such an he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises the fortune opinion?” said Dalgarno. of a suitor. The king would bid you remember your “He told me so himself,” replied Glenvarloch; “and, Phaedrus, in so doing, dealt frankly and honourably with me.” ‘Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas—’ “O, you know him not yet,” said his companion; “the and so forth. You are the vase of earth; beware of duke is moulded of an hundred noble and fiery quali- knocking yourself against the vase of iron.” ties, that prompt him, like a generous horse, to spring “The vase of earth,” said Glenvarloch, “will avoid the aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his forward encounter, by getting ashore out of the current—I mean course. But he means not what he says in such passing to go no more to Court.” heats—I can do more with him, I thank Heaven, than “O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find most who are around him; you shall go visit him with your Scottish suit move ill without it, for there is both me, and you will see how you shall be received.” patronage and favour necessary to enforce the sign-

176 Sir Walter Scott manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak more evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of looking hereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, after his moralities, for nothing can make them either whether you did not wonder to see me here so early?” better or worse.” “I am surprised that you could find me out in this “I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord,” obscure corner,” said Lord Glenvarloch. said Nigel. “My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discov- “I wonder where I should find his parents,” replied ery,” replied Lord Dalgarno; “I have but to say, ‘Goblin, his companion, “to render an account to them.” I would know where he or she dwells,’ and he guides me “He may be an orphan,” said Lord Nigel; “but surely, thither as if by art magic.” being a page in your lordship’s family, his parents must “I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord,” said be of rank.” Nigel; “I will send my servant to seek him.” “Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them to,” “Do not concern yourself—he is by this time,” said replied Lord Dalgarno, with the same indifference; “they Lord Dalgarno, “playing at hustle-cap and chuck-far- were both hanged, I believe—at least the gipsies, from thing with the most blackguard imps upon the wharf, whom I bought him five years ago, intimated as much unless he hath foregone his old customs.” to me.—You are surprised at this, now. But is it not bet- “Are you not afraid,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “that in ter that, instead of a lazy, conceited, whey-faced slip of such company his morals may become depraved?” gentility, to whom, in your old-world idea of the mat- “Let his company look to their own,” answered Lord ter, I was bound to stand Sir Pedagogue, and see that he Dalgarno, cooly; “for it will be a company of real fiends washed his hands and face, said his prayers, learned his in which Lutin cannot teach more mischief than he can acddens, spoke no naughty words, brushed his hat, and learn: he is, I thank the gods, most thoroughly versed in wore his best doublet only on Sunday,—that, instead of

177 The Fortunes of Nigel such a Jacky Goodchild, I should have something like blood is to exclude it from my service—that very gal- this?” lows—bird were enough to corrupt a whole antecham- He whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of ber of pages, though they were descended from kings darted into the room, almost with the effect of an ac- and kaisers.” tual apparition. From his height he seemed but fifteen, “I can scarce think that a nobleman should need the but, from his face, might be two or even three years older, offices of such an attendant as your goblin,” said Nigel; very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin “you are but jesting with my inexperience.” bronzed visage, which marked his gipsy descent, and a “Time will show whether I jest or not, my dear Nigel,” pair of sparkling black eyes, which seemed almost to replied Dalgarno; “in the meantime, I have to propose pierce through those whom he looked at. to you to take the advantage of the flood-tide, to run “There he is,” said Lord Dalgarno, “fit for every ele- up the river for pastime; and at noon I trust you will ment—prompt to execute every command, good, bad, dine with me.” or indifferent—unmatched in his tribe, as rogue, thief, Nigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much and liar.” amusement; and his new friend and he, attended by “All which qualities,” said the undaunted page, “have Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly resembled, when thus each in turn stood your lordship in stead.” associated, the conjunction of a bear and a monkey, took “Out, you imp of Satan!” said his master; “vanish- possession of Lord Dalgarno’s wherry, which, with its begone-or my conjuring rod goes about your ears.” The badged watermen, bearing his lordship’s crest on their boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly as he had en- arms, lay in readiness to receive them. The air was de- tered. “You see,” said Lord Dalgarno, “that, in choos- lightful upon the river; and the lively conversation of ing my household, the best regard I can pay to gentle Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures of the little

178 Sir Walter Scott voyage. He could not only give an account of the vari- tions, by reasoning as jocose as his own, only showed his ous public buildings and noblemen’s houses which they inferiority in that gay species of controversy. And it must passed in ascending the Thames, but knew how to sea- be owned, besides, though internally disapproving much son his information with abundance of anecdote, po- of what he heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young as he was in litical innuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very society, became less alarmed by the language and man- much wit, he was at least completely master of the fash- ners of his new associate, than in prudence he ought to ionable tone, which in that time, as in ours, more than have been. amply supplies any deficiency of the kind. Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, It was a style of conversation entirely new to his com- by insisting upon any topic which appeared particularly panion, as was the world which Lord Dalgarno opened to jar with his habits or principles; and he blended his to his observation; and it is no wonder that Nigel, not- mirth and his earnest so dexterously, that it was impos- withstanding his natural good sense and high spirit, sible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in his admitted, more readily than seemed consistent with ei- propositions, or how far they flowed from a wild and ther, the tone of authoritative instruction which his new extravagant spirit of raillery. And, ever and anon, those friend assumed towards him. There would, indeed, have flashes of spirit and honour crossed his conversation, been some difficulty in making a stand. To attempt a which seemed to intimate, that, when stirred to action high and stubborn tone of morality, in answer to the by some adequate motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove light strain of Lord Dalgarno’s conversation, which kept something very different from the court-haunting and on the frontiers between jest and earnest, would have ease-loving voluptuary, which he was pleased to repre- seemed pedantic and ridiculous; and every attempt sent as his chosen character. which Nigel made to combat his companion’s proposi- As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch re-

179 The Fortunes of Nigel marked, that the boat passed the mansion of Lord with such a butterfly as myself. He can lift the cup of Huntinglen, and noticed the circumstance to Lord sack to his head without my assistance; and, should the Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to have said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men dined there. “Surely no,” said the young nobleman, “I enough to guide his right honourable lordship to his have more mercy on you than to gorge you a second lordship’s right honourable couch.—Now, do not stare time with raw beef and canary wine. I propose some- at me, Nigel, as if my words were to sink the boat with thing better for you, I promise you, than such a second us. I love my father—I love him dearly—and I respect Scythian festivity. And as for my father, he proposes to him, too, though I respect not many things; a trustier dine to-day with my grave, ancient Earl of old Trojan never belted a broadsword by a loop of Northampton, whilome that celebrated putter-down of leather. But what then? He belongs to the old world, I pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard.” to the new. He has his follies, I have mine; and the less “And do you not go with him?” said his companion. either of us sees of the other’s peccadilloes, the greater “To what purpose?” said Lord Dalgarno. “To hear his will be the honour and respect—that, I think, is the wise lordship speak musty politics in false Latin, which proper phrase—I say the respect in which we shall hold the old fox always uses, that he may give the learned each other. Being apart, each of us is himself, such as Majesty of England an opportunity of correcting his nature and circumstances have made him; but, couple slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!” us up too closely together, you will be sure to have in “Nay,” said Lord Nigel, “but out of respect, to wait your leash either an old hypocrite or a young one, or on my lord your father.” perhaps both the one and t’other.” “My lord my father,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “has blue- As he spoke thus, the boat put into the landing-place bottles enough to wait on him, and can well dispense at Blackfriars. Lord Dalgarno sprung ashore, and, fling-

180 Sir Walter Scott ing his cloak and rapier to his page, recommended to his sword, Nigel,” he continued, addressing Lord companion to do the like. “We are coming among a press Glenvarloch, “that he may practise a lesson in an art so of gallants,” he said; “and, if we walked thus muffled, necessary.” we shall look like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps “Is it altogether prudent,” said Nigel, unclasping his him close in his cloak, to conceal the defects of his dou- weapon, and giving it to Richie, “to walk entirely un- blet.” armed?” “I have known many an honest man do that, if it please “And wherefore not?” said his companion. “You are your lordship,” said Richie Moniplies, who had been thinking now of Auld Reekie, as my father fondly calls watching for an opportunity to intrude himself on the your good Scottish capital, where there is such bandy- conversation, and probably remembered what had been ing of private feuds and public factions, that a man of his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a any note shall not cross your High Street twice, with- very recent period. out endangering his life thrice. Here, sir, no brawling in Lord Dalgarno stared at him, as if surprised at his the street is permitted. Your bull-headed citizen takes assurance; but immediately answered, “You may have up the case so soon as the sword is drawn, and clubs is known many things, friend; but, in the meanwhile, you the word.” do not know what principally concerns your master, “And a hard word it is,” said Richie, “as my brain-pan namely, how to carry his cloak, so as to show to advan- kens at this blessed moment.” tage the gold-laced seams, and the lining of sables. See “Were I your master, sirrah,” said Lord Dalgarno, “I how Lutin holds the sword, with his cloak cast partly would make your brain-pan, as you call it, boil over, were over it, yet so as to set off the embossed hilt, and the you to speak a word in my presence before you were silver work of the mounting.—Give your familiar your spoken to.”

181 The Fortunes of Nigel Richie murmured some indistinct answer, but took the ish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most unhappy hint, and ranked himself behind his master along with victims—where Templars crack jests as empty as their Lutin, who failed not to expose his new companion to nuts, and where small gentry imbibe such thin pota- the ridicule of the passers-by, by mimicking, as often as tions, that they get dropsies instead of getting drunk. he could do so unobserved by Richie, his stiff and up- An ordinary is a late-invented institution, sacred to right stalking gait and discontented physiognomy. Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble gallants “And tell me now, my dear Malcolm,” said Nigel, of the time meet with the first and most ethereal wits “where we are bending our course, and whether we shall of the age,—where the wine is the very soul of the choic- dine at an apartment of yours?” est grape, refined as the genius of the poet, and ancient “An apartment of mine—yes, surely,” answered Lord and generous as the blood of the nobles. And then the Dalgarno, “you shall dine at an apartment of mine, and fare is something beyond your ordinary gross terrestrial an apartment of yours, and of twenty gallants besides; food! Sea and land are ransacked to supply it; and the and where the board shall present better cheer, better invention of six ingenious cooks kept eternally upon the wine, and better attendance, than if our whole united rack to make their art hold pace with, and if possible exhibitions went to maintain it. We are going to the most enhance, the exquisite quality of the materials.” noted ordinary of London.” “By all which rhapsody,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I “That is, in common language, an inn, or a tavern,” can only understand, as I did before, that we are going said Nigel. to a choice tavern, where we shall be handsomely enter- “An inn, or a tavern, my most green and simple friend!” tained, on paying probably as handsome a reckoning.” exclaimed Lord Dalgarno. “No, no—these are places “Reckoning!” exclaimed Lord Dalgarno in the same where greasy citizens take pipe and pot, where the knav- tone as before, “perish the peasantly phrase! What pro-

182 Sir Walter Scott fanation! Monsieur le Chevalier de Beaujeu, pink of Paris not to know Beaujeu, is a crime of its own kind. But and flower of Gascony—he who can tell the age of his you shall know him this blessed moment, and shall learn wine by the bare smell, who distils his sauces in an ale- to hold yourself in horror for the enormities you have mbic by the aid of Lully’s philosophy—who carves with uttered.” such exquisite precision, that he gives to noble, knight “Well, but mark you,” said Nigel, “this worthy chevalier and squire, the portion of the pheasant which exactly keeps not all this good cheer at his own cost, does he?” accords with his rank—nay, he who shall divide a “No, no,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “there is a sort of becafico into twelve parts with such scrupulous exact- ceremony which my chevalier’s friends and intimates ness, that of twelve guests not one shall have the ad- understand, but with which you have no business at vantage of the other in a hair’s breadth, or the twenti- present. There is, as majesty might say, a symbolum to eth part of a drachm, yet you talk of him and of a reck- be disbursed—in other words, a mutual exchange of oning in the same breath! Why, man, he is the well- courtesies take place betwixt Beaujeu and his guests. known and general referee in all matters affecting the He makes them a free present of the dinner and wine, mysteries of Passage, Hazard, In and In, Penneeck, and as often as they choose to consult their own felicity by Verquire, and what not—why, Beaujeu is King of the frequenting his house at the hour of noon, and they, in Card-pack, and Duke of the Dice-box—HE call a reck- gratitude, make the chevalier a present of a Jacobus. oning like a green-aproned, red-nosed son of the vulgar Then you must know, that, besides Comus and Bacchus, spigot! O, my dearest Nigel, what a word you have spo- that princess of sublunary affairs, the Diva Fortuna, is ken, and of what a person! That you know him not, is frequently worshipped at Beaujeu’s, and he, as officiat- your only apology for such blasphemy; and yet I scarce ing high-priest, hath, as in reason he should, a consider- hold it adequate, for to have been a day in London and able advantage from a share of the sacrifice.”

183 The Fortunes of Nigel “In other words,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “this man who play as such, and for no more than they can well keeps a gaming-house.” afford to lose. It was not, and could not be, such houses “A house in which you may certainly game,” said Lord that your father desired you to avoid. Besides, he might Dalgarno, “as you may in your own chamber if you have a as well have made you swear you would never take ac- mind; nay, I remember old Tom Tally played a hand at put commodation of an inn, tavern, eating-house, or place for a wager with Quinze le Va, the Frenchman, during morn- of public reception of any kind; for there is no such place ing prayers in St. Paul’s; the morning was misty, and the of public resort but where your eyes may be contami- parson drowsy, and the whole audience consisted of them- nated by the sight of a pack of pieces of painted paste- selves and a blind woman, and so they escaped detection.” board, and your ears profaned by the rattle of those “For all this, Malcolm,” said the young lord, gravely, little spotted cubes of ivory. The difference is, that where “I cannot dine with you to-day, at this same ordinary.” we go, we may happen to see persons of quality amus- “And wherefore, in the name of heaven, should you ing themselves with a game; and in the ordinary houses draw back from your word?” said Lord Dalgarno. you will meet bullies and sharpers, who will strive ei- “I do not retract my word, Malcolm; but I am bound, ther to cheat or to swagger you out of your money.” by an early promise to my father, never to enter the doors “I am sure you would not willingly lead me to do what of a gaming-house.” is wrong,” said Nigel; “but my father had a horror for “I tell you this is none,” said Lord Dalgarno; “it is games of chance, religious I believe, as well as pruden- but, in plain terms, an eating-house, arranged on civiller tial. He judged from I know not what circumstance, a terms, and frequented by better company, than others fallacious one I should hope, that I should have a pro- in this town; and if some of them do amuse themselves pensity to such courses, and I have told you the promise with cards and hazard, they are men of honour, and which he exacted from me.”

184 Sir Walter Scott “Now, by my honour,” said Dalgarno, “what you have friendship, and something also on account of the frank said affords the strongest reason for my insisting that manner in which the young man himself had offered you go with me. A man who would shun any danger, him his intimacy. He had no reason to doubt his assur- should first become acquainted with its real bearing and ances, that the house where they were about to dine did extent, and that in the company of a confidential guide not fall under the description of places which his father’s and guard. Do you think I myself game? Good faith, prohibition referred; and finally, he was strong in his my father’s oaks grow too far from London, and stand own resolution to resist every temptation to join in games too fast rooted in the rocks of Perthshire, for me to troll of chance. He therefore pacified Lord Dalgarno, by in- them down with a die, though I have seen whole forests timating his willingness to go along with him; and, the go down like nine-pins. No, no—these are sports for the good-humour of the young courtier instantaneously re- wealthy Southron, not for the poor Scottish noble. The turning, he again ran on in a grotesque and rodomontade place is an eating-house, and as such you and I will use account of the host, Monsieur de Beaujeu, which he did it. If others use it to game in, it is their fault, but nei- not conclude until they had reached the temple of hos- ther that of the house nor ours.” pitality over which that eminent professor presided. 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

185 The Fortunes of Nigel ally dined together at an hour fixed, and the manager of the establishment presided as master of the ceremo- CHAPTER XII nies. Monsieur le Chevalier, (as he qualified himself,) Saint Priest de Beaujeu, was a sharp, thin Gascon, about sixty —This is the very barn-yard, years old, banished from his own country, as he said, on Where muster daily the prime cocks o’ the game, account of an affair of honour, in which he had the mis- Ruffle their pinions, crow till they are hoarse, fortune to kill his antagonist, though the best swords- And spar about a barleycorn. Here too chickens, man in the south of France. His pretensions to quality The callow, unfledged brood of forward folly, were supported by a feathered hat, a long rapier, and a Learn first to rear the crest, and aim the spur, suit of embroidered taffeta, not much the worse for wear, And tune their note like full-plumed Chanticleer. in the extreme fashion of the Parisian court, and flut- The Bear-Garden. tering 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 pro- THE ORDINARY, now an ignoble sound, was in the days fusion of decoration, there were many who thought of James, a new institution, as fashionable among the Monsieur le Chevalier so admirably calculated for his youth of that age as the first-rate modern club-houses present situation, that nature could never have meant are amongst those of the present day. It differed chiefly, to place him an inch above it. It was, however, part of in being open to all whom good clothes and good assur- the amusement of the place, for Lord Dalgarno and ance combined to introduce there. The company usu- other young men of quality to treat Monsieur de Beaujeu

186 Sir Walter Scott with a great deal of mock ceremony, which being ob- in the splendid dresses which they wore, and who, there- served by the herd of more ordinary and simple gulls, fore, might be supposed not habitually familiar with they paid him, in clumsy imitation, much real defer- such finery. Again, there were others, whose dress, ence. The Gascon’s natural forwardness being much en- though on a general view it did not seem inferior to that hanced by these circumstances, he was often guilty of of the rest of the company, displayed, on being observed presuming beyond the limits of his situation, and of more closely, some of these petty expedients, by which course had sometimes the mortification to be disagree- vanity endeavours to disguise poverty. ably driven back into them. Nigel had very little time to make such observations, When Nigel entered the mansion of this eminent per- for the entrance of Lord Dalgarno created an immedi- son, which had been but of late the residence of a great ate bustle and sensation among the company, as his name Baron of Queen Elizabeth’s court, who had retired to passed from one mouth to another. Some stood forward his manors in the country on the death of that princess, to gaze, others stood back to make way—those of his he was surprised at the extent of the accommodation own rank hastened to welcome him—those of inferior which it afforded, and the number of guests who were degree endeavoured to catch some point of his gesture, already assembled. Feathers waved, spurs jingled, lace or of his dress, to be worn and practised upon a future and embroidery glanced everywhere; and at first sight, occasion, as the newest and most authentic fashion. at least, it certainly made good Lord Dalgarno’s enco- The genius loci, the Chevalier himself, was not the last mium, who represented the company as composed al- to welcome this prime stay and ornament of his estab- most entirely of youth of the first quality. A more close lishment. He came shuffling forward with a hundred review was not quite so favourable. Several individuals apish conges and chers milors, to express his happiness might be discovered who were not exactly at their ease at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.—“I hope you do bring

187 The Fortunes of Nigel back the sun with you, Milor—You did carry away the encomium which he was about to pass on the deceased sun and moon from your pauvre Chevalier when you was likely to be as disagreeable to the son as it was to- leave him for so long. Pardieu, I believe you take them tally undeserved by the father, who, far from being ei- away in your pockets.” ther a gamester or libertine, as the Chevalier’s reminis- “That must have been because you left me nothing cences falsely represented him, was, on the contrary, else in them, Chevalier,” answered Lord Dalgarno; but strict and severe in his course of life, almost to the ex- Monsieur le Chevalier, I pray you to know my country- tent of rigour. man and friend, Lord Glenvarloch!” “You have the reason, milor,” answered the Chevalier, “Ah, ha! tres honore—Je m’en souviens,—oui. J’ai “you have the right—Qu’est ce que nous avons a faire connu autrefois un Milor Kenfarloque en Ecosse. Yes, I avec le temps passe?—the time passed did belong to our have memory of him—le pere de milor apparemment- fathers—our ancetres—very well—the time present is we were vera intimate when I was at Oly Root with to us—they have their pretty tombs with their memo- Monsieur de la Motte—I did often play at tennis vit ries and armorials, all in brass and marbre—we have Milor Kenfarloque at L’Abbaie d’Oly Root—il etoit the petits plats exquis, and the soupe-a-Chevalier, which meme plus fort que moi—Ah le beaucoup de revers qu’il I will cause to mount up immediately.” avoit!—I have memory, too that he was among the So saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his pretty girls—ah, un vrai diable dechaine—Aha! I have attendants in motion to place dinner on the table. memory—” Dalgarno laughed, and, observing his young friend “Better have no more memory of the late Lord looked grave, said to him, in a tone of reproach-Why, Glenvarloch,” said Lord Dalgarno, interrupting the what!-you are not gull enough to be angry with such an Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived that the ass as that?”

188 Sir Walter Scott “I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes,” said miring. The wine was also of the first quality, and circu- Lord Glenvarloch; “but I confess I was moved to hear lated in great variety, and no less abundance. The con- such a fellow mention my father’s name—and you, too, versation among so many young men was, of course, who told me this was no gaming-house, talked to him light, lively, and amusing; and Nigel, whose mind had of having left it with emptied pockets.” been long depressed by anxiety and misfortune, natu- “Pshaw, man!” said Lord Dalgarno, “I spoke but ac- rally found himself at ease, and his spirits raised and cording to the trick of the time; besides, a man must set animated. a piece or two sometimes, or he would be held a cullionly Some of the company had real wit, and could use it niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will see whether both politely and to advantage; others were coxcombs, you like the Chevalier’s good cheer better than his con- and were laughed at without discovering it; and, again, versation.” others were originals, who seemed to have no objection Dinner was announced accordingly, and the two that the company should be amused with their folly in- friends, being seated in the most honourable station at stead of their wit. And almost all the rest who played the board, were ceremoniously attended to by the Cheva- any prominent part in the conversation had either the lier, who did the honours of his table to them and to the real tone of good society which belonged to the period, other guests, and seasoned the whole with his agreeable or the jargon which often passes current for it. conversation. The dinner was really excellent, in that In short, the company and conversation was so agree- piquant style of cookery which the French had already able, that Nigel’s rigour was softened by it, even towards introduced, and which the home-bred young men of the master of ceremonies, and he listened with patience England, when they aspired to the rank of connoisseurs to various details which the Chevalier de Beaujeu, see- and persons of taste, were under the necessity of ad- ing, as he said, that Milor’s taste lay for the “curieux

189 The Fortunes of Nigel and Futile,” chose to address to him in particular, on with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell what the subject of cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the the devil any of them were made upon at all. taste for antiquity, which he somehow supposed that The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, his new guest possessed, he launched out in commenda- and had such genial effect on the guests, that those of tion of the great artists of former days, particularly the lower end of the table, who had hitherto been lis- one whom he had known in his youth, “Maitre de Cui- teners, began, not greatly to their own credit, or that of sine to the Marechal Strozzi—tres bon gentilhomme the ordinary, to make innovations. pourtant;” who had maintained his master’s table with “You speak of the siege of Leith,” said a tall, raw- twelve covers every day during the long and severe block- boned man, with thick mustaches turned up with a mili- ade of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to tary twist, a broad buff belt, a long rapier, and other place on it than the quarter of a carrion-horse now and outward symbols of the honoured profession, which lives then, and the grass and weeds that grew on the ram- by killing other people—“you talk of the siege of Leith, parts. “Despardieux c’dtoit un homme superbe! With and I have seen the place—a pretty kind of a hamlet it one tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a is, with a plain wall, or rampart, and a pigeon-house or soupe for twenty guests—an haunch of a little puppy- so of a tower at every angle. Uds daggers and scabbards, dog made a roti des plus excellens; but his coupe de if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four hours, maitre was when the rendition—what you call the sur- not to say so many months, before it, without carrying render, took place and appened; and then, dieu me the place and all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure damme, he made out of the hind quarter of one salted storm, they would have deserved no better grace than horse, forty-five couverts; that the English and Scot- the Provost-Marshal gives when his noose is reeved.” tish officers and nobility, who had the honour to dine “Saar,” said the Chevalier, “Monsieur le Capitaine, I

190 Sir Walter Scott vas not at the siege of the petit Leyth, and I know not my lord,” said the captain, from the bottom of the what you say about the cockloft; but I will say for table.” Craving your lordship’s pardon, I do know some- Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he understood the grande thing of these same gens-d’armes.” guerre, and was grand capitaine—plus grand—that is “We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and more great, it may be, than some of the capitaines of save your modesty at the same time the trouble of tell- Angleterre, who do speak very loud—tenez, Monsieur, ing us how that knowledge was acquired,” answered Lord car c’est a vous!” Dalgarno, rather contemptuously. “O Monsieur.” answered the swordsman, “we know the “I need not speak of it, my lord,” said the man of Frenchman will fight well behind his barrier of stone, war; “the world knows it—all perhaps, but the men of or when he is armed with back, breast, and pot.” mohair—the poor sneaking citizens of London, who “Pot!” exclaimed the Chevalier, “what do you mean would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, by pot—do you mean to insult me among my noble ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses guests? Saar, I have done my duty as a pauvre to relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have gentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at seen were once to come near that cuckoo’s nest of theirs!” Courtrai and Yvry, and, ventre saint gris! we had nei- “A cuckoo’s nest!-and that said of the city of Lon- ther pot nor marmite, but did always charge in our don!” said a gallant who sat on the opposite side of the shirt.” table, and who, wearing a splendid and fashionable dress, “Which refutes another base scandal,” said Lord seemed yet scarce at home in it—“I will not brook to Dalgarno, laughing, “alleging that linen was scarce hear that repeated.” among the French gentlemen-at-arms.” “What!” said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown “Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, from a pair of broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt

191 The Fortunes of Nigel of his weapon with one hand, and twirling with the other case he shall soon hear from me honourably, by way of his huge mustaches; “will you quarrel for your city?” cartel.” “Ay, marry will I,” replied the other. “I am a citizen, I “You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of care not who knows it; and he who shall speak a word in cudgel,” said the citizen, starting up, and taking his dispraise of the city, is an ass and a peremptory gull, sword, which he had laid in a corner. “Follow me.” and I will break his pate, to teach him sense and man- “It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the ners.” rules of the sword,” said the captain; “and I do nomi- The company, who probably had their reasons for not nate the Maze, in Tothill-Fields, for place—two gentle- valuing the captain’s courage at the high rate which he men, who shall be indifferent judges, for witnesses;— himself put upon it, were much entertained at the man- and for time—let me say this day fortnight, at day- ner in which the quarrel was taken up by the indignant break.” citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, “Well run, Bow- “And I,” said the citizen, “do nominate the bowling- bell!”—“Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul’s!”— alley behind the house for place, the present good com- ”Sound a charge there, or the soldier will mistake his pany for witnesses, and for time the present moment.” signals, and retreat when he should advance.” So saying, he cast on his beaver, struck the soldier “You mistake me, gentlemen,” said the captain, look- across the shoulders with his sheathed sword, and ran ing round with an air of dignity. “I will but inquire down stairs. The captain showed no instant alacrity to whether this cavaliero citizen is of rank and degree fit- follow him; yet, at last, roused by the laugh and sneer ted to measure swords with a man of action; (for, con- around him, he assured the company, that what he did ceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can he would do deliberately, and, assuming his hat, which match myself without loss of reputation;) and in that he put on with the air of Ancient Pistol, he descended

192 Sir Walter Scott the stairs to the place of combat, where his more prompt it. See, they bring on the reluctant soldado, and plant adversary was already stationed, with his sword un- him opposite to his fiery antagonist, twelve paces still sheathed. Of the company, all of whom seemed highly dividing them—Lo, the captain draws his tool, but, like delighted with the approaching fray, some ran to the a good general, looks over his shoulder to secure his re- windows which overlooked the bowling-alley, and oth- treat, in case the worse come on’t. Behold the valiant ers followed the combatants down stairs. Nigel could shop-keeper stoops his head, confident, doubtless, in the not help asking Dalgarno whether he would not inter- civic helmet with which his spouse has fortified his fere to prevent mischief. skull—Why, this is the rarest of sport. By Heaven, he “It would be a crime against the public interest,” an- will run a tilt at him, like a ram.” swered his friend; “there can no mischief happen be- It was even as Lord Dalgarno had anticipated; for the tween two such originals, which will not be a positive citizen, who seemed quite serious in his zeal for combat, benefit to society, and particularly to the Chevalier’s perceiving that the man of war did not advance towards establishment, as he calls it. I have been as sick of that him, rushed onwards with as much good fortune as cour- captain’s buff belt, and red doublet, for this month past, age, beat down the captain’s guard, and, pressing on, as e’er I was of aught; and now I hope this bold thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body linendraper will cudgel the ass out of that filthy lion’s of his antagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his hide. See, Nigel, see the gallant citizen has ta’en his length on the ground. A score of voices cried to the con- ground about a bowl’s-cast forward, in the midst of the queror, as he stood fixed in astonishment at his own feat, alley—the very model of a hog in armour. Behold how “Away, away with you!—fly, fly—fly by the back door!— he prances with his manly foot, and brandishes his blade, get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the much as if he were about to measure forth cambric with Bankside, while we keep off the mob and the con-

193 The Fortunes of Nigel stables.” And the conqueror, leaving his vanquished you call a dishclout, pinned to him for a piece of shroud, foeman on the ground, fled accordingly, with all speed. to show he be de ghost of one grand fanfaron.” “By Heaven,” said Lord Dalgarno, “I could never have “In the meanwhile,” said Lord Dalgarno, “you will believed that the fellow would have stood to receive a oblige us, Monsieur le Chevalier, as well as maintain your thrust—he has certainly been arrested by positive ter- own honoured reputation, by letting your drawers re- ror, and lost the use of his limbs. See, they are raising ceive the man-at-arms with a cudgel, in case he should him.” venture to come way again.” Stiff and stark seemed the corpse of the swordsman, “Ventre saint gris, milor,” said the Chevalier, “leave as one or two of the guests raised him from the ground; that to me.—Begar, the maid shall throw the wash-sud but, when they began to open his waistcoat to search upon the grand poltron!” for the wound which nowhere existed, the man of war When they had laughed sufficiently at this ludicrous collected, his scattered spirits; and, conscious that the occurrence, the party began to divide themselves into ordinary was no longer a stage on which to display his little knots—some took possession of the alley, late the valour, took to his heels as fast as he could run, pursued scene of combat, and put the field to its proper use of a by the laughter and shouts of the company. bowling-ground, and it soon resounded with all the terms “By my honour,” said Lord Dalgarno, “he takes the of the game, as “run, run-rub, rub—hold bias, you in- same course with his conqueror. I trust in heaven he will fernal trundling timber!” thus making good the saying, overtake him, and then the valiant citizen will suppose that three things are thrown away in a bowling-green, himself haunted by the ghost of him he has slain.” namely, time, money, and oaths. In the house, many of “Despardieux, milor,” said the Chevalier, “if he had the gentlemen betook themselves to cards or dice, and stayed one moment, he should have had a torchon—what parties were formed at Ombre, at Basset, at Gleek, at

194 Sir Walter Scott Primero, and other games then in fashion; while the dice to carry him to that exhibition; “unless, indeed,” he were used at various games, both with and without the added, in a whisper, “there is paternal interdiction of tables, as Hazard, In-and-in, Passage, and so forth. The the theatre as well as of the ordinary.” play, however, did not appear to be extravagantly deep; “I never heard my father speak of stage-plays,” said it was certainly conducted with great decorum and fair- Lord Glenvarloch, “for they are shows of a modern date, ness; nor did there appear any thing to lead the young and unknown in Scotland. Yet, if what I have heard to Scotsman in the least to doubt his companion’s assur- their prejudice be true, I doubt much whether he would ance, that the place was frequented by men of rank and have approved of them.” quality, and that the recreations they adopted were con- “Approved of them!” exclaimed Lord Dalgarno— ducted upon honourable principles. ”why, George Buchanan wrote tragedies, and his pupil, Lord Dalgarno neither had proposed play to his friend, learned and wise as himself, goes to see them, so it is nor joined in the amusement himself, but sauntered from next door to treason to abstain; and the cleverest men one table to another, remarking the luck of the differ- in England write for the stage, and the prettiest women ent players, as well as their capacity to avail themselves in London resort to the playhouses, and I have a brace of it, and exchanging conversation with the highest and of nags at the door which will carry us along the streets most respectable of the guests. At length, as if tired of like wild-fire, and the ride will digest our venison and what in modern phrase would have been termed loung- ortolans, and dissipate the fumes of the wine, and so ing, he suddenly remembered that Burbage was to act let’s to horse—Godd’en to you, gentlemen—Godd’en, Shakespeare’s King Richard, at the Fortune, that af- Chevalier de la Fortune.” ternoon, and that he could not give a stranger in Lon- Lord Dalgarno’s grooms were in attendance with two don, like Lord Glenvarloch, a higher entertainment than horses, and the young men mounted, the proprietor upon

195 The Fortunes of Nigel a favourite barb, and Nigel upon a high-dressed jennet, not trowled them—that if thine eye hath seen the brawl- scarce less beautiful. As they rode towards the theatre, ing of two angry boys, thy blade hath not been bared in Lord Dalgarno endeavoured to discover his friend’s opin- their fray.” ion of the company to which he had introduced him, “Now, all this may be wise and witty,” replied Nigel; and to combat the exceptions which he might suppose “yet I own I cannot think but that your lordship, and him to have taken. “And wherefore lookest thou sad,” other men of good quality with whom we dined, might he said, “my pensive neophyte? Sage son of the Alma have chosen a place of meeting free from the intrusion Mater of Low-Dutch learning, what aileth thee? Is the of bullies, and a better master of your ceremonial than leaf of the living world which we have turned over in yonder foreign adventurer.” company, less fairly written than thou hadst been taught “All shall be amended, Sancte Nigelle, when thou shalt to expect? Be comforted, and pass over one little blot or come forth a new Peter the Hermit, to preach a crusade two; thou wilt be doomed to read through many a page, against dicing, drabbing, and company-keeping. We will as black as Infamy, with her sooty pinion, can make meet for dinner in Saint Sepulchre’s Church; we will dine them. Remember, most immaculate Nigel, that we are in the chancel, drink our flask in the vestry, the parson in London, not Leyden—that we are studying life, not shall draw every cork, and the clerk say amen to every lore. Stand buff against the reproach of thine over-ten- health. Come man, cheer up, and get rid of this sour der conscience, man, and when thou summest up, like a and unsocial humour. Credit me, that the Puritans who good arithmetician, the actions of the day, before you object to us the follies and the frailties incident to hu- balance the account on your pillow, tell the accusing man nature, have themselves the vices of absolute dev- spirit, to his brimstone beard, that if thine ears have ils, privy malice and backbiting hypocrisy, and spiritual heard the clatter of the devil’s bones, thy hand hath pride in all its presumption. There is much, too’ in life

196 Sir Walter Scott which we must see, were it only to learn to shun it. Will among other gallants of the same class, they had an Shakespeare, who lives after death, and who is presently opportunity of displaying their fair dresses and fash- to afford thee such pleasure as none but himself can ionable manners, while they criticised the piece during confer, has described the gallant Falconbridge as calling its progress; thus forming, at the same time, a conspicu- that man ous part of the spectacle, and an important proportion of the audience. —’ a bastard to the time, Nigel Olifaunt was too eagerly and deeply absorbed That doth not smack of observation; in the interest of the scene, to be capable of playing his Which, though I will not practise to deceive, part as became the place where he was seated. He felt Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn.” all the magic of that sorcerer, who had displayed, within the paltry circle of a wooden booth, the long wars of But here we are at the door of the Fortune, where we York and Lancaster, compelling the heroes of either line shall have matchless Will speaking for himself.—Gob- to stalk across the scene in language and fashion as they lin, and you other lout, leave the horses to the grooms, lived, as if the grave had given up the dead for the amuse- and make way for us through the press.” ment and instruction of the living. Burbage, esteemed They dismounted, and the assiduous efforts of Lutin, the best Richard until Garrick arose, played the tyrant elbowing, bullying, and proclaiming his master’s name and usurper with such truth and liveliness, that when and title, made way through a crowd of murmuring citi- the Battle of Bosworth seemed concluded by his death, zens, and clamorous apprentices, to the door, where Lord the ideas of reality and deception were strongly con- Dalgarno speedily procured a brace of stools upon the tending in Lord Glenvarloch’s imagination, and it re- stage for his companion and himself, where, seated quired him to rouse himself from his reverie, so strange

197 The Fortunes of Nigel did the proposal at first sound when his companion declared King Richard should sup with them at the Mer- maid. CHAPTER XIII 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 accom- Let the proud salmon gorge the feather’d hook, plished wits and poets, who seldom failed to attend the Then strike, and then you have him—He will wince; Fortune Theatre, and were even but too ready to con- Spin out your line that it shall whistle from you clude a day of amusement with a night of pleasure. Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him— Thither the whole party adjourned, and betwixt fertile Marry! you must have patience—the stout rock cups of sack, excited spirits, and the emulous wit of Which is his trust, hath edges something sharp; their lively companions, seemed to realise the joyous And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough boast of one of Ben Jonson’s contemporaries, when re- To mar your fishing—’less you are more careful. minding the bard of Albion, or the Double Kings.

“Those lyric feasts, Where men such clusters had, IT IS SELDOM that a day of pleasure, upon review, seems As made them nobly wild, not mad; altogether so exquisite as the partaker of the festivity While yet each verse of thine may have felt it while passing over him. Nigel Olifaunt, Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.” at least, did not feel it so, and it required a visit from his new acquaintance, Lord Dalgarno, to reconcile him en-

198 Sir Walter Scott tirely to himself. But this visit took place early after break- with more than one man whose genius and learning ought fast, and his friend’s discourse was prefaced with a ques- either to have placed him higher in our company, or to tion, How he liked the company of the preceding evening? have withdrawn him altogether from a scene, where, sooth “Why, excellently well,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “only to speak, his part seemed unworthily subordinate.” I should have liked the wit better had it appeared to “Now, out upon your tender conscience,” said Lord flow more freely. Every man’s invention seemed on the Dalgarno; “and the fico for such outcasts of Parnassus! stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to set one Why, these are the very leavings of that noble banquet half of your men of wit into a brown study to produce of pickled herrings and Rhenish, which lost London so something which should out-herod it.” many of her principal witmongers and bards of mis- “And wherefore not?” said Lord Dalgarno, “or what rule. What would you have said had you seen Nash or are these fellows fit for, but to play the intellectual gladi- Green, when you interest yourself about the poor mimes ators before us? He of them who declares himself recre- you supped with last night? Suffice it, they had their ant, should, d—n him, be restricted to muddy ale, and drench and their doze, and they drank and slept as much the patronage of the Waterman’s Company. I promise as may save them from any necessity of eating till you, that many a pretty fellow has been mortally evening, when, if they are industrious, they will find wounded with a quibble or a carwitchet at the Mermaid, patrons or players to feed them.* For the rest of their and sent from thence, in a pitiable estate, to Wit’s hos- *The condition of men of wit and talents was never more pital in the Vintry, where they languish to this day melancholy than about this period. Their lives were so ir- amongst fools and aldermen.” regular, and their means of living so precarious, that they were alternately rioting in debauchery, or encountering and “It may be so,” said Lord Nigel; “yet I could swear by struggling with the meanest necessities. Two or three lost my honour, that last night I seemed to be in company their lives by a surfeit brought on by that fatal banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is familiar to those 199 The Fortunes of Nigel wants, they can be at no loss for cold water while the to whom I desire to present you. She hath her admirers New River head holds good; and your doublets of at Court; and is regarded, though I might dispense with Parnassus are eternal in duration.” sounding her praise, as one of the beauties of the time.” “Virgil and Horace had more efficient patronage,” said There was no refusing an engagement, where the pres- Nigel. ence of the party invited, late so low in his own regard, “Ay,” replied his countryman, “but these fellows are was demanded by a lady of quality, one of the choice neither Virgil nor Horace; besides, we have other spirits beauties of the time. Lord Glenvarloch accepted, as was of another sort, to whom I will introduce you on some inevitable, and spent a lively day among the gay and early occasion. Our Swan of Avon hath sung his last; the fair. He was the gallant in attendance, for the day, but we have stout old Ben, with as much learning and upon his friend’s sister, the beautiful Countess of genius as ever prompted the treader of sock and buskin. Blackchester, who aimed at once at superiority in the It is not, however, of him I mean now to speak; but I realms of fashion, of power, and of wit. come to pray you, of dear love, to row up with me as far She was, indeed, considerably older than her brother, as Richmond, where two or three of the gallants whom and had probably completed her six lustres; but the de- you saw yesterday, mean to give music and syllabubs to ficiency in extreme youth was more than atoned for, in a set of beauties, with some curious bright eyes among the most precise and curious accuracy in attire, an early them—such, I promise you, as might win an astrologer acquaintance with every foreign mode, and a peculiar from his worship of the galaxy. My sister leads the bevy, gift in adapting the knowledge which she acquired, to her own particular features and complexion. At Court, who study the lighter literature of that age. The whole his- she knew as well as any lady in the circle, the precise tory is a most melancholy picture of genius, degraded at once by its own debaucheries, and the patronage of heartless rakes tone, moral, political, learned, or jocose, in which it was and profligates. 200 Sir Walter Scott proper to answer the monarch, according to his prevail- together, and the former seemed considerably to have ing humour; and was supposed to have been very ac- withdrawn herself into privacy, it was whispered that tive, by her personal interest, in procuring her husband Lady Blackchester’s interest with the great favourite a high situation, which the gouty old viscount could was not diminished in consequence of her breach with never have deserved by any merit of his own common- his lady. place conduct and understanding. Our accounts of the private Court intrigues of that It was far more easy for this lady than for her brother, period, and of the persons to whom they were intrusted, to reconcile so young a courtier as Lord Glenvarloch to are not full enough to enable us to pronounce upon the the customs and habits of a sphere so new to him. In all various reports which arose out of the circumstances civilised society, the females of distinguished rank and we have detailed. It is enough to say, that Lady beauty give the tone to manners, and, through these, Blackchester possessed great influence on the circle even to morals. Lady Blackchester had, besides, inter- around her, both from her beauty, her abilities, and her est either in the Court, or over the Court, (for its source reputed talents for Court intrigue; and that Nigel could not be well traced,) which created friends, and Olifaunt was not long of experiencing its power, as he overawed those who might have been disposed to play became a slave in some degree to that species of habit, the part of enemies. which carries so many men into a certain society at a At one time, she was understood to be closely leagued certain hour, without expecting or receiving any par- with the Buckingham family, with whom her brother ticular degree of gratification, or even amusement. still maintained a great intimacy; and, although some His life for several weeks may be thus described. The coldness had taken place betwixt the Countess and the ordinary was no bad introduction to the business of the Duchess of Buckingham, so that they were little seen day; and the young lord quickly found, that if the soci-

201 The Fortunes of Nigel ety there was not always irreproachable, still it formed coming a gaining than a losing adventurer. The second, the most convenient and agreeable place of meeting with according to his principles, had a termination, a sad one the fashionable parties, with whom he visited Hyde indeed, in the loss of temporal fortune—the first qual- Park, the theatres, and other places of public resort, or ity went on increasing the evil which he dreaded, and joined the gay and glittering circle which Lady perilled at once both body and soul. Blackchester had assembled around her. Neither did he However the old lord might ground his apprehension, entertain the same scrupulous horror which led him it was so far verified by his son’s conduct, that, from an originally even to hesitate entering into a place where observer of the various games of chance which he wit- gaming was permitted; but, on the contrary, began to nessed, he came, by degrees, by moderate hazards, and admit the idea, that as there could be no harm done in small bets or wagers, to take a certain interest in them. beholding such recreation when only indulged in to a Nor could it be denied, that his rank and expectations moderate degree, so, from a parity of reasoning, there entitled him to hazard a few pieces (for his game went could be no objection to joining in it, always under the no deeper) against persons, who, from the readiness with same restrictions. But the young lord was a Scotsman, which they staked their money, might be supposed well habituated to early reflection, and totally unaccustomed able to afford to lose it. to any habit which inferred a careless risk or profuse It chanced, or, perhaps, according to the common be- waste of money. Profusion was not his natural vice, or lief, his evil genius had so decreed, that Nigel’s adven- one likely to be acquired in the course of his education; tures were remarkably successful. He was temperate, and, in all probability, while his father anticipated with cautious, cool-headed, had a strong memory, and a ready noble horror the idea of his son approaching the gam- power of calculation; was besides, of a daring and in- ing-table, he was more startled at the idea of his be- trepid character, one upon whom no one that had looked

202 Sir Walter Scott even slightly, or spoken to though but hastily, would wise have rendered necessary. He had to solicit from the readily have ventured to practise any thing approach- ministers certain forms of office, which were to render ing to trick, or which required to be supported by in- his sign-manual effectually useful; and these, though timidation. While Lord Glenvarloch chose to play, men they could not be denied, were delayed in such a man- played with him regularly, or, according to the phrase, ner, as to lead Nigel to believe there was some secret upon the square; and, as he found his luck change, or opposition, which occasioned the demur in his business. wished to hazard his good fortune no farther, the more His own impulse was, to have appeared at Court a sec- professed votaries of fortune, who frequented the house ond time, with the king’s sign-manual in his pocket, and of Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint Priest Beaujeu, did to have appealed to his Majesty himself, whether the not venture openly to express their displeasure at his delay of the public officers ought to render his royal rising a winner. But when this happened repeatedly, the generosity unavailing. But the Lord Huntinglen, that gamesters murmured amongst themselves equally at the good old peer, who had so frankly interfered in his be- caution and the success of the young Scotsman; and he half on a former occasion, and whom he occasionally became far from being a popular character among their visited, greatly dissuaded him from a similar adventure, society. and exhorted him quietly to await the deliverance of It was no slight inducement to the continuance of this the ministers, which should set him free from dancing most evil habit, when it was once in some degree ac- attendance in London. quired, that it seemed to place Lord Glenvarloch, Lord Dalgarno joined his father in deterring his young haughty as he naturally was, beyond the necessity of friend from a second attendance at Court, at least till he subjecting himself to farther pecuniary obligations, was reconciled with the Duke of Buckingham—“a mat- which his prolonged residence in London must other- ter in which,” he said, addressing his father, “I have of-

203 The Fortunes of Nigel fered my poor assistance, without being able to prevail been kindness and honesty in Court service. I have oft on Lord Nigel to make any—not even the least—sub- told your sister and yourself, that in the general I es- mission to the Duke of Buckingham.” teem it as lightly as may be.” “By my faith, and I hold the laddie to be in the right “You need not doubt my doing my best in Nigel’s case,” on’t, Malcom!” answered the stout old Scots lord.— answered Lord Dalgarno; “but you must think, my dear ”What right hath Buckingham, or, to speak plainly, the father, I must needs use slower and gentler means than son of Sir George Villiers, to expect homage and fealty those by which you became a favourite twenty years ago.” from one more noble than himself by eight quarters? I “By my faith, I am afraid thou wilt,” answered his heard him myself, on no reason that I could perceive, father.—“I tell thee, Malcolm, I would sooner wish my- term Lord Nigel his enemy; and it will never be by my self in the grave, than doubt thine honesty or honour; counsel that the lad speaks soft word to him, till he re- yet somehow it hath chanced, that honest, ready ser- calls the hard one.” vice, hath not the same acceptance at Court which it “That is precisely my advice to Lord Glenvarloch,” has in my younger time—and yet you rise there.” answered Lord Dalgarno; “but then you will admit, my “O, the time permits not your old-world service,” said dear father, that it would be the risk of extremity for Lord Dalgarno; “we have now no daily insurrections, our friend to return into the presence, the duke being no nightly attempts at assassination, as were the fash- his enemy—better to leave it with me to take off the ion in the Scottish Court. Your prompt and uncourteous heat of the distemperature, with which some pickthanks sword-in-hand attendance on the sovereign is no longer have persuaded the duke to regard our friend.” necessary, and would be as unbeseeming as your old- “If thou canst persuade Buckingham of his error, fashioned serving-men, with their badges, broadswords, Malcolm,” said his father, “for once I will say there hath and bucklers, would be at a court-mask. Besides, father,

204 Sir Walter Scott loyal haste hath its inconveniences. I have heard, and the Indies, whose only merit to their masters is to re- from royal lips too, that when you stuck your dagger peat their own words after them—a pack of mouthers, into the traitor Ruthven, it was with such little consid- and flatterers, and ear-wigs.—Well, I am old and un- eration, that the point ran a quarter of an inch into the able to mend, else I would break all off, and hear the royal buttock. The king never talks of it but he rubs the Tay once more flinging himself over the Campsie Linn.” injured part, and quotes his ‘infandum———renovare “But there is your dinner-bell, father,” said Lord dolorem.’ But this comes of old fashions, and of wear- Dalgarno, “which, if the venison I sent you prove sea- ing a long Liddesdale whinger instead of a poniard of sonable, is at least as sweet a sound.” Parma. Yet this, my dear father, you call prompt and “Follow me, then, youngsters, if you list,” said the valiant service. The king, I am told, could not sit up- old earl; and strode on from the alcove in which this right for a fortnight, though all the cushions in Falkland conversation was held, towards the house, followed by were placed in his chair of state, and the Provost of the two young men. Dunfermline’s borrowed to the boot of all.” In their private discourse, Lord Dalgarno had little “It is a lie,” said the old earl, “a false lie, forge it who trouble in dissuading Nigel from going immediately to list!—It is true I wore a dagger of service by my side, Court; while, on the other hand, the offers he made him and not a bodkin like yours, to pick one’s teeth withal— of a previous introduction to the Duke of Buckingham, and for prompt service—Odds nouns! it should be were received by Lord Glenvarloch with a positive and prompt to be useful when kings are crying treason and contemptuous refusal. His friend shrugged his shoulders, murder with the screech of a half-throttled hen. But as one who claims the merit of having given to an obsti- you young courtiers know nought of these matters, and nate friend the best counsel, and desires to be held free are little better than the green geese they bring over from of the consequences of his pertinacity.

205 The Fortunes of Nigel As for the father, his table indeed, and his best liquor, your fortunes shall not shipwreck upon the same coast, of which he was more profuse than necessary, were at Nigel,” he would conclude. “If I have fewer means of the command of his young friend, as well as his best influence than my father has, or rather had, till he threw advice and assistance in the prosecution of his affairs. them away for butts of sack, hawks, hounds, and such But Lord Huntinglen’s interest was more apparent than carrion, I can, far better than he, improve that which I real; and the credit he had acquired by his gallant de- possess; and that, my dear Nigel, is all engaged in your fence of the king’s person, was so carelessly managed behalf. Do not be surprised or offended that you now by himself, and so easily eluded by the favourites and see me less than formerly. The stag-hunting is com- ministers of the sovereign, that, except upon one or two menced, and the prince looks that I should attend him occasions, when the king was in some measure taken by more frequently. I must also maintain my attendance surprise, as in the case of Lord Glenvarloch, the royal on the duke, that I may have an opportunity of plead- bounty was never efficiently extended either to himself ing your cause when occasion shall permit.” or to his friends. “I have no cause to plead before the duke,” said Nigel, “There never was a man,” said Lord Dalgarno, whose gravely; “I have said so repeatedly.” shrewder knowledge of the English Court saw where his “Why, I meant the phrase no otherwise, thou churlish father’s deficiency lay, “that had it so perfectly in his and suspicious disputant,” answered Dalgarno, “than power to have made his way to the pinnacle of fortune as I am now pleading the duke’s cause with thee. Surely as my poor father. He had acquired a right to build up a I only mean to claim a share in our royal master’s staircase, step by step, slowly and surely, letting every favourite benediction, Beati Pacifici.” boon, which he begged year after year, become in its Upon several occasions, Lord Glenvarloch’s conversa- turn the resting-place for the next annual grant. But tions, both with the old earl and his son, took a similar

206 Sir Walter Scott turn and had a like conclusion. He sometimes felt as if, to the advice of his friend George Heriot upon this oc- betwixt the one and the other, not to mention the more casion, having found it so advantageous formerly; but unseen and unboasted, but scarce less certain influence the only time he saw him after their visit to Court, he of Lady Blackchester, his affair, simple as it had be- found the worthy citizen engaged in hasty preparations come, might have been somehow accelerated. But it was for a journey to Paris, upon business of great impor- equally impossible to doubt the rough honesty of the tance in the way of his profession, and by an especial father, and the eager and officious friendship of Lord commission from the Court and the Duke of Dalgarno; nor was it easy to suppose that the counte- Buckingham, which was likely to be attended with con- nance of the lady, by whom he was received with such siderable profit. The good man smiled as he named the distinction, would be wanting, could it be effectual in Duke of Buckingham. He had been, he said, pretty sure his service. that his disgrace in that quarter would not be of long Nigel was further sensible of the truth of what Lord duration. Lord Glenvarloch expressed himself rejoiced Dalgarno often pointed out, that the favourite being at that reconciliation, observing, that it had been a most supposed to be his enemy, every petty officer, through painful reflection to him, that Master Heriot should, in whose hands his affair must necessarily pass, would de- his behalf, have incurred the dislike, and perhaps ex- sire to make a merit of throwing obstacles in his way, posed himself to the ill offices, of so powerful a favourite. which he could only surmount by steadiness and pa- “My lord,” said Heriot, “for your father’s son I would tience, unless he preferred closing the breach, or, as Lord do much; and yet truly, if I know myself, I would do as Dalgarno called it, making his peace with the Duke of much and risk as much, for the sake of justice, in the Buckingham. case of a much more insignificant person, as I have ven- Nigel might, and doubtless would, have had recourse tured for yours. But as we shall not meet for some time,

207 The Fortunes of Nigel I must commit to your own wisdom the farther pros- various improvements she had made in the apartment, ecution of this matter.” of express purpose to render it more convenient to his And thus they took a kind and affectionate leave of lordship. each other. “There was a great sea-chest,” she said, “had been There were other changes in Lord Glenvarloch’s situ- taken upstairs to the shopman’s garret, though it left ation, which require to be noticed. His present occupa- the poor lad scarce eighteen inches of opening to creep tions, and the habits of amusement which he had ac- betwixt it and his bed; and Heaven knew—she did not— quired, rendered his living so far in the city a consider- whether it could ever be brought down that narrow stair able inconvenience. He may also have become a little again. Then the turning the closet into an alcove had ashamed of his cabin on Paul’s Wharf, and desirous of cost a matter of twenty round shillings; and to be sure, being lodged somewhat more according to his quality. to any other lodger but his lordship, the closet was more For this purpose, he had hired a small apartment near convenient. There was all the linen, too, which she had the Temple. He was, nevertheless, almost sorry for what bought on purpose. —But Heaven’s will be done—she he had done, when he observed that his removal ap- was resigned.” peared to give some pain to John Christie, and a great Everybody likes marks of personal attachment; and deal to his cordial and officious landlady. The former, Nigel, whose heart really smote him,, as if in his rising who was grave and saturnine in every thing he did, only fortunes he were disdaining the lowly accommodations hoped that all had been to Lord Glenvarloch’s mind, and the civilities of the humble friends which had been and that he had not left them on account of any but lately actual favours, failed not by every assurance unbeseeming negligence on their part. But the tear in his power, and by as liberal payment as they could be twinkled in Dame Nelly’s eye, while she recounted the prevailed upon to accept, to alleviate the soreness of

208 Sir Walter Scott 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 CHAPTER XIV 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 Bingo, why, Bingo! hey, boy—here, sir, here!— said at parting, he would remind him of his promise He’s gone and off, but he’ll be home before us;— soon.—“For,” said he, “if my lord is not weary of this ’Tis the most wayward cur e’er mumbled bone, London life, I ken one that is, videlicet, mysell; and I Or dogg’d a master’s footstep.—Bingo loves me am weel determined to see Arthur’s Seat again ere I am Better than ever beggar loved his alms; many weeks older.” 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.

209 The Fortunes of Nigel As Nigel looked upon his attendant, he observed there money, Richie; will five pieces serve the present turn?” was a gathering gloom upon his solemn features, which “My lord,” said Richie, “I may, it is like, want a trifle expressed either additional importance, or superadded of money; and I am glad at the same time, and sorry, discontent, or a portion of both. that it is mair plenty with your lordship than formerly.” “How now,” he said, “what is the matter this morn- “Glad and sorry, man!” said Lord Nigel, “why, you ing, Richie, that you have made your face so like the are reading riddles to me, Richie.” grotesque mask on one of the spouts yonder?” pointing “My riddle will be briefly read,” said Richie; “I come to the Temple Church, of which Gothic building they to crave of your lordship your commands for Scotland.” had a view from the window. “For Scotland!—why, art thou mad, man?” said Nigel; Richie swivelled his head a little to the right with as “canst thou not tarry to go down with me?” little alacrity as if he had the crick in his neck, and in- “I could be of little service,” said Richie, “since you stantly resuming his posture, replied,—“Mask here, purpose to hire another page and groom.” mask there—it were nae such matters that I have to “Why, thou jealous ass,” said the young lord, “will speak anent.” not thy load of duty lie the lighter?—Go, take thy break- “And what matters have you to speak anent, then?” fast, and drink thy ale double strong, to put such absur- said his master, whom circumstances had inured to tol- dities out of thy head—I could be angry with thee for erate a good deal of freedom from his attendant. thy folly, man—but I remember how thou hast stuck to “My lord,”—said Richie, and then stopped to cough me in adversity.” and hem, as if what he had to say stuck somewhat in “Adversity, my lord, should never have parted us,” said his throat. Richie; “methinks, had the warst come to warst, I could “I guess the mystery,” said Nigel, “you want a little have starved as gallantly as your lordship, or more so,

210 Sir Walter Scott being in some sort used to it; for, though I was bred at a unequal dealing to be equally offended by my speech flasher’s stall, I have not through my life had a constant and by my silence. If you can hear with patience the intimacy with collops.” grounds of my departure, it may be, for aught I know, “Now, what is the meaning of all this trash?” said the better for you here and hereafter—if not, let me Nigel; “or has it no other end than to provoke my pa- have my license of departure in silence, and so no more tience? You know well enough, that, had I twenty serv- about it.” ing-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood “Go to, sir!” said Nigel; “speak out your mind—only by me in my distress the most valued of them all. But it remember to whom you speak it.” is totally out of reason to plague me with your solemn “Weel, weel, my lord—I speak it with humility;” (never capriccios.” did Richie look with more starched dignity than when “My lord,” said Richie, “in declaring your trust in me, he uttered the word;) “but do you think this dicing and you have done what is honourable to yourself, if I may card-shuffling, and haunting of taverns and playhouses, with humility say so much, and in no way undeserved suits your lordship—for I am sure it does not suit me?” on my side. Nevertheless, we must part.” “Why, you are not turned precisian or puritan, fool?” “Body of me, man, why?” said Lord Nigel; “what rea- said Lord Glenvarloch, laughing, though, betwixt resent- son can there be for it, if we are mutually satisfied?” ment and shame, it cost him some trouble to do so. “My lord,” said Richie Moniplies, “your lordship’s oc- “My lord,” replied the follower, “I ken the purport of cupations are such as I cannot own or countenance by your query. I am, it may be, a little of a precisian, and I my presence.” wish to Heaven I was mair worthy of the name; but let “How now, sirrah!” said his master, angrily. that be a pass-over.—I have stretched the duties of a “Under favour, my lord,” replied his domestic, “it is serving-man as far as my northern conscience will per-

211 The Fortunes of Nigel mit. I can give my gude word to my master, or to my missed by those that have nane larger; and I maun e’en native country, when I am in a foreign land, even though be plain with you, that men notice it of your lordship, I should leave downright truth a wee bit behind me. Ay, that ye play wi’ nane but the misguided creatures that and I will take or give a slash with ony man that speaks can but afford to lose bare stakes.” to the derogation of either. But this chambering, dic- “No man dare say so!” replied Nigel, very angrily. “I ing, and play-haunting, is not my element—I cannot play with whom I please, but I will only play for what draw breath in it—and when I hear of your lordship stake I please.” winning the siller that some poor creature may full sairly “That is just what they say, my lord,” said the unmer- miss—by my saul, if it wad serve your necessity, rather ciful Richie, whose natural love of lecturing, as well as than you gained it from him, I wad take a jump over his bluntness of feeling, prevented him from having any the hedge with your lordship, and cry ‘Stand!’ to the idea of the pain which he was inflicting on his master; first grazier we met that was coming from Smithfield “these are even their own very words. It was but yester- with the price of his Essex calves in his leathern pouch!” day your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, “You are a simpleton,” said Nigel, who felt, however, to win from yonder young hafflins gentleman, with the much conscience-struck; “I never play but for small sums.” crimson velvet doublet, and the cock’s feather in his “Ay, my lord,” replied the unyielding domestic, “and— beaver—him, I mean, who fought with the ranting cap- still with reverence—it is even sae much the waur. If tain—a matter of five pounds, or thereby. I saw him you played with your equals, there might be like sin, come through the hall; and, if he was not cleaned out but there wad be mair warldly honour in it. Your lord- of cross and pile, I never saw a ruined man in my life.” ship kens, or may ken, by experience of your ain, whilk “Impossible!” said Lord Glenvarloch—“Why, who is is not as yet mony weeks auld, that small sums can ill be he? he looked like a man of substance.”

212 Sir Walter Scott “All is not gold that glistens, my lord,” replied Richie; what the devil keeps you, when your hurry was so great “‘broidery and bullion buttons make bare pouches. And five minutes since?” said the young lord, now thoroughly if you ask who he is—maybe I have a guess, and care nettled at the presumptuous precision with which Richie not to tell.” dealt forth his canons of morality. “At least, if I have done any such fellow an injury,” “The tale of coin is complete,” said Richie, with the said the Lord Nigel, “let me know how I can repair it.” most imperturbable gravity; “and, for the weight, “Never fash your beard about that, my lord,—with though they are sae scrupulous in this town, as make reverence always,” said Richie,—“he shall be suitably mouths at a piece that is a wee bit light, or that has cared after. Think on him but as ane wha was running been cracked within the ring, my sooth, they will jump post to the devil, and got a shouldering from your lord- at them in Edinburgh like a cock at a grosart. Gold pieces ship to help him on his journey. But I will stop him, if are not so plenty there, the mair the pity!” reason can; and so your lordship needs asks nae mair “The more is your folly, then,” said Nigel, whose an- about it, for there is no use in your knowing it, but much ger was only momentary, “that leave the land where the contrair.” there is enough of them.” “Hark you, sirrah,” said his master, “I have borne with “My lord,” said Richie, “to be round with you, the you thus far, for certain reasons; but abuse my good- grace of God is better than gold pieces. When Goblin, nature no farther—and since you must needs go, why, as you call yonder Monsieur Lutin,—and you might as go a God’s name, and here is to pay your journey.” So well call him Gibbet, since that is what he is like to end saying, he put gold into his hand, which Richie told over in,—shall recommend a page to you, ye will hear little piece by piece, with the utmost accuracy. such doctrine as ye have heard from me.—And if they “Is it all right—or are they wanting in weight—or were my last words,” he said, raising his voice, “I would

213 The Fortunes of Nigel say you are misled, and are forsaking the paths which feather with a cock of the game.’ And so, my lord, to your honourable father trode in; and, what is more, you speak it out, the lackeys, and the gallants, and more are going—still under correction—to the devil with a especially your sworn brother, Lord Dalgarno, call you dishclout, for ye are laughed at by them that lead you the sparrow-hawk.—I had some thought to have cracked into these disordered bypaths.” Lutin’s pate for the speech, but, after a’, the contro- “Laughed at!” said Nigel, who, like others of his age, versy was not worth it.” was more sensible to ridicule than to reason—“Who “Do they use such terms of me?” said Lord Nigel. dares laugh at me?” “Death and the devil!” “My lord, as sure as I live by bread—nay, more, as I “And the devil’s dam, my lord,” answered Richie; “they am a true man—and, I think, your lordship never found are all three busy in London.—And, besides, Lutin and Richie’s tongue bearing aught but the truth—unless that his master laughed at you, my lord, for letting it be your lordship’s credit, my country’s profit, or, it may thought that—I shame to speak it—that ye were over be, some sma’ occasion of my ain, made it unnecessary well with the wife of the decent honest man whose house to promulgate the haill veritie,—I say then, as I am a you but now left, as not sufficient for your new bravery, true man, when I saw that puir creature come through whereas they said, the licentious scoffers, that you pre- the ha’, at that ordinary, whilk is accurst (Heaven for- tended to such favour when you had not courage enough give me for swearing!) of God and man, with his teeth for so fair a quarrel, and that the sparrow-hawk was too set, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet drawn over craven-crested to fly at the wife of a cheesemonger.”— his brows like a desperate man, Goblin said to me, ‘There He stopped a moment, and looked fixedly in his master’s goes a dunghill chicken, that your master has plucked face, which was inflamed with shame and anger, and clean enough; it will be long ere his lordship ruffle a then proceeded. “My lord, I did you justice in my

214 Sir Walter Scott thought, and myself too; for, thought I, he would have “Well, sir, what did she want with me?” said Lord been as deep in that sort of profligacy as in others, if it Nigel. hadna been Richie’s four quarters.” “At first, my lord,” replied his sapient follower, “as “What new nonsense have you got to plague me with?” she seemed to be a well-fashioned woman, and to take said Lord Nigel. “But go on, since it is the last time I pleasure in sensible company, I was no way reluctant to am to be tormented with your impertinence,—go on, admit her to my conversation.” and make the most of your time.” “I dare say not,” said Lord Nigel; “nor unwilling to “In troth,” said Richie, “and so will I even do. And as Heaven tell her about my private affairs.” has bestowed on me a tongue to speak and to advise—” “Not I, truly, my lord,” said the attendant;—“for, “Which talent you can by no means be accused of suf- though she asked me mony questions about your fame, fering to remain idle,” said Lord Glenvarloch, interrupt- your fortune, your business here, and such like, I did ing him. not think it proper to tell her altogether the truth therea- “True, my lord,” said Richie, again waving his hand, nent.” as if to bespeak his master’s silence and attention; “so, “I see no call on you whatever,” said Lord Nigel, “to I trust, you will think some time hereafter. And, as I am tell the woman either truth or lies upon what she had about to leave your service, it is proper that ye suld know nothing to do with.” the truth, that ye may consider the snares to which your “I thought so, too, my lord,” replied Richie, “and so I youth and innocence may be exposed, when aulder and told her neither.” doucer heads are withdrawn from beside you.—There “And what did you tell her, then, you eternal babbler?” has been a lusty, good-looking kimmer, of some forty, or said his master, impatient of his prate, yet curious to bygane, making mony speerings about you, my lord.” know what it was all to end in.

215 The Fortunes of Nigel “I told her,” said Richie, “about your warldly fortune, would have her to the ducking-stool; and she, on the and sae forth, something whilk is not truth just at this contrair part, miscawed me for a forward northern time; but which hath been truth formerly, suld be truth tyke—and so we parted never to meet again, as I hope now, and will be truth again,—and that was, that you and trust. And so I stood between your lordship and were in possession of your fair lands, whilk ye are but in that temptation, which might have been worse than the right of as yet. Pleasant communing we had on that ordinary, or the playhouse either; since you wot well what and other topics, until she showed the cloven foot, be- Solomon, King of the Jews, sayeth of the strange ginning to confer with me about some wench that she woman—for, said I to mysell, we have taken to dicing said had a good-will to your lordship, and fain she would already, and if we take to drabbing next, the Lord kens have spoken with you in particular anent it; but when I what we may land in!” heard of such inklings, I began to suspect she was little “Your impertinence deserves correction, but it is the better than—whew! “—Here he concluded his narra- last which, for a time at least, I shall have to forgive— tive with a low, but very expressive whistle. and I forgive it,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “and, since we “And what did your wisdom do in these circum- are to part, Richie, I will say no more respecting your stances?” said Lord Nigel, who, notwithstanding his precautions on my account, than that I think you might former resentment, could now scarcely forbear laugh- have left me to act according to my own judgment.” ing. “Mickle better not,” answered Richie—“mickle bet- “I put on a look, my lord,” replied Richie, bending his ter not; we are a’ frail creatures, and can judge better solemn brows, “that suld give her a heartscald of walk- for ilk ither than in our ain cases. And for me, even my- ing on such errands. I laid her enormities clearly before self, saving that case of the Sifflication, which might her, and I threatened her, in sae mony words, that I have happened to ony one, I have always observed my-

216 Sir Walter Scott self to be much more prudential in what I have done in answer, ran hastily down stairs, shut the street-door your lordship’s behalf, than even in what I have been heavily behind him, and was presently seen striding able to transact for my own interest—whilk last, I have, along the Strand. indeed, always postponed, as in duty I ought.” His master almost involuntarily watched and distin- “I do believe thou hast,” said Lord Nigel, “having ever guished the tall raw-boned figure of his late follower, from found thee true and faithful. And since London pleases the window, for some time, until he was lost among the you so little, I will bid you a short farewell; and you crowd of passengers. Nigel’s reflections were not alto- may go down to Edinburgh until I come thither myself, gether those of self-approval. It was no good sign of his when I trust you will re-enter into my service.” course of life, (he could not help acknowledging this much “Now, Heaven bless you, my lord,” said Richie to himself,) that so faithful an adherent no longer seemed Moniplies, with uplifted eyes; “for that word sounds to feel the same pride in his service, or attachment to his more like grace than ony has come out of your mouth person, which he had formerly manifested. Neither could this fortnight.—I give you godd’en, my lord.” he avoid experiencing some twinges of conscience, while So saying, he thrust forth his immense bony hand, he felt in some degree the charges which Richie had pre- seized on that of Lord Glenvarloch, raised it to his lips, ferred against him, and experienced a sense of shame and then turned short on his heel, and left the room hastily, mortification, arising from the colour given by others to as if afraid of showing more emotion than was consis- that, which he himself would have called his caution and tent with his ideas of decorum. Lord Nigel, rather sur- moderation in play. He had only the apology, that it had prised at his sudden exit, called after him to know never occurred to himself in this light. whether he was sufficiently provided with money; but Then his pride and self-love suggested, that, on the Richie, shaking his head, without making any other other hand, Richie, with all his good intentions, was little

217 The Fortunes of Nigel better than a conceited, pragmatical domestic, who of your lordship will speak in one word what you would seemed disposed rather to play the tutor than the lackey, not learn from flatterers in so many days, as should suf- and who, out of sheer love, as he alleged, to his master’s fice for your utter ruin. He whom you think most true— person, assumed the privilege of interfering with, and I say your friend Lord Dalgarno—is utterly false to you, controlling, his actions, besides rendering him ridiculous and doth but seek, under pretence of friendship, to mar in the gay world, from the antiquated formality, and your fortune, and diminish the good name by which you intrusive presumption, of his manners. might mend it. The kind countenance which he shows Nigel’s eyes were scarce turned from the window, when to you, is more dangerous than the Prince’s frown; even his new landlord entering, presented to him a slip of as to gain at Beaujeu’s ordinary is more discreditable paper, carefully bound round with a string of flox-silk than to lose. Beware of both.—And this is all from your and sealed—it had been given in, he said, by a woman, true but nameless friend, who did not stop an instant. The contents harped upon IGNOTO.” the same string which Richie Moniplies had already jarred. The epistle was in the following words: Lord Glenvarloch paused for an instant, and crushed the paper together—then again unfolded and read it with For the Right Honourable hands of Lord Glenvarloch, attention—bent his brows—mused for a moment, and “These, from a friend unknown:— then tearing it to fragments, exclaimed—“Begone for a vile calumny! But I will watch—I will observe—” “MY LORD, Thought after thought rushed on him; but, upon the “You are trusting to an unhonest friend, and dimin- whole, Lord Glenvarloch was so little satisfied with the ishing an honest reputation. An unknown but real friend result of his own reflections, that he resolved to dissi-

218 Sir Walter Scott pate 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,

219 The Fortunes of Nigel In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch was mistaken; for, THE PARK OF SAINT JAMES’S, though enlarged, planted as he strolled slowly along with his arms folded in his with verdant alleys, and otherwise decorated by Charles cloak, and his hat drawn over his eyes, he was suddenly II., existed in the days of his grandfather, as a public pounced upon by Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who, either and pleasant promenade; and, for the sake of exercise shunning or shunned, had retreated, or had been obliged or pastime, was much frequented by the better classes. to retreat, to the same less frequented corner of the Park. Lord Glenvarloch repaired thither to dispel the un- Nigel started when he heard the high, sharp, and pleasant reflections which had been suggested by his querulous tones of the knight’s cracked voice, and was parting with his trusty squire, Richie Moniplies, in a no less alarmed when he beheld his tall thin figure hob- manner which was agreeable neither to his pride nor his bling towards him, wrapped in a thread-bare cloak, on feelings; and by the corroboration which the hints of whose surface ten thousand varied stains eclipsed the his late attendant had received from the anonymous let- original scarlet, and having his head surmounted with a ter mentioned in the end of the last chapter. well-worn beaver, bearing a black velvet band for a chain, There was a considerable number of company in the and a capon’s feather for an ostrich plume. Park when he entered it, but, his present state of mind Lord Glenvarloch would fain have made his escape, inducing him to avoid society, he kept aloof from the but, as our motto intimates, a leveret had as little chance more frequented walks towards Westminster and to free herself of an experienced greyhound. Sir Mungo, Whitehall, and drew to the north, or, as we should now to continue the simile, had long ago learned to run cun- say, the Piccadilly verge of the enclosure, believing he ning, and make sure of mouthing his game. So Nigel might there enjoy, or rather combat, his own thoughts found himself compelled to stand and answer the hack- unmolested. neyed question—“What news to-day?”

220 Sir Walter Scott “Nothing extraordinary, I believe,” answered the obliged to say something, “that the society is as good as young nobleman, attempting to pass on. generally can be found in such places, where the door “O, ye are ganging to the French ordinary belive,” re- can scarcely be shut against those who come to spend plied the knight; “but it is early day yet—we will take a their money.” turn in the Park in the meanwhile—it will sharpen your “Right, my lord—vera right,” said his tormentor, appetite.” bursting out into a chuckling, but most discordant laugh. So saying, he quietly slipped his arm under Lord “These citizen chuffs and clowns will press in amongst Glenvarloch’s, in spite of all the decent reluctance which us, when there is but an inch of a door open. And what his victim could exhibit, by keeping his elbow close to remedy?—Just e’en this, that as their cash gies them his side; and having fairly grappled the prize, he pro- confidence, we should strip them of it. Flay them, my ceeded to take it in tow. lord—singe them as the kitchen wench does the rats, Nigel was sullen and silent, in hopes to shake off his and then they winna long to come back again.—Ay, ay— unpleasant companion; but Sir Mungo was determined, pluck them, plume them—and then the larded capons that if he did not speak, he should at least hear. will not be for flying so high a wing, my lord, among the “Ye are bound for the ordinary, my lord?” said the goss-hawks and sparrow-hawks, and the like.” cynic;—“weel, ye canna do better—there is choice com- And, therewithal, Sir Mungo fixed on Nigel his quick, pany there, and peculiarly selected, as I am tauld, be- sharp, grey eye, watching the effect of his sarcasm as ing, dootless, sic as it is desirable that young noblemen keenly as the surgeon, in a delicate operation, remarks should herd withal—and your noble father wad have the progress of his anatomical scalpel. been blithe to see you keeping such worshipful society.” Nigel, however willing to conceal his sensations, could “I believe,” said Lord Glenvarloch, thinking himself not avoid gratifying his tormentor by wincing under the

221 The Fortunes of Nigel operation. He coloured with vexation and anger; but a “Vera likely—vera likely,” said the unabashed and un- quarrel with Sir Mungo Malagrowther would, he felt, dismayed Sir Mungo; “naething but lies are current in be unutterably ridiculous; and he only muttered to him- the circle.—So the chield is not drowned, then?—the self the words, “Impertinent coxcomb!” which, on this mair’s the pity.—But I never believed that part of the occasion, Sir Mungo’s imperfection of organ did not story—a London dealer has mair wit in his anger. I dare prevent him from hearing and replying to. swear the lad has a bonny broom-shank in his hand by “Ay, ay—vera true,” exclaimed the caustic old court- this time, and is scrubbing the kennels in quest after ier—“Impertinent coxcombs they are, that thus intrude rusty nails, to help him to begin his pack again.—He themselves on the society of their betters; but your lord- has three bairns, they say; they will help him bravely to ship kens how to gar them as gude—ye have the trick grope in the gutters. Your good lordship may have the on’t.—They had a braw sport in the presence last Fri- ruining of him again, my lord, if they have any luck in day, how ye suld have routed a young shopkeeper, horse strand-scouring.” and foot, ta’en his spolia ofima, and a’ the specie he had “This is more than intolerable,” said Nigel, uncertain about him, down to the very silver buttons of his cloak, whether to make an angry vindication of his character, and sent him to graze with Nebuchadnezzar, King of or to fling the old tormentor from his arm. But an Babylon. Muckle honour redounded to your lordship instant’s recollection convinced him, that, to do either, thereby.—We were tauld the loon threw himsell into the would only give an air of truth and consistency to the Thames in a fit of desperation. There’s enow of them scandals which he began to see were affecting his char- behind—there was mair tint on Flodden-edge.” acter, both in the higher and lower circles. Hastily, there- “You have been told a budget of lies, so far as I am con- fore, he formed the wiser resolution, to endure Sir cerned, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, speaking loud and sternly. Mungo’s studied impertinence, under the hope of ascer-

222 Sir Walter Scott taining, if possible, from what source those reports arose explanation, at least, respecting the source from which which were so prejudicial to his reputation. you have derived such false information.” Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile, caught up, as usual, “I never heard ye were a great gamester, and never Nigel’s last words, or rather the sound of them, and thought or said ye were such, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, amplified and interpreted them in his own way. “Toler- who found it impossible to avoid hearing what Nigel said able luck!” he repeated; “yes, truly, my lord, I am told with peculiarly deliberate and distinct pronunciation.” I that you have tolerable luck, and that ye ken weel how repeat it—I never heard, said, or thought that you were to use that jilting quean, Dame Fortune, like a canny a ruffling gamester,—such as they call those of the first douce lad, willing to warm yourself in her smiles, with- head. —Look you, my lord, I call him a gamester, that out exposing yourself to her frowns. And that is what I plays with equal stakes and equal skill, and stands by the ca’ having luck in a bag.” fortune of the game, good or bad; and I call him a ruf- “Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said Lord Glenvarloch, fling gamester, or ane of the first head, who ventures turning towards him seriously, “have the goodness to frankly and deeply upon such a wager. But he, my lord, hear me for a moment.” who has the patience and prudence never to venture be- “As weel as I can, my lord—as weel as I can,” said Sir yond small game, such as, at most, might crack the Christ- Mungo, shaking his head, and pointing the finger of his mas-box of a grocer’s ‘prentice, who vies with those that left hand to his ear. have little to hazard, and who therefore, having the larger “I will try to speak very distinctly,” said Nigel, arm- stock, can always rook them by waiting for his good for- ing himself with patience. “You take me for a noted tune, and by rising from the game when luck leaves him— gamester; I give you my word that you have not been such a one as he, my lord, I do not call a great gamester, rightly informed—I am none such. You owe me some to whatever other name he may be entitled.”

223 The Fortunes of Nigel “And such a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would me when I first entered that place. There is contamina- infer that I am,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “one who tion in the air, and he whose fortune avoids ruin, shall fears the skilful, and preys upon the ignorant—who be blighted in his honour and reputation.” avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure Sir Mungo, who watched his victim with the delighted of pillaging his inferiors?—Is this what I am to under- yet wary eye of an experienced angler, became now stand has been reported of me?” aware, that if he strained the line on him too tightly, “Nay, my lord, you will gain nought by speaking big there was every risk of his breaking hold. In order to with me,” said Sir Mungo, who, besides that his sarcastic give him room, therefore, to play, he protested that Lord humour was really supported by a good fund of animal Glenvarloch “should not take his free speech in malam courage, had also full reliance on the immunities which partem. If you were a trifle ower sicker in your amuse- he had derived from the broadsword of Sir Rullion ment, my lord, it canna be denied that it is the safest Rattray, and the baton of the satellites employed by the course to prevent farther endangerment of your some- Lady Cockpen. “And for the truth of the matter,” he con- what dilapidated fortunes; and if ye play with your in- tinued, “your lordship best knows whether you ever lost feriors, ye are relieved of the pain of pouching the siller more than five pieces at a time since you frequented of your friends and equals; forby, that the plebeian Beaujeu’s—whether you have not most commonly risen knaves have had the advantage, tecum certasse, as Ajax a winner—and whether the brave young gallants who fre- Telamon sayeth, apud Metamorphoseos; and for the like quent the ordinary—I mean those of noble rank, and of them to have played with ane Scottish nobleman is means conforming—are in use to play upon those terms?” an honest and honourable consideration to compensate “My father was right,” said Lord Glenvarloch, in the the loss of their stake, whilk, I dare say, moreover, maist bitterness of his spirit; “and his curse justly followed of the churls can weel afford.”

224 Sir Walter Scott “Be that as it may, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, “I would all of the same honourable family. I think we needna fain know—” speak of George Heriot, honest man, when we have no- “Ay, ay,” interrupted Sir Mungo; “and, as you say, who bility in question. So that is the company I have heard cares whether the fat bulls of Bashan can spare it or of your keeping, my lord, out-taken those of the ordi- no? gentlemen are not to limit their sport for the like of nary.” them.” “My company has not, indeed, been much more ex- “I wish to know, Sir Mungo,” said Lord Glenvarloch, tended than amongst those you mention,” said Lord “in what company you have learned these offensive par- Glenvarloch; “but in short—” ticulars respecting me?” “To Court?” said Sir Mungo, “that was just what I “Dootless—dootless, my lord,” said Sir Mungo; “I have was going to say—Lord Dalgarno says he cannot pre- ever heard, and have ever reported, that your lordship vail on ye to come to Court, and that does ye prejudice, kept the best of company in a private way.—There is my lord—the king hears of you by others, when he the fine Countess of Blackchester, but I think she stirs should see you in person—I speak in serious friendship, not much abroad since her affair with his Grace of my lord. His Majesty, when you were named in the circle Buckingham; and there is the gude auld-fashioned Scot- short while since, was heard to say, ‘Jacta est alea!— tish nobleman, Lord Huntinglen, an undeniable man of Glenvarlochides is turned dicer and drinker.’—My Lord quality—it is pity but he could keep caup and can frae Dalgarno took your part, and he was e’en borne down his head, whilk now and then doth’minish his reputa- by the popular voice of the courtiers, who spoke of you tion. And there is the gay young Lord Dalgarno, that as one who had betaken yourself to living a town life, carries the craft of gray hairs under his curled love- and risking your baron’s coronet amongst the flatcaps locks—a fair race they are, father, daughter, and son, of the city.”

225 The Fortunes of Nigel “And this was publicly spoken of me,” said Nigel, “and was not silent, sung the same song as they did.” in the king’s presence?” “You said but now,” replied Glenvarloch, “that Lord “Spoken openly?” repeated Sir Mungo Malagrowther; Dalgarno interfered in my behalf.” “ay, by my troth was it—that is to say, it was whispered “In good troth did he,” answered Sir Mungo, with a privately—whilk is as open promulgation as the thing sneer; “but the young nobleman was soon borne down— permitted; for ye may think the Court is not like a place by token, he had something of a catarrh, and spoke as where men are as sib as Simmie and his brother, and hoarse as a roopit raven. Poor gentleman, if he had had roar out their minds as if they were at an ordinary.” his full extent of voice, he would have been as well lis- “A curse on the Court and the ordinary both!” cried tened to, dootless, as in a cause of his ain, whilk no man Nigel, impatiently. kens better how to plead to purpose.—And let me ask “With all my heart,” said the knight; “I have got little you, by the way,” continued Sir Mungo, “whether Lord by a knight’s service in the Court; and the last time I Dalgarno has ever introduced your lordship to the was at the ordinary, I lost four angels.” Prince, or the Duke of Buckingham, either of whom “May I pray of you, Sir Mungo, to let me know,” said might soon carry through your suit?” Nigel, “the names of those who thus make free with the “I have no claim on the favour of either the Prince or character of one who can be but little known to them, the Duke of Buckingham,” said Lord Glenvarloch.— and who never injured any of them?” ”As you seem to have made my affairs your study, Sir “Have I not told you already,” answered Sir Mungo, Mungo, although perhaps something unnecessarily, you “that the king said something to that effect—so did the may have heard that I have petitioned my Sovereign for Prince too;—and such being the case, ye may take it on payment of a debt due to my family. I cannot doubt the your corporal oath, that every man in the circle who king’s desire to do justice, nor can I in decency employ

226 Sir Walter Scott the solicitation of his Highness the Prince, or his Grace Sir Mungo’s experienced eye noticed the appearances the Duke of Buckingham, to obtain from his Majesty which occasioned the latter part of his speech to Lord what either should be granted me as a right, or refused Glenvarloch. A low respectful murmur arose among the altogether.” numerous groups of persons which occupied the lower Sir Mungo twisted his whimsical features into one of part of the Park. They first clustered together, with their his most grotesque sneers, as he replied— faces turned towards Whitehall, then fell back on either “It is a vera clear and parspicuous position of the case, hand to give place to a splendid party of gallants, who, my lord; and in relying thereupon, you show an abso- advancing from the Palace, came onward through the lute and unimprovable acquaintance with the King, Park; all the other company drawing off the pathway, Court, and mankind in general.-But whom have we got and standing uncovered as they passed. here?—Stand up, my lord, and make way—by my word Most of these courtly gallants were dressed in the garb of honour, they are the very men we spoke of—talk of which the pencil of Vandyke has made familiar even at the devil, and—humph!” the distance of nearly two centuries; and which was just It must be here premised, that, during the conversa- at this period beginning to supersede the more flutter- tion, Lord Glenvarloch, perhaps in the hope of shaking ing and frivolous dress which had been adopted from himself free of Sir Mungo, had directed their walk to- the French Court of Henri Quatre. wards the more frequented part of the Park; while the The whole train were uncovered excepting the Prince good knight had stuck to him, being totally indifferent of Wales, afterwards the most unfortunate of British which way they went, provided he could keep his talons monarchs, who came onward, having his long curled clutched upon his companion. They were still, however, auburn tresses, and his countenance, which, even in early at some distance from the livelier part of the scene, when youth, bore a shade of anticipated melancholy, shaded

227 The Fortunes of Nigel by the Spanish hat and the single ostrich feather which we before hinted, that the duke, when he had completely drooped from it. On his right hand was Buckingham, possessed himself of the affections of Charles, retained whose commanding, and at the same time graceful, de- his hold in those of the father only by the tyranny of portment, threw almost into shade the personal custom; and that James, could he have brought himself demeanour and majesty of the Prince on whom he at- to form a vigorous resolution, was, in the latter years of tended. The eye, movements, and gestures of the great his life especially, not unlikely to have discarded courtier were so composed, so regularly observant of all Buckingham from his counsels and favour. But if ever etiquette belonging to his situation, as to form a marked the king indeed meditated such a change, he was too and strong contrast with the forward gaiety and frivol- timid, and too much accustomed to the influence which ity by which he recommended himself to the favour of the duke had long exercised over him, to summon up his “dear dad and gossip,” King James. A singular fate resolution enough for effecting such a purpose; and at attended this accomplished courtier, in being at once all events it is certain, that Buckingham, though sur- the reigning favourite of a father and son so very oppo- viving the master by whom he was raised, had the rare site in manners, that, to ingratiate himself with the chance to experience no wane of the most splendid court- youthful Prince, he was obliged to compress within the favour during two reigns, until it was at once eclipsed in strictest limits of respectful observance the frolicsome his blood by the dagger of his assassin Felton. and free humour which captivated his aged father. To return from this digression: The Prince, with his It is true, Buckingham well knew the different dispo- train, advanced, and were near the place where Lord sitions both of James and Charles, and had no difficulty Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo had stood aside, according in so conducting himself as to maintain the highest post to form, in order to give the Prince passage, and to pay in the favour of both. It has indeed been supposed, as the usual marks of respect. Nigel could now remark that

228 Sir Walter Scott Lord Dalgarno walked close behind the Duke of ligent ear, to questions, asked in a tone so low, that the Buckingham, and, as he thought, whispered something knight would certainly have been deaf to them had they in his ear as they came onward. At any rate, both the been put to him by any one under the rank of Prince of Prince’s and Duke of Buckingham’s attention seemed Wales. After about a minute’s conversation, the Prince to be directed by such circumstance towards Nigel, for bestowed on Nigel the embarrassing notice of another they turned their heads in that direction and looked at fixed look, touched his hat slightly to Sir Mungo, and him attentively—the Prince with a countenance, the walked on. grave, melancholy expression of which was blended with “It is even as I suspected, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, severity; while Buckingham’s looks evinced some degree with an air which he designed to be melancholy and sym- of scornful triumph. Lord Dalgarno did not seem to pathetic, but which, in fact, resembled the grin of an observe his friend, perhaps because the sunbeams fell ape when he has mouthed a scalding chestnut—“Ye have from the side of the walk on which Nigel stood, obliging back-friends, my lord, that is, unfriends—or, to be plain, Malcolm to hold up his hat to screen his eyes. enemies—about the person of the Prince.” As the Prince passed, Lord Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo “I am sorry to hear it,” said Nigel; “but I would I bowed, as respect required; and the Prince, returning knew what they accuse me of.” their obeisance with that grave ceremony which paid to “Ye shall hear, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, “the Prince’s every rank its due, but not a tittle beyond it, signed to vera words—‘Sir Mungo,’ said he, ‘I rejoice to see you, Sir Mungo to come forward. Commencing an apology and am glad your rheumatic troubles permit you to come for his lameness as he started, which he had just com- hither for exercise.’—I bowed, as in duty bound—ye pleted as his hobbling gait brought him up to the Prince, might remark, my lord, that I did so, whilk formed the Sir Mungo lent an attentive, and, as it seemed, an intel- first branch of our conversation.—His Highness then

229 The Fortunes of Nigel demanded of me, ‘if he with whom I stood, was the “You may stay or go as you please, Sir Mungo,” said young Lord Glenvarloch.’ I answered, ‘that you were Nigel, with an expression of calm, but deep resentment; such, for his Highness’s service;’ whilk was the second “but, for my own part, my resolution is taken. I will branch.—Thirdly, his Highness, resuming the argument, quit this public walk for pleasure of no man—still less said, that ‘truly he had been told so,’ (meaning that he will I quit it like one unworthy to be seen in places of had been told you were that personage,) ‘but that he public resort. I trust that the Prince and his retinue will could not believe, that the heir of that noble and de- return this way as you expect; for I will abide, Sir Mungo, cayed house could be leading an idle, scandalous, and and beard them.” precarious life, in the eating-houses and taverns of Lon- “Beard them!” exclaimed Sir Mungo, in the extrem- don, while the king’s drums were beating, and colours ity of surprise,—“Beard the Prince of Wales—the heir- flying in Germany in the cause of the Palatine, his son- apparent of the kingdoms!—By my saul, you shall beard in-law.’—I could, your lordship is aware, do nothing but him yourself then.” make an obeisance; and a gracious ‘Give ye good-day, Accordingly, he was about to leave Nigel very hastily, Sir Mungo Malagrowther,’ licensed me to fall back to when some unwonted touch of good-natured interest in your lordship. And now, my lord, if your business or his youth and experience, seemed suddenly to soften his pleasure calls you to the ordinary, or anywhere in the habitual cynicism. direction of the city—why, have with you; for, dootless, “The devil is in me for an auld fule!” said Sir Mungo; ye will think ye have tarried lang enough in the Park, as “but I must needs concern mysell—I that owe so little they will likely turn at the head of the walk, and return either to fortune or my fellow-creatures, must, I say, this way—and you have a broad hint, I think, not to needs concern mysell—with this springald, whom I will cross the Prince’s presence in a hurry.” warrant to be as obstinate as a pig possessed with a devil,

230 Sir Walter Scott for it’s the cast of his family; and yet I maun e’en fling to express in behalf of any one, Lord Glenvarloch re- away some sound advice on him.—My dainty young plied, “I am obliged to you, Sir Mungo—you have spo- Lord Glenvarloch, understand me distinctly, for this is ken, I think, with sincerity, and I thank you. But in no bairn’s-play. When the Prince said sae much to me as return for your good advice, I heartily entreat you to I have repeated to you, it was equivalent to a command leave me; I observe the Prince and his train are return- not to appear in his presence; wherefore take an auld ing down the walk, and you may prejudice yourself, but man’s advice that wishes you weel, and maybe a wee cannot help me, by remaining with me.” thing better than he has reason to wish ony body. Jouk, “And that is true,”—said Sir Mungo; “yet, were I ten and let the jaw gae by, like a canny bairn—gang hame years younger, I would be tempted to stand by you, and to your lodgings, keep your foot frae taverns, and your gie them the meeting. But at threescore and upward, fingers frae the dice-box; compound your affairs qui- men’s courage turns cauldrife; and they that canna win etly wi’ some ane that has better favour than yours about a living, must not endanger the small sustenance of their Court, and you will get a round spell of money to carry age. I wish you weel through, my lord, but it is an un- you to Germany, or elsewhere, to push your fortune. It equal fight.” So saying, he turned and limped away; of- was a fortunate soldier that made your family four or ten looking back, however, as if his natural spirit, even five hundred years syne, and, if you are brave and for- in its present subdued state, aided by his love of contra- tunate, you may find the way to repair it. But, take my diction and of debate, rendered him unwilling to adopt word for it, that in this Court you will never thrive.” the course necessary for his own security. When Sir Mungo had completed his exhortation, in Thus abandoned by his companion, whose departure which there was more of sincere sympathy with he graced with better thoughts of him than those which another’s situation, than he had been heretofore known he bestowed on his appearance, Nigel remained with his

231 The Fortunes of Nigel arms folded, and reclining against a solitary tree which reclining posture, and followed the Prince’s train so as overhung the path, making up his mind to encounter a to keep them distinctly in sight; which was very easy, as moment which he expected to be critical of his fate. they walked slowly. Nigel observed them keep their road But he was mistaken in supposing that the Prince of towards the Palace, where the Prince turned at the gate Wales would either address him, or admit him to expos- and bowed to the noblemen in attendance, in token of tulation, in such a public place as the Park. He did not dismissing them, and entered the Palace, accompanied remain unnoticed, however, for, when he made a respect- only by the Duke of Buckingham, and one or two of his ful but haughty obeisance, intimating in look and man- equerries. The rest of the train, having returned in all ner that he was possessed of, and undaunted by, the dutiful humility the farewell of the Prince, began to unfavourable opinion which the Prince had so lately disperse themselves through the Park. expressed, Charles returned his reverence with such a All this was carefully noticed by Lord Glenvarloch, frown, as is only given by those whose frown is author- who, as he adjusted his cloak, and drew his sword-belt ity and decision. The train passed on, the Duke of round so as to bring the hilt closer to his hand, mut- Buckingham not even appearing to see Lord tered—“Dalgarno shall explain all this to me, for it is Glenvarloch; while Lord Dalgarno, though no longer evident that he is in the secret!” 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

232 Sir Walter Scott another path leading to the north; and Lord Glenvarloch conceived that this change of direction was owing to CHAPTER XVI 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, Give way—give way—I must and will have justice. once more conducted him to the less frequented part of And tell me not of privilege and place; the Park. He observed which side of the thicket was Where I am injured, there I’ll sue redress. taken by Lord Dalgarno and his companion, and he him- Look to it, every one who bars my access; self, walking hastily round the other verge, was thus I have a heart to feel the injury, enabled to meet them face to face. A hand to night myself, and, by my honour, “Good-morrow, my Lord Dalgarno,” said Lord That hand shall grasp what grey-beard Law denies me. Glenvarloch, sternly. The Chamberlain. “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 IT WAS NOT LONG ere Nigel discovered Lord Dalgarno ad- meet at Beaujeu’s at noon—Sir Ewes Haldimund and I vancing towards him in the company of another young are at present engaged in the Prince’s service.” man of quality of the Prince’s train; and as they di- “If you were engaged in the king’s, my lord,” said Lord rected their course towards the south-eastern corner of Glenvarloch, “you must stand and answer me.” the Park, he concluded they were about to go to Lord “Hey-day!” said Lord Dalgarno, with an air of great Huntinglen’s. They stopped, however, and turned up astonishment, “what passion is this? Why, Nigel, this is

233 The Fortunes of Nigel King Cambyses’ vein!—You have frequented the the- part I will call you to a reckoning for it.” atres too much lately—Away with this folly, man; go, “My lords both,” interrupted Sir Ewes Haldimund, dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool “let me remind you that the Royal Park is no place to your blood, go to bed at sun-down, and defy those foul quarrel in.” fiends, Wrath and Misconstruction.” “I will make my quarrel good,” said Nigel, who did “I have had misconstruction enough among you,” said not know, or in his passion might not have recollected, Glenvarloch, in the same tone of determined displea- the privileges of the place, “wherever I find my enemy.” sure, “and from you, my Lord Dalgarno, in particular, “You shall find quarelling enough,” replied Lord and all under the mask of friendship.” Dalgarno, calmly, “so soon as you assign a sufficient “Here is a proper business!”—said Dalgarno, turning cause for it. Sir Ewes Haldimund, who knows the Court, as if to appeal to Sir Ewes Haldimund; “do you see this will warrant you that I am not backward on such occa- angry ruffler, Sir Ewes? A month since, he dared not sions.—But of what is it that you now complain, after have looked one of yonder sheep in the face, and now he having experienced nothing save kindness from me and is a prince of roisterers, a plucker of pigeons, a control- my family?” ler of players and poets—and in gratitude for my hav- “Of your family I complain not,” replied Lord ing shown him the way to the eminent character which Glenvarloch; “they have done for me all they could, more, he holds upon town, he comes hither to quarrel with his far more, than I could have expected; but you, my lord, best friend, if not his only one of decent station.” have suffered me, while you called me your friend, to be “I renounce such hollow friendship, my lord,” said traduced, where a word of your mouth would have placed Lord Glenvarloch; “I disclaim the character which, even my character in its true colours—and hence the injurious to my very face, you labour to fix upon me, and ere we message which I just now received from the Prince of

234 Sir Walter Scott Wales. To permit the misrepresentation of a friend, my good and indifferent company to be met with—your lord, is to share in the slander.” habits, or taste, made you prefer the worse. Your holy “You have been misinformed, my Lord Glenvarloch,” horror at the sight of dice and cards degenerated into said Sir Ewes Haldimund; “I have myself often heard the cautious resolution to play only at those times, and Lord Dalgarno defend your character, and regret that with such persons, as might ensure your rising a win- your exclusive attachment to the pleasures of a London ner—no man can long do so, and continue to be held a life prevented your paying your duty regularly to the gentleman. Such is the reputation you have made for King and Prince.” yourself, and you have no right to be angry that I do “While he himself,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “dissuaded not contradict in society what yourself know to be true. me from presenting myself at Court.” Let us pass on, my lord; and if you want further expla- “I will cut this matter short,” said Lord Dalgarno, nation, seek some other time and fitter place.” with haughty coldness. “You seem to have conceived, “No time can be better than the present,” said Lord my lord, that you and I were Pylades and Orestes—a Glenvarloch, whose resentment was now excited to the second edition of Damon and Pythias—Theseus and uttermost by the cold-blooded and insulting manner, in Pirithoiis at the least. You are mistaken, and have given which Dalgarno vindicated himself,—“no place fitter the name of friendship to what, on my part, was mere than the place where we now stand. Those of my house good-nature and compassion for a raw and ignorant have ever avenged insult, at the moment, and on the countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge which spot, where it was offered, were it at the foot of the my father gave me respecting you. Your character, my throne.—Lord Dalgarno, you are a villain! draw and lord, is of no one’s drawing, but of your own making. I defend yourself.” At the same moment he unsheathed introduced you where, as in all such places, there was his rapier.

235 The Fortunes of Nigel “Are you mad?” said Lord Dalgarno, stepping back; and that it may cost you your right hand?—Shift for “we are in the precincts of the Court.” yourself before the keepers or constables come up—Get “The better,” answered Lord Glenvarloch; “I will into Whitefriars or somewhere, for sanctuary and con- cleanse them from a calumniator and a coward.” He then cealment, till you can make friends or quit the city.” pressed on Lord Dalgarno, and struck him with the flat The advice was not to be neglected. Lord Glenvarloch of the sword. made hastily towards the issue from the Park by Saint The fray had now attracted attention, and the cry went James’s Palace, then Saint James’s Hospital. The hub- round, “Keep the peace—keep the peace—swords drawn bub increased behind him; and several peace-officers of in the Park!—What, ho! guards!—keepers—yeomen— the Royal Household came up to apprehend the delin- rangers!” and a number of people came rushing to the quent. Fortunately for Nigel, a popular edition of the spot from all sides. cause of the affray had gone abroad. It was said that Lord Dalgarno, who had half drawn his sword on re- one of the Duke of Buckingham’s companions had in- ceiving the blow, returned it to his scabbard when he sulted a stranger gentleman from the country, and that observed the crowd thicken, and, taking Sir Ewes the stranger had cudgelled him soundly. A favourite, or Haldimund by the arm, walked hastily away, only say- the companion of a favourite, is always odious to John ing to Lord Glenvarloch as they left him, “You shall Bull, who has, besides, a partiality to those disputants dearly abye this insult—we will meet again.” who proceed, as lawyers term it, par wye du fait, and A decent-looking elderly man, who observed that Lord both prejudices were in Nigel’s favour. The officers, Glenvarloch remained on the spot, taking compassion therefore, who came to apprehend him, could learn from on his youthful appearance, said to him, “Are you aware the spectators no particulars of his appearance, or in- that this is a Star-Chamber business, young gentleman, formation concerning the road he had taken; so that,

236 Sir Walter Scott for the moment, he escaped being arrested. as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and What Lord Glenvarloch heard among the crowd as he every word which he overheard among the groups which passed along, was sufficient to satisfy him, that in his he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, an- impatient passion he had placed himself in a predica- nounced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded ment of considerable danger. to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and He was no stranger to the severe and arbitrary pro- more than once saw the ranger’s officers so near him, ceedings of the Court of Star-Chamber, especially in that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of cases of breach of privilege, which made it the terror of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the all men; and it was no farther back than the Queen’s Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he time that the punishment of mutilation had been actu- was next to do. ally awarded and executed, for some offence of the same Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known kind which he had just committed. He had also the com- by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for fortable reflection, that, by his violent quarrel with Lord nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctu- Dalgarno, he must now forfeit the friendship and good ary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, offices of that nobleman’s father and sister, almost the or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place only persons of consideration in whom he could claim abounded with desperadoes of every description,— any interest; while all the evil reports which had been bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodi- put in circulation concerning his character, were certain gals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and de- to weigh heavily against him, in a case where much must bauched profligates of every description, all leagued necessarily depend on the reputation of the accused. To together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,— a youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the

237 The Fortunes of Nigel law to execute warrants emanating even from the high- if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly est authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsis- and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have intent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord volved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of ref- lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore uge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at it.” least, he might be concealed and secure from the imme- As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, diate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more pri- matter in some shape accommodated. vate passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanc- Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards tuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of steep and broken stairs reminded him of the facilis de- passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the scensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. were not better to brave the worst which could befall “Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that,” were his bit- him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to ter reflections; “I have made myself an evil reputation evade punishment by secluding himself in those of by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the avowed vice and profligacy. wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple implicit obedience from me, and which recommended advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was

238 Sir Walter Scott a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gal- Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked lant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent if his lordship designed for the Chevalier’s this day, ob- at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, serving it was near noon, and the woodcock would be the time which his father supposed he was employing in on the board before they could reach the ordinary. the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was “I do not go there to-day,” answered Lord Glenvarloch. the young Templar’s name, was of opinion that little “Which way, then, my lord?” said the young Templar, law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scot- at his father’s demose, and therefore gave himself no tish one. trouble to acquire more of that science than might be “I—I—” said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which young man’s local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so dis- the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at reputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, he stood—“I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars.” fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes “What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia?” said on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance Lowestoffe—“Have with you, my lord—you cannot of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowestoffe, I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there— shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable though somewhat suffering under the frowns of For- way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord tune. But your lordship will pardon me—you are the

239 The Fortunes of Nigel last of our acquaintance to whom I would have pro- but you must be entered and received as a member of posed such a voyage of discovery.” their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher “I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good of Alsatia—so far you must condescend; there will be opinion you have expressed in the observation,” said neither peace nor safety for you else.” Lord Glenvarloch; “but my present circumstances may “My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary Lowestoffe,” answered Lord Glenvarloch, “as you seem a matter of necessity.” to conjecture—I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, “Indeed!” said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; that is all.” “I thought your lordship had always taken care not to “By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck risk any considerable stake—I beg pardon, but if the your sword through him at Barns Elms,” said the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law Templar. “Strike within the verge of the Court! You will as that a peer’s person is sacred from arrest; and for mere find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, espe- impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made else- cially if your party be of rank and have favour.” where than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each “I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe,” said other for very poverty.” Nigel, “since I have gone thus far. The person I struck “My misfortune has no connexion with want of was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu’s.” money,” said Nigel. “A follower and favourite of the Duke of “Why, then, I suppose,” said Lowestoffe, “you have Buckingham!—It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth—Marry, be. We converse here greatly too open for your circum-

240 Sir Walter Scott stances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute study. Marry, we will drink the good lady’s health in it, a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within if it is your lordship’s pleasure, and you shall see how their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on hall.” either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and for- have you arrayed something more like the natives of ward manners, though much differing from the courtly Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you.” ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though along with him into his chambers, where he had a hand- his experience of Dalgarno’s perfidy had taught him to some library, filled with all the poems and play-books be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, which were then in fashion. The Templar then dis- could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young patched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and ac- or two from the next cook’s shop; “and this,” he said, commodation. “must be your lordship’s dinner, with a glass of old sack, “You may spare your gratitude any great sense of ob- of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent ligation, my lord,” said the Templar. “No doubt I am me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over sing Fortune my foe, and particularly proud to serve your

241 The Fortunes of Nigel lordship’s turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was Heaven’s truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno.” obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.— “May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe?” said So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Lord Glenvarloch. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordi- “O, my lord,” replied the Templar, “it was for a hap nary before, without counting tiddy?—marry quep upon that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening his lordship!—Every man who comes there with his about three weeks since—at least I think you were not purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I by, as your lordship always left us before deep play be- hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man gan—I mean no offence, but such was your lordship’s equal.” custom—when there were words between Lord Dalgarno As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gam- and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a cer- ing-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and tain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, for eight—tib, which went for fifteen—twenty-three in when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, all. Now I held king and queen, being three—a natural like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of towser, making fifteen—and tiddy, nineteen. We vied society, to which Nigel’s early prejudices clung perhaps the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, as fair yellow canary birds as e’er chirped in the bottom and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversa- of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, tion, by making some inquiries respecting the present and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, “You know, my lord,” said Master Lowestoffe, “that

242 Sir Walter Scott we Templars are a power and a dominion within our- ing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to selves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two our republic—was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last communities serve each other, though the league is be- year, and am at this present moment in nomination for tween states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are un- that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have der the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse been a negotiator well approved on both sides.—But with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian hark—hark—what is that?” States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was inter- make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary rupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and States.” keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. “I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple “There is something doing,” said Lowestoffe, “in the more independent of your neighbours,” said Lord Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their Glenvarloch. privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the “You do us something too much honour, my lord,” blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as said the Templar; “the Alsatians and we have some com- bees when their hive is disturbed.—Jump, Jim,” he said, mon enemies, and we have, under the rose, some com- calling out to the attendant, “and see what they are mon friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs doing in Alsatia.—That bastard of a boy,” he contin- out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our ued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apart- within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have—I beg you ment, and so down stairs, “is worth gold in this quar- to understand me—the power of protecting or distress- ter—he serves six masters—four of them in distinct

243 The Fortunes of Nigel Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. 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 extrica- tion. 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

244 Sir Walter Scott

“YOUR LORDSHIP,” said Reginald Lowestoffe, “must be CHAPTER XVII 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 Come hither, young one,—Mark me! Thou art now hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your ‘Mongst men o’ the sword, that live by reputation civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your More than by constant income—Single-suited ruffian always walks in cuerpo; and the tarnished dou- They are, I grant you; yet each single suit blet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers— and—I grieve to speak it—a few stains from the blood And they be men, who, hazarding their all, of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I Needful apparel, necessary income, will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I And human body, and immortal soul, can help to truss you.” Do in the very deed but hazard nothing— Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act Play better than himself his game on earth. of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, The Mohocks. the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown

245 The Fortunes of Nigel into the scale against him; and, above all, when he re- is a most judicious potentate.—Go back, you bastard, flected that he must now look upon the active, assidu- and bring us word when all is quiet.” ous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, “And who may Duke Hildebrod be?” said Lord reason told him he was in a situation of peril which Glenvarloch. authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in “Nouns! my lord,” said the Templar, “have you lived outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dan- so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and gerous a predicament. as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand While he was changing his dress, and musing on these protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame.” apartment—“Zounds!” he said, “my lord, it was well “Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe,” you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at said Lord Glenvarloch; “or, what is the same thing, I the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon have paid no attention to aught that may have passed it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a in conversation respecting him.” pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half “Why, then,” said Lowestoffe—“but, first, let me have a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will at- to search through his dominions, quite certain that they tract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint,

246 Sir Walter Scott for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was trussed—so.” dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyran- “Arrange it as you will, sir,” said Nigel; “but let me nical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve.” to retreat.” “And is this potentate’s government,” said Lord “Why, my lord,” replied the Templar, “our Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the conversation, “of a despotic character?” Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and “Pardon me, my lord,” said the Templar; “this said revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predeces- sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of sors, the odium of wielding so important an authority course, that these have been more frequent than our own by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that who regularly meet for their morning’s draught at seven of Gray’s Inn, and other similar associations, have had o’clock; convene a second time at eleven for their ante- the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak meridiem, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of con- which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from sulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodi- absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the gal of their labour in the service of the state, that they intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy sen- even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed ate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod’s predecessors for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. ‘I hen it in his high office, whom he has associated with him to

247 The Fortunes of Nigel prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole author- “Well, Master Lowestoffe,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I ity, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and as- to me this state of concealment—of course, I am desir- sign you a place of residence.” ous not to betray my name and rank.” “Does their authority extend to such regulation?” said “It will be highly advisable, my lord,” said Lowestoffe; Lord Glenvarloch. “and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the “The council account it a main point of their privi- republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.—He who leges, my lord,” answered Lowestoffe; “and, in fact, it is desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning one of the most powerful means by which they support his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his sen- usual interrogations upon payment of double the gar- ate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes nish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a this essential stipulation, your lordship may register your- lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose cir- self as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question cumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for will be asked of you.—But here comes our scout, with it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, can; but the registration of their names in the Duke’s with all the influence which I have over them as an office- entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger part against them, and that they well know. The time is who should dispute these points of jurisdiction.” propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the

248 Sir Walter Scott Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it whisper, “I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Par- Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor don me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness.” sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good- shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of Alsatian at Whitefriars.” life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, Lord Glenvarloch’s mental sufferings, and thought of traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick bottom the young Templar exclaimed,—“And now let of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his us sing, with Ovid, tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was ‘In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas—’ familiar—but on his companion it produced a deep sen- Off, off, ye lendings!” he continued, in the same vein. sation. “Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!—But how now, The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably my lord?” he continued, when he observed Lord lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the change in his situation, “I trust you are not offended at damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on present circumstances, and give you the tone of this each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by your residence for a very few days.” persons whose funds were inadequate to their specula-

249 The Fortunes of Nigel tions, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhib- wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick ited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while wall.—“I know the face of yonder waistcoateer,” con- they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding tinued the guide; “and I could wager a rose-noble, from of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged lin- the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear ens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and and a soiled night-rail.—But here come two of the male distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the ri- roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare otous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laugh- swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to ter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, you, my lord, that the king’s counter-blast against the as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than other houses; and, that the full character of the place will his writ of capias.” might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, un- females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open combed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rose- elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under mary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, the great risk of the passengers. while some straggling portion escaped through the rents “Semi-reducta Venus,” said the Templar, pointing to of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observa- slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder- tion, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the osten- as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a tatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword

250 Sir Walter Scott and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, “Grime,” repeated the Templar, “will suit Alsatia well marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred enough—both a grim and grimy place of refuge.” years afterwards, a well-known character. “I said Grahame, sir, not Grime,” said Nigel, some- “Tour out,” said the one ruffian to the other; “tour thing shortly, and laying an emphasis on the vowel— the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove!”* for few Scotsmen understand raillery upon the subject “I smell a spy,” replied the other, looking at Nigel. of their names. “Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery.”** “I beg pardon, my lord,” answered the undisconcerted “Bing avast, bing avast!” replied his companion; “yon punster; “but Graam will suit the circumstance, too—it other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple—I signifies tribulation in the High Dutch, and your lord- know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province.” ship must be considered as a man under trouble.” So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick Nigel laughed at the pertinacity of the Templar; who, cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. proceeding to point out a sign representing, or believed “Grasso in aere!” said the Templar. “You hear what a to represent, a dog attacking a bull, and running at his character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves head, in the true scientific style of onset,—“There,” said your lordship’s turn, I care not.—And, now, let me ask he, “doth faithful Duke Hildebrod deal forth laws, as well your lordship what name you will assume, for we are as ale and strong waters, to his faithful Alsatians. Being near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod.” a determined champion of Paris Garden, he has chosen a “I will be called Grahame,” said Nigel; “it was my sign corresponding to his habits; and he deals in giving mother’s name.” drink to the thirsty, that he himself may drink without paying, and receive pay for what is drunken by others.— * Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants! Let us enter the ever-open gate of this second Axylus.” **Slash him over the eyes with your dagger. 251 The Fortunes of Nigel As they spoke, they entered the dilapidated tavern, old man, with only one eye; and a nose which bore evi- which was, nevertheless, more ample in dimensions, and dence to the frequency, strength, and depth of his pota- less ruinous, than many houses in the same evil tions. He wore a murrey-coloured plush jerkin, stained neighbourhood. Two or three haggard, ragged drawers, with the overflowings of the tankard, and much the ran to and fro, whose looks, like those of owls, seemed worse for wear, and unbuttoned at bottom for the ease only adapted for midnight, when other creatures sleep, of his enormous paunch. Behind him lay a favourite and who by day seemed bleared, stupid, and only half bull-dog, whose round head and single black glancing awake. Guided by one of these blinking Ganymedes, they eye, as well as the creature’s great corpulence, gave it a entered a room, where the feeble rays of the sun were burlesque resemblance to its master. almost wholly eclipsed by volumes of tobacco-smoke, The well-beloved counsellors who surrounded the du- rolled from the tubes of the company, while out of the cal throne, incensed it with tobacco, pledged its occu- cloudy sanctuary arose the old chant of— pier in thick clammy ale, and echoed back his choral songs, were Satraps worthy of such a Soldan. The buff “Old Sir Simon the King, jerkin, broad belt, and long sword of one, showed him And old Sir Simon the King, to be a Low Country soldier, whose look of scowling im- With his malmsey nose, portance, and drunken impudence, were designed to And his ale-dropped hose, sustain his title to call himself a Roving Blade. It seemed And sing hey ding-a-ding-ding.” to Nigel that he had seen this fellow somewhere or other. A hedge-parson, or buckle-beggar, as that order of priest- Duke Hildebrod, who himself condescended to chant hood has been irreverently termed, sat on the Duke’s this ditty to his loving subjects, was a monstrously fat left, and was easily distinguished by his torn band,

252 Sir Walter Scott flapped hat, and the remnants of a rusty cassock. Be- his ditty to an end before addressing them, though, dur- side the parson sat a most wretched and meagre-looking the whole time, he closely scrutinized them with his ing old man, with a threadbare hood of coarse kersey single optic. upon his head, and buttoned about his neck, while his When Duke Hildebrod had ended his song, he informed pinched features, like those of old Daniel, were illumi- his Peers that a worthy officer of the Temple attended nated by them, and commanded the captain and parson to aban- — “an eye, don their easy chairs in behalf of the two strangers, Through the last look of dotage still cunning and sly.” whom he placed on his right and left hand. The worthy representative of the army and the church of Alsatia On his left was placed a broken attorney, who, for some went to place themselves on a crazy form at the bottom malpractices, had been struck from the roll of practi- of the table, which, ill calculated to sustain men of such tioners, and who had nothing left of his profession, ex- weight, gave way under them, and the man of the sword cept its roguery. One or two persons of less figure, and man of the gown were rolled over each other on the amongst whom there was one face, which, like that of floor, amidst the exulting shouts of the company. They the soldier, seemed not unknown to Nigel, though he arose in wrath, contending which should vent his dis- could not recollect where he had seen it, completed the pleasure in the loudest and deepest oaths, a strife in council-board of Jacob Duke Hildebrod. which the parson’s superior acquaintance with theol- The strangers had full time to observe all this; for his ogy enabled him greatly to excel the captain, and were grace the Duke, whether irresistibly carried on by the at length with difficulty tranquillised by the arrival of full tide of harmony, or whether to impress the strang- the alarmed waiters with more stable chairs, and by a ers with a proper idea of his consequence, chose to sing long draught of the cooling tankard. When this com-

253 The Fortunes of Nigel motion was appeased, and the strangers courteously ac- which glittered in his single eye; and no wonder, as it commodated with flagons, after the fashion of the oth- was a rare occurrence, and of peculiar advantage to his ers present, the Duke drank prosperity to the Temple in private revenue. Accordingly, he commanded his ducal the most gracious manner, together with a cup of wel- register to be brought him, a huge book, secured with come to Master Reginald Lowestoffe; and, this courtesy brass clasps like a merchant’s ledger, and whose leaves, having been thankfully accepted, the party honoured stained with wine, and slabbered with tobacco juice, bore prayed permission to call for a gallon of Rhenish, over the names probably of as many rogues as are to be found which he proposed to open his business. in the Calendar of Newgate. The mention of a liquor so superior to their usual po- Nigel was then directed to lay down two nobles as his tations had an instant and most favourable effect upon ransom, and to claim privilege by reciting the following the little senate; and its immediate appearance might doggerel verses, which were dictated to him by the be said to secure a favourable reception of Master Duke:— Lowestoffe’s proposition, which, after a round or two had circulated, he explained to be the admission of his “Your suppliant, by name friend Master Nigel Grahame to the benefit of the sanc- Nigel Grahame, tuary and other immunities of Alsatia, in the character In fear of mishap of a grand compounder; for so were those termed who From a shoulder-tap; paid a double fee at their matriculation, in order to avoid And dreading a claw laying before the senate the peculiar circumstances From the talons of law, which compelled them to take refuge there. That are sharper than briers: The worthy Duke heard the proposition with glee, His freedom to sue,

254 Sir Walter Scott And rescue by you— malecontent on account of the late accident, he now Thorugh weapon and wit, requested to be heard before the registration took place. From warrant and writ, “The person,” he said, “who hath now had the assur- From bailiff’s hand, ance to propose himself as a candidate for the privileges From tipstaff’s wand, and immunities of this honourable society, is, in plain Is come hither to Whitefriars.” terms, a beggarly Scot, and we have enough of these locusts in London already—if we admit such palmer- As Duke Hildebrod with a tremulous hand began to worms and caterpillars to the Sanctuary, we shall soon make the entry, and had already, with superfluous gen- have the whole nation.” erosity, spelled Nigel with two g’s instead of one, he was “We are not entitled to inquire,” said Duke Hildebrod, interrupted by the parson.* This reverend gentleman “whether he be Scot, or French, or English; seeing he had been whispering for a minute or two, not with the has honourably laid down his garnish, he is entitled to captain, but with that other individual, who dwelt im- our protection.” perfectly, as we have already mentioned, in Nigel’s “Word of denial, most Sovereign Duke,” replied the memory, and being, perhaps, still something parson, “I ask him no questions—his speech betrayeth *This curious register is still in existence, being in possession him—he is a Galilean—and his garnish is forfeited for of that eminent antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, who liberally of- his assurance in coming within this our realm; and I call fered the author permission to have the autograph of Duke Hildebrod engraved as an illustration of this passage. Unhap- on you, Sir Duke, to put the laws in force against him!” pily, being rigorous as Ritson himself in adhering to the very The Templar here rose, and was about to interrupt letter of his copy, the worthy Doctor clogged his munificence the deliberations of the court, when the Duke gravely with the condition that we should adopt the Duke’s orthogra- phy, and entitle the work “The Fortunes of Niggle,” with which assured him that he should be heard in behalf of his stipulation we did not think it necessary to comply. 255 The Fortunes of Nigel friend, so soon as the council had finished their delib- lors of your grace, and when I remember the Huffs, the erations. Muns, and the Tityretu’s by whom your grace’s ances- The attorney next rose, and, intimating that he was tors and predecessors were advised on such occasions, I to speak to the point of law, said—“It was easy to be begin to think the spirit of action is as dead in Alsatia seen that this gentleman did not come here in any civil as in my old grannam; and yet who thinks so thinks a case, and that he believed it to be the story they had lie, since I will find as many roaring boys in the Friars already heard of concerning a blow given within the as shall keep the liberties against all the scavengers of verge of the Park—that the Sanctuary would not bear Westminster. And, if we should be overborne for a turn, out the offender in such case—and that the queer old death and darkness! have we not time to send the gentle- Chief would send down a broom which would sweep the man off by water, either to Paris Garden or to the streets of Alsatia from the Strand to the Stairs; and it bankside? and, if he is a gallant of true breed, will he was even policy to think what evil might come to their not make us full amends for all the trouble we have? Let republic, by sheltering an alien in such circumstances.” other societies exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys The captain, who had sat impatiently while these opin- of the Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we ions were expressed, now sprung on his feet with the are in right opposition to sign and seal, writ and war- vehemence of a cork bouncing from a bottle of brisk rant, sergeant and tipstaff, catchpoll, and bum-bailey.” beer, and, turning up his mustaches with a martial air, This speech was followed by a murmur of approba- cast a glance of contempt on the lawyer and church- tion, and Lowestoffe, striking in before the favourable man, while he thus expressed his opinion. sound had subsided, reminded the Duke and his council “Most noble Duke Hildebrod! When I hear such base, how much the security of their state depended upon skeldering, coistril propositions come from the counsel- the amity of the Templars, who, by closing their gates,

256 Sir Walter Scott could at pleasure shut against the Alsatians the com- of the fathers of this old and honourable republic, ripely munication betwixt the Friars and the Temple, and that and well to consider all their proceedings over a proper as they conducted themselves on this occasion, so would allowance of liquor; and far be it from me to propose they secure or lose the benefit of his interest with his the breach of so laudable a custom, or to pretend that own body, which they knew not to be inconsiderable. such an affair as the present can be well and constitu- “And, in respect of my friend being a Scotsman and alien, tionally considered during the discussion of a pitiful as has been observed by the reverend divine and learned gallon of Rhenish. But, as it is the same thing to this lawyer, you are to consider,” said Lowestoffe, “for what honourable conclave whether they drink first and de- he is pursued hither—why, for giving the bastinado, not termine afterwards, or whether they determine first and to an Englishman, but to one of his own countrymen. drink afterwards, I propose your grace, with the advice And for my own simple part,” he continued, touching of your wise and potent senators, shall pass your edict, Lord Glenvarloch at the same time, to make him under- granting to mine honourable friend the immunities of stand he spoke but in jest, “if all the Scots in London the place, and assigning him a lodging, according to your were to fight a Welsh main, and kill each other to a man, wise forms, to which he will presently retire, being some- the survivor would, in my humble opinion, be entitled what spent with this day’s action; whereupon I will pres- to our gratitude, as having done a most acceptable ser- ently order you a rundlet of Rhenish, with a correspond- vice to poor Old England.” ing quantity of neats’ tongues and pickled herrings, to A shout of laughter and applause followed this inge- make you all as glorious as George-a-Green.” nious apology for the client’s state of alienage; and the This overture was received with a general shout of ap- Templar followed up his plea with the following pithy plause, which altogether drowned the voice of the dissi- proposition:—“I know well,” said he, “it is the custom dents, if any there were amongst the Alsatian senate

257 The Fortunes of Nigel who could have resisted a proposal so popular. The words or rather assented as they were repeated by Duke of, kind heart! noble gentleman! generous gallant! flew Hildebrod, who concluded the ceremony by allowing him from mouth to mouth; the inscription of the petitioner’s the privilege of sanctuary, in the following form of pre- name in the great book was hastily completed, and the scriptive doggerel:— oath administered to him by the worthy Doge. Like the Laws of the Twelve Tables, of the ancient Cambro-Brit- “From the touch of the tip, ons, and other primitive nations, it was couched in po- From the blight of the warrant, etry, and ran as follows:- From the watchmen who skip On the Harman Beck’s errand; “By spigot and barrel, From the bailiffs cramp speech, By bilboe and buff; That makes man a thrall, Thou art sworn to the quarrel I charm thee from each, Of the blades of the huff. And I charm thee from all. For Whitefriars and its claims Thy freedom’s complete To be champion or martyr, As a Blade of the Huff, And to fight for its dames To be cheated and cheat, Like a Knight of the Garter.” To be cuff’d and to cuff; To stride, swear, and swagger, Nigel felt, and indeed exhibited, some disgust at this To drink till you stagger, mummery; but, the Templar reminding him that he was To stare and to stab, too far advanced to draw back, he repeated the words, And to brandish your dagger

258 Sir Walter Scott In the cause of your drab; was usually a competition among the inhabitants which To walk wool-ward in winter, should have the managing, as it was termed, of a new Drink brandy, and smoke, member of the society. And go fresco in summer The Hector who had spoken so warmly and critically For want of a cloak; in Nigel’s behalf, stood out now chivalrously in behalf To eke out your living of a certain Blowselinda, or Bonstrops, who had, it By the wag of your elbow, seems, a room to hire, once the occasional residence of By fulham and gourd, Slicing Dick of Paddington, who lately suffered at And by baring of bilboe; Tyburn, and whose untimely exit had been hitherto To live by your shifts, mourned by the damsel in solitary widowhood, after the And to swear by your honour, fashion of the turtle-dove. Are the freedom and gifts The captain’s interest was, however, overruled, in be- Of which I am the donor.”* half of the old gentleman in the kersey hood, who was believed, even at his extreme age, to understand the This homily being performed, a dispute arose concern- plucking of a pigeon, as well, or better, than any man in ing the special residence to be assigned the new brother Alsatia. of the Sanctuary; for, as the Alsatians held it a maxim This venerable personage was an usurer of notoriety, in their commonwealth, that ass’s milk fattens, there called Trapbois, and had very lately done the state considerable service in advancing a subsidy necessary to se- *Of the cant words used in this inauguratory oration, some cure a fresh importation of liquors to the Duke’s cellars, are obvious in their meaning, others, as Harman Beck (constable), and the like, derive their source from that ancient the wine-merchant at the Vintry being scrupulous to deal piece of lexicography, the Slang Dictionary. 259 The Fortunes of Nigel with so great a man for any thing but ready money. the sour stern countenance of the female by whom it When, therefore, the old gentleman arose, and with was opened, fully confirmed all that the Templar had much coughing, reminded the Duke that he had a poor said of the hostess. She heard with an ungracious and apartment to let, the claims of all others were set aside, discontented air the young Templar’s information, that and Nigel was assigned to Trapbois as his guest. the gentleman, his companion, was to be her father’s No sooner was this arrangement made, than Lord lodger, muttered something about the trouble it was Glenvarloch expressed to Lowestoffe his impatience to likely to occasion, but ended by showing the stranger’s leave this discreditable assembly, and took his leave with apartment, which was better than could have been au- a careless haste, which, but for the rundlet of Rhenish gured from the general appearance of the place, and wine that entered just as he left the apartment, might much larger in extent than that which he occupied at have been taken in bad part. The young Templar ac- Paul’s Wharf, though inferior to it in neatness. companied his friend to the house of the old usurer, with Lowestoffe, having thus seen his friend fairly installed the road to which he and some other youngsters about in his new apartment, and having obtained for him a the Temple were even but too well acquainted. On the note of the rate at which he could be accommodated way, he assured Lord Glenvarloch that he was going to with victuals from a neighbouring cook’s shop, now took the only clean house in Whitefriars; a property which it his leave, offering, at the same time, to send the whole, owed solely to the exertions of the old man’s only daugh- or any part of Lord Glenvarloch’s baggage, from his ter, an elderly damsel, ugly enough to frighten sin, yet former place of residence to his new lodging. Nigel men- likely to be wealthy enough to tempt a puritan, so soon tioned so few articles, that the Templar could not help as the devil had got her old dad for his due. As Lowestoffe observing, that his lordship, it would seem, did not in- spoke thus, they knocked at the door of the house, and tend to enjoy his new privileges long.

260 Sir Walter Scott “They are too little suited to my habits and taste, that ware of Duke Hildebrod, who was as sharp, he said, as I should do so,” replied Lord Glenvarloch. a needle, though he had no more eyes than are possessed “You may change your opinion to-morrow,” said by that necessary implement of female industry. 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 ani- madversions 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 be-

261 The Fortunes of Nigel take refuge in the house of old Trapbois, the noted usurer of Whitefriars, commonly called Golden Trapbois, CHAPTER XVIII 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 Mother. What I dazzled by a flash from Cupid’s mirror, fit of thought, swallow the salt-cellar instead of a crust With which the boy, as mortal urchins wont, of the brown loaf,) set forth from the house as soon as Flings back the sunbeam in the eye of passengers— he was again plunged into the depth of calculation, and, Then laughs to see them stumble! accompanied only by that faithful old drudge, Janet, the Scots laundress, to whom her whims were laws, made Daughter. Mother! no— her way to Lombard Street, and disturbed, at the un- It was a lightning-flash which dazzled me, usual hour of eight in the morning, Aunt Judith, the And never shall these eyes see true again. sister of her worthy godfather. Beef and Pudding.—An Old English Comedy. The venerable maiden received her young visitor with no great complacency; for, naturally enough, she had neither the same admiration of her very pretty counte- IT IS NECESSARY that we should leave our hero Nigel for a nance, nor allowance for her foolish and girlish impa- time, although in a situation neither safe, comfortable, tience of temper, which Master George Heriot enter- nor creditable, in order to detail some particulars which tained. Still Mistress Margaret was a favourite of her have immediate connexion with his fortunes. brother’s, whose will was to Aunt Judith a supreme law; It was but the third day after he had been forced to and she contented herself with asking her untimely visi-

262 Sir Walter Scott tor, “what she made so early with her pale, chitty face, Hermione. I am older, and better skilled to advise. I live in the streets of London?” more in the world than one who shuts herself up within “I would speak with the Lady Hermione,” answered four rooms, and I have the better means to assist you.” the almost breathless girl, while the blood ran so fast to “O! no—no—no,” said Margaret, eagerly, and with her face as totally to remove the objection of paleness more earnest sincerity than complaisance; “there are which Aunt Judith had made to her complexion. some things to which you cannot advise me, Aunt Judith. “With the Lady Hermione?” said Aunt Judith—“with It is a case—pardon me, my dear aunt—a case beyond the Lady Hermione? and at this time in the morning, your counsel.” when she will scarce see any of the family, even at sea- “I am glad on’t, maiden,” said Aunt Judith, somewhat sonable hours? You are crazy, you silly wench, or you angrily; “for I think the follies of the young people of abuse the indulgence which my brother and the lady this generation would drive mad an old brain like mine. have shown to you.” Here you come on the viretot, through the whole streets “Indeed, indeed I have not,” repeated Margaret, strug- of London, to talk some nonsense to a lady, who scarce gling to retain the unbidden tear which seemed ready to sees God’s sun, but when he shines on a brick wall. But burst out on the slightest occasion. “Do but say to the I will tell her you are here.” lady that your brother’s god-daughter desires earnestly She went away, and shortly returned with a dry— to speak to her, and I know she will not refuse to see ”Miss Marget, the lady will be glad to see you; and that’s me.” more, my young madam, than you had a right to count Aunt Judith bent an earnest, suspicious, and inquisi- upon.” tive glance on her young visitor, “You might make me Mistress Margaret hung her head in silence, too much your secretary, my lassie,” she said, “as well as the Lady perplexed by the train of her own embarrassed thoughts,

263 The Fortunes of Nigel for attempting either to conciliate Aunt Judith’s kind- ornaments the tale had received from Richie himself, ness, or, which on other occasions would have been as whose tongue, especially when oiled with good liquor, congenial to her own humour, to retaliate on her cross- had a considerable tendency to amplification, and who tempered remarks and manner. She followed Aunt failed not, while he retailed to his master all the won- Judith, therefore, in silence and dejection, to the strong derful circumstances narrated by Vincent, to add to oaken door which divided the Lady Hermione’s apart- them many conjectures of his own, which his imagina- ments from the rest of George Heriot’s spacious house. tion had over-hastily converted into facts. At the door of this sanctuary it is necessary to pause, Yet the life which the Lady Hermione had led for two in order to correct the reports with which Richie years, during which she had been the inmate of George Moniplies had filled his master’s ear, respecting the sin- Heriot’s house, was so singular, as almost to sanction gular appearance of that lady’s attendance at prayers, many of the wild reports which went abroad. The house whom we now own to be by name the Lady Hermione. which the worthy goldsmith inhabited, had in former Some part of these exaggerations had been communi- times belonged to a powerful and wealthy baronial fam- cated to the worthy Scotsman by Jenkin Vincent, who ily, which, during the reign of Henry VIII., terminated was well experienced in the species of wit which has in a dowager lady, very wealthy, very devout, and most been long a favourite in the city, under the names of unalienably attached to the Catholic faith. The chosen cross-biting, giving the dor, bamboozling, cramming, friend of the Honourable Lady Foljambe was the Ab- hoaxing, humbugging, and quizzing; for which sport bess of Saint Roque’s Nunnery, like herself a conscien- Richie Moniplies, with his solemn gravity, totally tious, rigid, and devoted Papist. When the house of Saint unapprehensive of a joke, and his natural propensity to Roque was despotically dissolved by the fiat of the im- the marvellous, formed an admirable subject. Farther petuous monarch, the Lady Foljambe received her friend

264 Sir Walter Scott into her spacious mansion, together with two vestal sis- who claimed the same merit for expelling the priestess ters, who, like their Abbess, were determined to follow of Baal, which his predecessor had founded on main- the tenor of their vows, instead of embracing the pro- taining the votaresses of Heaven. Of the two unhappy fane liberty which the Monarch’s will had thrown in their nuns, driven from their ancient refuge, one went beyond choice. For their residence, the Lady Foljambe contrived, sea; the other, unable from old age to undertake such a with all secrecy—for Henry might not have relished her journey, died under the roof of a faithful Catholic widow interference—to set apart a suite of four rooms, with a of low degree. Sir Paul Crambagge, having got rid of little closet fitted up as an oratory, or chapel; the whole the nuns, spoiled the chapel of its ornaments, and had apartments fenced by a stout oaken door to exclude thoughts of altogether destroying the apartments, un- strangers, and accommodated with a turning wheel to til checked by the reflection that the operation would receive necessaries, according to the practice of all nun- be an unnecessary expense, since he only inhabited three neries. In this retreat, the Abbess of Saint Roque and rooms of the large mansion, and had not therefore the her attendants passed many years, communicating only slightest occasion for any addition to its accommoda- with the Lady Foljambe, who, in virtue of their prayers, tions. His son proved a waster and a prodigal, and from and of the support she afforded them, accounted her- him the house was bought by our friend George Heriot, self little less than a saint on earth. The Abbess, fortu- who, finding, like Sir Paul, the house more than suffi- nately for herself, died before her munificent patroness, ciently ample for his accommodation, left the Foljambe who lived deep in Queen Elizabeth’s time, ere she was apartments, or Saint Roque’s rooms, as they were called, summoned by fate. in the state in which he found them. The Lady Foljambe was succeeded in this mansion by About two years and a half before our history opened, a sour fanatic knight, a distant and collateral relation, when Heriot was absent upon an expedition to the Con-

265 The Fortunes of Nigel tinent, he sent special orders to his sister and his cash- at night, ate in her apartment, and was scarcely ever keeper, directing that the Foljambe apartments should separated from her during the day. be fitted up handsomely, though plainly, for the recep- These females took possession of the nunnery of the tion of a lady, who would make them her residence for devout Abbess, and, without observing the same rigor- some time; and who would live more or less with his ous seclusion, according to the letter, seemed wellnigh own family according to her pleasure. He also directed, to restore the apartments to the use to which they had that the necessary repairs should be made with secrecy, been originally designed. The new inmates lived and took and that as little should be said as possible upon the their meals apart from the rest of the family. With the subject of his letter. domestics Lady Hermione, for so she was termed, held When the time of his return came nigh, Aunt Judith no communication, and Mademoiselle Pauline only such and the household were on the tenter-hooks of impa- as was indispensable, which she dispatched as briefly as tience. Master George came, as he had intimated, ac- possible. Frequent and liberal largesses reconciled the companied by a lady, so eminently beautiful, that, had servants to this conduct; and they were in the habit of it not been for her extreme and uniform paleness, she observing to each other, that to do a service for Made- might have been reckoned one of the loveliest creatures moiselle Pauline, was like finding a fairy treasure. on earth. She had with her an attendant, or humble com- To Aunt Judith the Lady Hermione was kind and civil, panion, whose business seemed only to wait upon her. but their intercourse was rare; on which account the el- This person, a reserved woman, and by her dialect a for- der lady felt some pangs both of curiosity and injured eigner, aged about fifty, was called by the lady Monna dignity. But she knew her brother so well, and loved him Paula, and by Master Heriot, and others, Mademoiselle so dearly, that his will, once expressed, might be truly Pauline. She slept in the same room with her patroness said to become her own. The worthy citizen was not

266 Sir Walter Scott without a spice of the dogmatism which grows on the these suspicions; those who had to transact business with best disposition, when a word is a law to all around. him upon ‘Change, could not doubt the soundness of Master George did not endure to be questioned by his Master Heriot’s mind; and, to confute the other rumours, family, and, when he had generally expressed his will, it was credibly reported by such as made the matter that the Lady Hermione should live in the way most their particular interest, that Master George Heriot agreeable to her, and that no inquiries should be made never visited his guest but in presence of Mademoiselle concerning their history, or her motives for observing Pauline, who sat with her work in a remote part of the such strict seclusion, his sister well knew that he would same room in which they conversed. It was also ascer- have been seriously displeased with any attempt to pry tained that these visits scarcely ever exceeded an hour into the secret. in length, and were usually only repeated once a week, But, though Heriot’s servants were bribed, and his sis- an intercourse too brief and too long interrupted, to ter awed into silent acquiescence in these arrangements, render it probable that love was the bond of their union. they were not of a nature to escape the critical observa- The inquirers were, therefore, at fault, and compelled tion of the neighbourhood. Some opined that the to relinquish the pursuit of Master Heriot’s secret, while wealthy goldsmith was about to turn papist, and re- a thousand ridiculous tales were circulated amongst the establish Lady Foljambe’s nunnery—others that he was ignorant and superstitious, with some specimens of going mad—others that he was either going to marry, which our friend Richie Moniplies had been crammed, or to do worse. Master George’s constant appearance at as we have seen, by the malicious apprentice of worthy church, and the knowledge that the supposed votaress David Ramsay. always attended when the prayers of the English ritual There was one person in the world who, it was thought, were read in the family, liberated him from the first of could (if she would) have said more of the Lady

267 The Fortunes of Nigel Hermione than any one in London, except George He- and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of ob- riot himself; and that was the said David Ramsay’s only servation to refine it—a lively, good-humoured, playful child, Margaret. disposition, and an excellent heart. Her acquired follies This girl was not much past the age of fifteen when were much increased by reading plays and romances, to the Lady Hermione first came to England, and was a which she devoted a great deal of her time, and from very frequent visitor at her godfather’s, who was much which she adopted ideas as different as possible from amused by her childish sallies, and by the wild and natu- those which she might have obtained from the invalu- ral beauty with which she sung the airs of her native able and affectionate instructions of an excellent country. Spoilt she was on all hands; by the indulgence mother; and the freaks of which she was sometimes of her godfather, the absent habits and indifference of guilty, rendered her not unjustly liable to the charge of her father, and the deference of all around to her ca- affectation and coquetry. But the little lass had sense prices, as a beauty and as an heiress. But though, from and shrewdness enough to keep her failings out of sight these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as wil- of her godfather, to whom she was sincerely attached; ful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indul- and so high she stood in his favour, that, at his recom- gence seldom fails to render those to whom it is extended; mendation, she obtained permission to visit the recluse and although she exhibited upon many occasions that Lady Hermione. affectation of extreme shyness, silence, and reserve, The singular mode of life which that lady observed; which misses in their teens are apt to take for an ami- her great beauty, rendered even more interesting by her able modesty; and, upon others, a considerable portion extreme paleness; the conscious pride of being admit- of that flippancy, which youth sometimes confounds ted farther than the rest of the world into the society of with wit, Mistress Margaret had much real shrewdness a person who was wrapped in so much mystery, made a

268 Sir Walter Scott deep impression on the mind of Margaret Ramsay; and At the earlier period of their acquaintance, the Lady though their conversations were at no time either long Hermione was wont to reward the attentions of her little or confidential, yet, proud of the trust reposed in her, friend with small but elegant presents, and entertain Margaret was as secret respecting their tenor as if every her by a display of foreign rarities and curiosities, many word repeated had been to cost her life. No inquiry, how- of them of considerable value. Sometimes the time was ever artfully backed by flattery and insinuation, whether passed in a way much less agreeable to Margaret, by her on the part of Dame Ursula, or any other person equally receiving lessons from Pauline in the use of the needle. inquisitive, could wring from the little maiden one word But, although her preceptress practised these arts with of what she heard or saw, after she entered these myste- a dexterity then only known in foreign convents, the rious and secluded apartments. The slightest question pupil proved so incorrigibly idle and awkward, that the concerning Master Heriot’s ghost, was sufficient, at her task of needlework was at length given up, and lessons gayest moment, to check the current of her communi- of music substituted in their stead. Here also Pauline cative prattle, and render her silent. was excellently qualified as an instructress, and Marga- We mention this, chiefly to illustrate the early strength ret, more successful in a science for which Nature had of Margaret’s character—a strength concealed under a gifted her, made proficiency both in vocal and instru- hundred freakish whims and humours, as an ancient and mental music. These lessons passed in presence of the massive buttress is disguised by its fantastic covering of Lady Hermione, to whom they seemed to give pleasure. ivy and wildflowers. In truth, if the damsel had told all She sometimes added her own voice to the performance, she heard or saw within the Foljambe apartments, she in a pure, clear stream of liquid melody; but this was would have said but little to gratify the curiosity of in- only when the music was of a devotional cast. As Mar- quirers. garet became older, her communications with the recluse

269 The Fortunes of Nigel assumed a different character. She was allowed, if not Foljambe apartments would have probably slackened encouraged, to tell whatever she had remarked out of as her circle of acquaintance increased in the external doors, and the Lady Hermione, while she remarked the world, had she not, on the one hand, entertained an quick, sharp, and retentive powers of observation pos- habitual reverence for her monitress, of which she could sessed by her young friend, often found sufficient rea- not divest herself, and been flattered, on the other, by son to caution her against rashness in forming opinions, being to a certain degree the depository of a confidence and giddy petulance in expressing them. for which others thirsted in vain. Besides, although the The habitual awe with which she regarded this singu- conversation of Hermione was uniformly serious, it was lar personage, induced Mistress Margaret, though by no not in general either formal or severe; nor was the lady means delighting in contradiction or reproof, to listen offended by flights of levity which Mistress Margaret with patience to her admonitions, and to make full al- sometimes ventured on in her presence, even when they lowance for the good intentions of the patroness by were such as made Monna Paula cast her eyes upwards, whom they were bestowed; although in her heart she and sigh with that compassion which a devotee extends could hardly conceive how Madame Hermione, who towards the votaries of a trivial and profane world. Thus, never stirred from the Foljambe apartments, should upon the whole, the little maiden was disposed to sub- think of teaching knowledge of the world to one who mit, though not without some wincing, to the grave walked twice a-week between Temple Bar and Lombard admonitions of the Lady Hermione; and the rather that Street, besides parading in the Park every Sunday that the mystery annexed to the person of her monitress was proved to be fair weather. Indeed, pretty Mistress Mar- in her mind early associated with a vague idea of wealth garet was so little inclined to endure such remonstrances, and importance, which had been rather confirmed than that her intercourse with the inhabitants of the lessened by many accidental circumstances which she

270 Sir Walter Scott 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 CHAPTER XIX 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 indif- By this good light, a wench of matchless mettle! ference; and this is more especially the case if we sup- This were a leaguer-lass to love a soldier, pose that our adviser may also possess power and incli- To bind his wounds, and kiss his bloody brow, nation to back his counsel with effectual assistance. And sing a roundel as she help’d to arm him, Mistress Margaret was now in that situation. She was, Though the rough foeman’s drums were beat so nigh, or believed herself to be, in a condition where both ad- They seem’d to bear the burden. vice and assistance might be necessary; and it was there- Old Play. fore, 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, WHEN MISTRESS MARGARET entered the Foljambe apart- might also possess means of giving her the other. The ment, she found the inmates employed in their usual conversation between them will best explain the pur- manner; the lady in reading, and her attendant in em- port of the visit. broidering 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

271 The Fortunes of Nigel speak; and Margaret, accustomed to this reception, and over since I first saw Monna Paula working in her can- in the present case not sorry for it, as it gave her an vass garden, and her violets have not budded yet.” interval to collect her thoughts, stooped over Monna “True, lady-bird,” replied Hermione; “but the buds Paula’s frame and observed, in a half whisper, “You were that are longest in blossoming will last the longest in just so far as that rose, Monna, when I first saw you— flower. You have seen them in the garden bloom thrice, see, there is the mark where I had the bad luck to spoil but you have seen them fade thrice also; now, Monna the flower in trying to catch the stitch—I was little above Paula’s will remain in blow for ever—they will fear nei- fifteen then. These flowers make me an old woman, ther frost nor tempest.” Monna Paula.” “True, madam,” answered Mistress Margaret; “but “I wish they could make you a wise one, my child,” neither have they life or odour.” answered Monna Paula, in whose esteem pretty Mistress “That, little one,” replied the recluse, “is to compare Margaret did not stand quite so high as in that of her a life agitated by hope and fear, and chequered with suc- patroness; partly owing to her natural austerity, which cess and disappointment, and fevered by the effects of was something intolerant of youth and gaiety, and partly love and hatred, a life of passion and of feeling, sad- to the jealousy with which a favourite domestic regards dened and shortened by its exhausting alternations, to any one whom she considers as a sort of rival in the a calm and tranquil existence, animated but by a sense affections of her mistress. of duties, and only employed, during its smooth and “What is it you say to Monna, little one?” asked the quiet course, in the unwearied discharge of them. Is that lady. the moral of your answer?” “Nothing, madam,” replied Mistress Margaret, “but “I do not know, madam,” answered Mistress Marga- that I have seen the real flowers blossom three times ret; “but, of all birds in the air, I would rather be the

272 Sir Walter Scott lark, that sings while he is drifting down the summer of all the wood, brass, and wire that ever my father’s breeze, than the weathercock that sticks fast yonder fingers put together, I do hate and detest a certain huge upon his iron perch, and just moves so much as to dis- old clock of the German fashion, that rings hours and charge his duty, and tell us which way the wind blows.” half hours, and quarters and half quarters, as if it were “Metaphors are no arguments, my pretty maiden,” of such consequence that the world should know it was said the Lady Hermione, smiling. wound up and going. Now, dearest lady, I wish you would “I am sorry for that, madam,” answered Margaret; only compare that clumsy, clanging, Dutch-looking piece “for they are such a pretty indirect way of telling one’s of lumber, with the beautiful timepiece that Master mind when it differs from one’s betters—besides, on this Heriot caused my father to make for your ladyship, subject there is no end of them, and they are so civil which uses to play a hundred merry tunes, and turns and becoming withal.” out, when it strikes the hour, a whole band of morrice “Indeed?” replied the lady; “let me hear some of them, dancers, to trip the hays to the measure.” I pray you.” “And which of these timepieces goes the truest, Mar- “It would be, for example, very bold in me,” said Mar- garet?” said the lady. garet, “to say to your ladyship, that, rather than live a “I must confess the old Dutchman has the advantage quiet life, I would like a little variety of hope and fear, in that”—said Margaret. “I fancy you are right, madam, and liking and disliking—and—and—and the other sort and that comparisons are no arguments; at least mine of feelings which your ladyship is pleased to speak of; has not brought me through.” but I may say freely, and without blame, that I like a “Upon my word, maiden Margaret,” said the lady, butterfly better than a bettle, or a trembling aspen bet- smiling, “you have been of late thinking very much of ter than a grim Scots fir, that never wags a leaf—or that these matters.”

273 The Fortunes of Nigel “Perhaps too much, madam,” said Margaret, so low had suffered my feelings too much to engross me of late. as only to be heard by the lady, behind the back of whose I have done very wrong, and you will be angry with me— chair she had now placed herself. The words were spo- so will my godfather, but I cannot help it—he must be ken very gravely, and accompanied by a half sigh, which rescued.” did not escape the attention of her to whom they were “He?” repeated the lady, with emphasis; “that brief addressed. The Lady Hermione turned immediately little word does, indeed, so far explain your mystery;— round, and looked earnestly at Margaret, then paused but come from behind the chair, you silly popinjay! I for a moment, and, finally, commanded Monna Paula will wager you have suffered yonder gay young appren- to carry her frame and embroidery into the antecham- tice to sit too near your heart. I have not heard you ber. When they were left alone, she desired her young mention young Vincent for many a day—perhaps he has friend to come from behind the chair on the back of not been out of mouth and out of mind both. Have you which she still rested, and sit down beside her upon a been so foolish as to let him speak to you seriously?—I stool. am told he is a bold youth.” “I will remain thus, madam, under your favour,” an- “Not bold enough to say any thing that could displease swered Margaret, without changing her posture; “I me, madam,” said Margaret. would rather you heard me without seeing me.” “Perhaps, then, you were not displeased,” said the lady; “In God’s name, maiden,” returned her patroness, “or perhaps he has not spoken, which would be wiser “what is it you can have to say, that may not be uttered and better. Be open-hearted, my love—your godfather face to face, to so true a friend as I am?” will soon return, and we will take him into our consul- Without making any direct answer, Margaret only re- tations. If the young man is industrious, and come of plied, “You were right, dearest lady, when you said, I honest parentage, his poverty may be no such insur-

274 Sir Walter Scott mountable obstacle. But you are both of you very young, “The young Lord of Glenvarloch!” repeated the lady, Margaret—I know your godfather will expect, that the in great surprise—“Maiden, you are distracted in your youth shall first serve out his apprenticeship.” wits.” Margaret had hitherto suffered the lady to proceed, “I knew you would say so, madam,” answered Marga- under the mistaken impression which she had adopted, ret. “It is what another person has already told me—it simply because she could not tell how to interrupt her; is, perhaps, what all the world would tell me—it is what but pure despite at hearing her last words gave her bold- I am sometimes disposed to tell myself. But look at me, ness at length to say “I crave your pardon, madam; but madam, for I will now come before you, and tell me if neither the youth you mention, nor any apprentice or there is madness or distraction in my look and word, master within the city of London—” when I repeat to you again, that I have fixed my affec- “Margaret,” said the lady, in reply, “the contemptuous tions on this young nobleman.” tone with which you mention those of your own class, “If there is not madness in your look or word, maiden, (many hundreds if not thousands of whom are in all re- there is infinite folly in what you say,” answered the Lady spects better than yourself, and would greatly honour you Hermione, sharply. “When did you ever hear that mis- by thinking of you,) is methinks, no warrant for the wis- placed love brought any thing but wretchedness? Seek dom of your choice—for a choice, it seems, there is. Who a match among your equals, Margaret, and escape the is it, maiden, to whom you have thus rashly attached countless kinds of risk and misery that must attend an yourself?—rashly, I fear it must be.” affection beyond your degree.—Why do you smile, “It is the young Scottish Lord Glenvarloch, madam,” maiden? Is there aught to cause scorn in what I say?” answered Margaret, in a low and modest tone, but suffi- “Surely no, madam,” answered Margaret. “I only ciently firm, considering the subject. smiled to think how it should happen, that, while rank

275 The Fortunes of Nigel made such a wide difference between creatures formed “Only to ask Dame Ursley’s advice,” said Margaret, from the same clay, the wit of the vulgar should, never- as if about to depart; “for I see your ladyship is too theless, jump so exactly the same length with that of angry to give me any, and the emergency is pressing.” the accomplished and the exalted. It is but the varia- “What emergency, thou simple one?” said the lady, in tion of the phrase which divides them. Dame Ursley a kinder tone.—“Sit down, maiden, and tell me your told me the very same thing which your ladyship has tale. It is true you are a fool, and a pettish fool to boot; but now uttered; only you, madam, talk of countless but then you are a child—an amiable child, with all your misery, and Dame Ursley spoke of the gallows, and Mis- self-willed folly, and we must help you, if we can.—Sit tress Turner, who was hanged upon it.” down, I say, as you are desired, and you will find me a “Indeed?” answered the Lady Hermione; “and who safer and wiser counseller than the barber-woman. And may Dame Ursley be, that your wise choice has associ- tell me how you come to suppose, that you have fixed ated with me in the difficult task of advising a fool?” your heart unalterably upon a man whom you have seen, “The barber’s wife at next door, madam,” answered as I think, but once.” Margaret, with feigned simplicity, but far from being “I have seen him oftener,” said the damsel, looking sorry at heart, that she had found an indirect mode of down; “but I have only spoken to him once. I should mortifying her monitress. “She is the wisest woman that have been able to get that once out of my head, though I know, next to your ladyship.” the impression was so deep, that I could even now re- “A proper confidant,” said the lady, “and chosen with peat every trifling word he said; but other things have the same delicate sense of what is due to yourself and since riveted it in my bosom for ever.” others!—But what ails you, maiden—where are you “Maiden,” replied the lady, “for ever is the word which going?” comes most lightly on the lips in such circumstances,

276 Sir Walter Scott but which, not the less, is almost the last that we should absolute and concentrated spirit of malice; for the Lord use. The fashion of this world, its passions, its joys, and Dalgarno—” its sorrows, pass away like the winged breeze—there is “Here, Monna Paula—Monna Paula!” exclaimed the nought for ever but that which belongs to the world be- Lady Hermione, interrupting her young friend’s narra- yond the grave.” tive. “She hears me not,” she answered, rising and going “You have corrected me justly, madam,” said Marga- out, “I must seek her—I will return instantly.” She re- ret calmly; “I ought only to have spoken of my present turned accordingly very soon after. “You mentioned a state of mind, as what will last me for my lifetime, which name which I thought was familiar to me,” she said; unquestionably may be but short.” “but Monna Paula has put me right. I know nothing of “And what is there in this Scottish lord that can rivet your lord—how was it you named him?” what concerns him so closely in your fancy?” said the “Lord Dalgarno,” said Margaret;—“the wickedest lady. “I admit him a personable man, for I have seen man who lives. Under pretence of friendship, he intro- him; and I will suppose him courteous and agreeable. duced the Lord Glenvarloch to a gambling-house with But what are his accomplishments besides, for these the purpose of engaging him in deep play; but he with surely are not uncommon attributes.” whom the perfidious traitor had to deal, was too virtu- “He is unfortunate, madam—most unfortunate—and ous, moderate, and cautious, to be caught in a snare so surrounded by snares of different kinds, ingeniously open. What did they next, but turn his own moderation contrived to ruin his character, destroy his estate, and, against him, and persuade others that—because he perhaps, to reach even his life. These schemes have been would not become the prey of wolves, he herded with devised by avarice originally, but they are now followed them for a share of their booty! And, while this base close by vindictive ambition, animated, I think, by the Lord Dalgarno was thus undermining his unsuspecting

277 The Fortunes of Nigel countryman, he took every measure to keep him sur- “I knew you would say that also,” said Margaret, with rounded by creatures of his own, to prevent him from more meekness and patience than she usually showed attending Court, and mixing with those of his proper on receiving reproof; “but, God knows, my heart acquits rank. Since the Gunpowder Treason, there never was a me of every other feeling save that of the wish to assist conspiracy more deeply laid, more basely and more de- this most innocent and betrayed man.—I contrived to liberately pursued.” send him warning of his friend’s falsehood;—alas! my The lady smiled sadly at Margaret’s vehemence, but care has only hastened his utter ruin, unless speedy aid sighed the next moment, while she told her young friend be found. He charged his false friend with treachery, and how little she knew the world she was about to live in, since drew on him in the Park, and is now liable to the fatal she testified so much surprise at finding it full of villainy. penalty due for breach of privilege of the king’s pal- “But by what means,” she added, “could you, maiden, ace.” become possessed of the secret views of a man so cau- “This is indeed an extraordinary tale,” said Hermione; tious as Lord Dalgarno—as villains in general are?” “is Lord Glenvarloch then in prison?” “Permit me to be silent on that subject,” said the “No, madam, thank God, but in the Sanctuary at maiden; “I could not tell you without betraying oth- Whitefriars—it is matter of doubt whether it will pro- ers—let it suffice that my tidings are as certain as the tect him in such a case—they speak of a warrant from means by which I acquired them are secret and sure. the Lord Chief Justice—A gentleman of the temple has But I must not tell them even to you.” been arrested, and is in trouble for having assisted him “You are too bold, Margaret,” said the lady, “to traf- in his flight.—Even his taking temporary refuge in that fic in such matters at your early age. It is not only dan- base place, though from extreme necessity, will be used gerous, but even unbecoming and unmaidenly.” to the further defaming him. All this I know, and yet I

278 Sir Walter Scott cannot rescue him—cannot rescue him save by your the lady, with a smile which seemed to intimate incre- means.” dulity. “By my means, maiden?” said the lady—“you are be- “It is, however, the only one which I expect, madam— side yourself!—What means can I possess in this se- I could almost say the only one which I wish—I am cluded situation, of assisting this unfortunate noble- sure I will use no efforts to bring about any other; if I man?” am bold in his cause, I am timorous enough in my own. “You have means,” said Margaret, eagerly; “you have During our only interview I was unable to speak a word those means, unless I mistake greatly, which can do any- to him. He knows not the sound of my voice—and all thing—can do everything, in this city, in this world— that I have risked, and must yet risk, I am doing for you have wealth, and the command of a small portion one, who, were he asked the question, would say he has of it will enable me to extricate him from his present long since forgotten that he ever saw, spoke to, or sat danger. He will be enabled and directed how to make his beside, a creature of so little signification as I am.” escape—and I—” she paused. “This is a strange and unreasonable indulgence of a “Will accompany him, doubtless, and reap the fruits passion equally fanciful and dangerous,” said Lady of your sage exertions in his behalf?” said the Lady Hermione. “You will not assist me, then?” said Marga- Hermione, ironically. ret; “have good-day, then, madam—my secret, I trust, “May heaven forgive you the unjust thought, lady,” is safe in such honourable keeping.” answered Margaret. “I will never see him more—but I “Tarry yet a little,” said the lady, “and tell me what shall have saved him, and the thought will make me resource you have to assist this youth, if you were sup- happy.” plied with money to put it in motion.” “A cold conclusion to so bold and warm a flame,” said “It is superfluous to ask me the question, madam,”

279 The Fortunes of Nigel answered Margaret, “unless you purpose to assist me; replied the supplicant, “that I will act by the agency of and, if you do so purpose, it is still superfluous. You others, and do not myself design to mingle in any enter- could not understand the means I must use, and time is prise in which my appearance might be either perilous too brief to explain.” or unwomanly.” “But have you in reality such means?” said the lady. “I know not what to do,” said the Lady Hermione; “it “I have, with the command of a moderate sum,” an- is perhaps incautious and inconsiderate in me to aid so swered Margaret Ramsay, “the power of baffling all his wild a project; yet the end seems honourable, if the means enemies—of eluding the passion of the irritated king— be sure—what is the penalty if he fall into their power?” the colder but more determined displeasure of the “Alas, alas! the loss of his right hand!” replied Marga- prince—the vindictive spirit of Buckingham, so hastily ret, her voice almost stifled with sobs. directed against whomsoever crosses the path of his “Are the laws of England so cruel? Then there is mercy ambition—the cold concentrated malice of Lord in heaven alone,” said the lady, “since, even in this free Dalgarno—all, I can baffle them all!” land, men are wolves to each other.—Compose yourself, “But is this to be done without your own personal risk, Margaret, and tell me what money is necessary to se- Margaret?” replied the lady; “for, be your purpose what cure Lord Glenvarloch’s escape.” it will, you are not to peril your own reputation or per- “Two hundred pieces,” replied Margaret; “I would son, in the romantic attempt of serving another; and I, speak to you of restoring them—and I must one day maiden, am answerable to your godfather,—to your have the power—only that I know—that is, I think— benefactor, and my own,—not to aid you in any dan- your ladyship is indifferent on that score.” gerous or unworthy enterprise.” “Not a word more of it,” said the lady; “call Monna “Depend upon my word,—my oath,—dearest lady,” Paula hither.”

280 Sir Walter Scott “I do not know,” she said, “Margaret, if I have done, and am doing, well in this affair. My life has been one of CHAPTER XX 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 Credit me, friend, it hath been ever thus, doing wrong to you, and perhaps to the laws of the coun- Since the ark rested on Mount Ararat. try which affords me refuge, by thus indulging you; and False man hath sworn, and woman hath believed— yet there is something in my heart which cannot resist Repented and reproach’d, and then believed once more. your entreaties.” The New World. “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 BY THE TIME that Margaret returned with Monna Paula, like a beautiful mortal in the act of supplicating her the Lady Hermione was rising from the table at which tutelary angel; “the laws of men are but the injunctions she had been engaged in writing something on a small of mortality, but what the heart prompts is the echo of slip of paper, which she gave to her attendant. the voice from heaven within us.” “Monna Paula,” she said, “carry this paper to Rob- “Rise, rise, maiden,” said Hermione; “you affect me erts the cash-keeper; let them give you the money men- more than I thought I could have been moved by aught tioned in the note, and bring it hither presently.” that should approach me. Rise and tell me whence it Monna Paula left the room, and her mistress pro- comes, that, in so short a time, your thoughts, your ceeded. looks, your speech, and even your slightest actions, are

281 The Fortunes of Nigel changed from those of a capricious and fanciful girl, to ness, but he is expected home in the course of half an all this energy and impassioned eloquence of word and hour.” action?” Margaret wrung her hands in vexation and impatience. “I am sure I know not, dearest lady,” said Margaret, “Minutes are precious,” continued the lady; “that I looking down; “but I suppose that, when I was a trifler, am well aware of; and we will at least suffer none of I was only thinking of trifles. What I now reflect is deep them to escape us. Monna Paula shall remain below and and serious, and I am thankful if my speech and man- transact our business, the very instant that Roberts re- ner bear reasonable proportion to my thoughts.” turns home.” “It must be so,” said the lady; “yet the change seems She spoke to her attendant accordingly, who again left a rapid and strange one. It seems to be as if a childish the room. girl had at once shot up into deep-thinking and impas- “You are very kind, madam—very good,” said the poor sioned woman, ready to make exertions alike, and sac- little Margaret, while the anxious trembling of her lip rifices, with all that vain devotion to a favourite object and of her hand showed all that sickening agitation of of affection, which is often so basely rewarded.” the heart which arises from hope deferred. The Lady Hermione sighed bitterly, and Monna Paula “Be patient, Margaret, and collect yourself,” said the entered ere the conversation proceeded farther. She spoke lady; “you may, you must, have much to do to carry to her mistress in the foreign language in which they through this your bold purpose—reserve your spirits, frequently conversed, but which was unknown to Mar- which you may need so much—be patient—it is the only garet. remedy against the evils of life.” “We must have patience for a time,” said the lady to “Yes, madam,” said Margaret, wiping her eyes, and her visitor; “the cash-keeper is abroad on some busi- endeavouring in vain to suppress the natural impatience

282 Sir Walter Scott of her temper,—“I have heard so—very often indeed; display, well entitles you to recommend your own ex- and I dare say I have myself, heaven forgive me, said so ample to others.” to people in perplexity and affliction; but it was before The lady was silent for a moment, and then replied— I had suffered perplexity and vexation myself, and I “Margaret, I am about to repose a high confidence in am sure I will never preach patience to any human be- you. You are no longer a child, but a thinking and a ing again, now that I know how much the medicine goes feeling woman. You have told me as much of your se- against the stomach.” cret as you dared—I will let you know as much of mine “You will think better of it, maiden,” said the Lady as I may venture to tell. You will ask me, perhaps, why, Hermione; “I also, when I first felt distress, thought they at a moment when your own mind is agitated, I should did me wrong who spoke to me of patience; but my sor- force upon you the consideration of my sorrows? and I rows have been repeated and continued till I have been answer, that I cannot withstand the impulse which now taught to cling to it as the best, and—religious duties induces me to do so. Perhaps from having witnessed, for excepted, of which, indeed, patience forms a part—the the first time these three years, the natural effects of only alleviation which life can afford them.” human passion, my own sorrows have been awakened, Margaret, who neither wanted sense nor feeling, wiped and are for the moment too big for my own bosom— her tears hastily, and asked her patroness’s forgiveness perhaps I may hope that you, who seem driving full sail for her petulance. on the very rock on which I was wrecked for ever, will “I might have thought”—she said, “I ought to have take warning by the tale I have to tell. Enough, if you reflected, that even from the manner of your life, are willing to listen, I am willing to tell you who the madam, it is plain you must have suffered sorrow; and melancholy inhabitant of the Foljambe apartments re- yet, God knows, the patience which I have ever seen you ally is, and why she resides here. It will serve, at least,

283 The Fortunes of Nigel to while away the time until Monna Paula shall bring us “My mother was a noble Scottish woman. She was the reply from Roberts.” descended—do not start—and not remotely descended, At any other moment of her life, Margaret Ramsay of the house of Glenvarloch—no wonder that I was eas- would have heard with undivided interest a communica- ily led to take concern in the misfortunes of this young tion so flattering in itself, and referring to a subject upon lord. He is my near relation, and my mother, who was which the general curiosity had been so strongly excited. more than sufficiently proud of her descent, early taught And even at this agitating moment, although she ceased me to take an interest in the name. My maternal grand- not to listen with an anxious ear and throbbing heart for father, a cadet of that house of Glenvarloch, had fol- the sound of Monna Paula’s returning footsteps, she nev- lowed the fortunes of an unhappy fugitive, Francis Earl ertheless, as gratitude and policy, as well as a portion of of Bothwell, who, after showing his miseries in many a curiosity dictated, composed herself, in appearance at foreign court, at length settled in Spain upon a miser- least, to the strictest attention to the Lady Hermione, able pension, which he earned by conforming to the and thanked her with humility for the high confidence Catholic faith. Ralph Olifaunt, my grandfather, sepa- she was pleased to repose in her. The Lady Hermione, rated from him in disgust, and settled at Barcelona, with the same calmness which always attended her speech where, by the friendship of the governor, his heresy, as and actions, thus recounted her story to her young friend: it was termed, was connived at. My father, in the course “My father,” she said, “was a merchant, but he was of of his commerce, resided more at Barcelona than in his a city whose merchants are princes. I am the daughter native country, though at times he visited Genoa. of a noble house in Genoa, whose name stood as high in “It was at Barcelona that he became acquainted with honour and in antiquity, as any inscribed in the Golden my mother, loved her, and married her; they differed in Register of that famous aristocracy. faith, but they agreed in affection. I was their only child.

284 Sir Walter Scott In public I conformed to the docterins and ceremonial had ordained it otherwise. He died, leaving several sums of the Church of Rome; but my mother, by whom these engaged in the hands of his Spanish debtors; and, in were regarded with horror, privately trained me up in particular, he had made a large and extensive consign- those of the reformed religion; and my father, either ment to a certain wealthy society of merchants at indifferent in the matter, or unwilling to distress the Madrid, who showed no willingness after his death to woman whom he loved, overlooked or connived at my account for the proceeds. Would to God we had left these secretly joining in her devotions. covetous and wicked men in possession of their booty, “But when, unhappily, my father was attacked, while for such they seemed to hold the property of their de- yet in the prime of life, by a slow wasting disease, which ceased correspondent and friend! We had enough for he felt to be incurable, he foresaw the hazard to which comfort, and even splendour, already secured in England; his widow and orphan might be exposed, after he was but friends exclaimed upon the folly of permitting these no more, in a country so bigoted to Catholicism as Spain. unprincipled men to plunder us of our rightful prop- He made it his business, during the two last years of his erty. The sum itself was large, and the claim having been life, to realize and remit to England a large part of his made, my mother thought that my father’s memory was fortune, which, by the faith and honour of his corre- interested in its being enforced, especially as the defences spondent, the excellent man under whose roof I now set up for the mercantile society went, in some degree, reside, was employed to great advantage. Had my fa- to impeach the fairness of his transactions. ther lived to complete his purpose, by withdrawing his “We went therefore to Madrid. I was then, my Marga- whole fortune from commerce, he himself would have ret, about your age, young and thoughtless, as you have accompanied us to England, and would have beheld us hitherto been—We went, I say, to Madrid, to solicit the settled in peace and honour before his death. But heaven protection of the Court and of the king, without which

285 The Fortunes of Nigel we were told it would be in vain to expect justice against less—I again repeat it—as you were but lately, and my an opulent and powerful association. attention, like yours, became suddenly riveted to one “Our residence at the Spanish metropolis drew on from object, and to one set of feelings. weeks to months. For my part, my natural sorrow for a “The person by whom they were excited was young, kind, though not a fond father, having abated, I cared noble, handsome, accomplished, a soldier, and a Briton. not if the lawsuit had detained us at Madrid for ever. So far our cases are nearly parallel; but, may heaven My mother permitted herself and me rather more lib- forbid that the parallel should become complete! This erty than we had been accustomed to. She found rela- man, so noble, so fairly formed, so gifted, and so brave— tions among the Scottish and Irish officers, many of this villain, for that, Margaret, was his fittest name, whom held a high rank in the Spanish armies; their wives spoke of love to me, and I listened—Could I suspect his and daughters became our friends and companions, and sincerity? If he was wealthy, noble, and long-descended, I had perpetual occasion to exercise my mother’s native I also was a noble and an opulent heiress. It is true, that language, which I had learned from my infancy. By de- he neither knew the extent of my father’s wealth, nor grees, as my mother’s spirits were low, and her health did I communicate to him (I do not even remember if I indifferent, she was induced, by her partial fondness for myself knew it at the time) the important circumstance, me, to suffer me to mingle occasionally in society which that the greater part of that wealth was beyond the she herself did not frequent, under the guardianship of grasp of arbitrary power, and not subject to the pre- such ladies as she imagined she could trust, and par- carious award of arbitrary judges. My lover might think, ticularly under the care of the lady of a general officer, perhaps, as my mother was desirous the world at large whose weakness or falsehood was the original cause of should believe, that almost our whole fortune depended my misfortunes. I was as gay, Margaret, and thought- on the precarious suit which we had come to Madrid to

286 Sir Walter Scott prosecute—a belief which she had countenanced out of himself to be—some such strain of bitterness had di- policy, being well aware that a knowledge of my father’s vided his house from my mother’s, and she had succeeded having remitted such a large part of his fortune to En- to the inheritance of hatred. When he asked her for my gland, would in no shape aid the recovery of further hand, she was no longer able to command her passions— sums in the Spanish courts. Yet, with no more extensive she raked up every injury which the rival families had views of my fortune than were possessed by the public, inflicted upon each other during a bloody feud of two I believe that he, of whom I am speaking, was at first centuries—heaped him with epithets of scorn, and re- sincere in his pretensions. He had himself interest suffi- jected his proposal of alliance, as if it had come from cient to have obtained a decision in our favour in the the basest of mankind. courts, and my fortune, reckoning only what was in “My lover retired in passion; and I remained to weep Spain, would then have been no inconsiderable sum. To and murmur against fortune, and—I will confess my be brief, whatever might be his motives or temptation fault—against my affectionate parent. I had been edu- for so far committing himself, he applied to my mother cated with different feelings, and the traditions of the for my hand, with my consent and approval. My feuds and quarrels of my mother’s family in Scotland, mother’s judgment had become weaker, but her passions which we’re to her monuments and chronicles, seemed had become more irritable, during her increasing illness. to me as insignificant and unmeaning as the actions and “You have heard of the bitterness of the ancient Scot- fantasies of Don Quixote; and I blamed my mother bit- tish feuds, of which it may be said, in the language of terly for sacrificing my happiness to an empty dream of Scripture, that the fathers eat sour grapes, and the teeth family dignity. of the children are set on edge. Unhappily—I should “While I was in this humour, my lover sought a re- say happily, considering what this man has now shown newal of our intercourse. We met repeatedly in the house

287 The Fortunes of Nigel of the lady whom I have mentioned, and who, in levity, contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompa- or in the spirit of intrigue, countenanced our secret cor- nied only by Monna Paula. There was a very small party, respondence. At length we were secretly married—so of two ladies and two gentlemen. There was music, far did my blinded passion hurry me. My lover had se- mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the frankness of the cured the assistance of a clergyman of the English English nation, but I could not help thinking it bor- church. Monna Paula, who had been my attendant from dered on license during these entertainments, and in the infancy, was one witness of our union. Let me do the course of the collation which followed; but I imputed faithful creature justice—She conjured me to suspend my scruples to my inexperience, and would not doubt my purpose till my mother’s death should permit us to the propriety of what was approved by my husband. celebrate our marriage openly; but the entreaties of my “I was soon summoned to other scenes: My poor lover, and my own wayward passion, prevailed over her mother’s disease drew to a conclusion—Happy I am that remonstrances. The lady I have spoken of was another it took place before she discovered what would have cut witness, but whether she was in full possession of my her to the soul. bridegroom’s secret, I had never the means to learn. But “In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic the shelter of her name and roof afforded us the means priests, and particularly the monks, besiege the beds of of frequently meeting, and the love of my husband the dying, to obtain bequests for the good of the church. seemed as sincere and as unbounded as my own. I have said that my mother’s temper was irritated by “He was eager, he said, to gratify his pride, by intro- disease, and her judgment impaired in proportion. She ducing me to one or two of his noble English friends. gathered spirits and force from the resentment which This could not be done at Lady D—’s; but by his com- the priests around her bed excited by their importunity, mand, which I was now entitled to consider as my law, I and the boldness of the stern sect of reformers, to which

288 Sir Walter Scott she had secretly adhered, seemed to animate her dying ter, and deserve milder treatment here, by presently tak- tongue. She avowed the religion she had so long con- ing the veil. In order to convince me that I had no other cealed; renounced all hope and aid which did not come resource, she showed me a royal decree, by which all my by and through its dictates; rejected with contempt the estate was hypothecated to the convent of Saint ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished Magdalen, and became their complete property upon priests with reproaches for their greediness and hypoc- my death, or my taking the vows. As I was, both from risy, and commanded them to leave her house. They went religious principle, and affectionate attachment to my in bitterness and rage, but it was to return with the in- husband, absolutely immovable in my rejection of the quisitorial power, its warrants, and its officers; and they veil, I believe—may heaven forgive me if I wrong her— found only the cold corpse left of her, on whom they that the Abbess was desirous to make sure of my spoils, had hoped to work their vengeance. As I was soon dis- by hastening the former event. covered to have shared my mother’s heresy, I was “It was a small and a poor convent, and situated dragged from her dead body, imprisoned in a solitary among the mountains of Guadarrama. Some of the sis- cloister, and treated with severity, which the Abbess as- ters were the daughters of neighbouring Hidalgoes, as sured me was due to the looseness of my life, as well as poor as they were proud and ignorant; others were my spiritual errors. I avowed my marriage, to justify women immured there on account of their vicious con- the situation in which I found myself—I implored the duct. The Superior herself was of a high family, to which assistance of the Superior to communicate my situa- she owed her situation; but she was said to have dis- tion to my husband. She smiled coldly at the proposal, graced her connexions by her conduct during youth, and and told me the church had provided a better spouse for now, in advanced age, covetousness and the love of power, me; advised me to secure myself of divine grace hereaf- a spirit too of severity and cruelty, had succeeded to the

289 The Fortunes of Nigel thirst after licentious pleasure. I suffered much under singular appearance, which bore witness to my suffer- this woman—and still her dark, glassy eye, her tall, ings; or afraid that the matter might attract attention shrouded form, and her rigid features, haunt my slum- during a visitation of the bishop, which was approach- bers. ing. One day, as I was walking in the convent-garden, to “I was not destined to be a mother. I was very ill, and which I had been lately admitted, a miserable old my recovery was long doubtful. The most violent rem- Moorish slave, who was kept to cultivate the little spot, edies were applied, if remedies they indeed were. My muttered as I passed him, but still keeping his wrinkled health was restored at length, against my own expecta- face and decrepit form in the same angle with the tion and that of all around me. But, when I first again earth—‘There is Heart’s Ease near the postern.’ beheld the reflection of my own face, I thought it was “I knew something of the symbolical language of flow- the visage of a ghost. I was wont to be flattered by all, ers, once carried to such perfection among the Moriscoes but particularly by my husband, for the fineness of my of Spain; but if I had been ignorant of it, the captive complexion—it was now totally gone, and, what is more would soon have caught at any hint which seemed to extraordinary, it has never returned. I have observed promise liberty. With all the haste consistent with the that the few who now see me, look upon me as a blood- utmost circumspection—for I might be observed by the less phantom—Such has been the abiding effect of the Abbess or some of the sisters from the window—I has- treatment to which I was subjected. May God forgive tened to the postern. It was closely barred as usual, but those who were the agents of it!—I thank Heaven I can when I coughed slightly, I was answered from the other say so with as sincere a wish, as that with which I pray side—and, O heaven! it was my husband’s voice which for forgiveness of my own sins. They now relented some- said, ‘Lose not a minute here at present, but be on this what towards me—moved perhaps to compassion by my spot when the vesper bell has tolled.’

290 Sir Walter Scott “I retired in an ecstasy of joy. I was not entitled or words. It also served as an apology for my husband’s permitted to assist at vespers, but was accustomed to silence. At length we stopped at a solitary hut—the cava- be confined to my cell while the nuns were in the choir. liers dismounted, and I was assisted from my saddle, Since my recovery, they had discontinued locking the not by M——M——my husband, I would say, who door; though the utmost severity was denounced against seemed busied about his horse, but by the stranger. me if I left these precincts. But, let the penalty be what “‘Go into the hut,’ said my husband, ‘change your dress it would, I hastened to dare it.—No sooner had the last with the speed of lightning—you will find one to assist toll of the vesper bell ceased to sound, than I stole from you—we must forward instantly when you have shifted my chamber, reached the garden unobserved, hurried your apparel.’ to the postern, beheld it open with rapture, and in the “I entered the hut, and was received in the arms of next moment was in my husband’s arms. He had with the faithful Monna Paula, who had waited my arrival him another cavalier of noble mien—both were masked for many hours, half distracted with fear and anxiety. and armed. Their horses, with one saddled for my use, With her assistance I speedily tore off the detested gar- stood in a thicket hard by, with two other masked horse- ments of the convent, and exchanged them for a travel- men, who seemed to be servants. In less than two min- ling suit, made after the English fashion. I observed that utes we were mounted, and rode off as fast as we could Monna Paula was in a similar dress. I had but just through rough and devious roads, in which one of the huddled on my change of attire, when we were hastily domestics appeared to act as guide. summoned to mount. A horse, I found, was provided “The hurried pace at which we rode, and the anxiety for Monna Paula, and we resumed our route. On the of the moment, kept me silent, and prevented my ex- way, my convent-garb, which had been wrapped hastily pressing my surprise or my joy save in a few broken together around a stone, was thrown into a lake, along

291 The Fortunes of Nigel the verge of which we were then passing. The two cava- “‘And do you not go with us?’ I exclaimed with em- liers rode together in front, my attendant and I followed, phasis, though in a whisper. and the servants brought up the rear. Monna Paula, as “‘It is impossible,’ he said, ‘and would ruin all—See we rode on, repeatedly entreated me to be silent upon that you speak in English in these people’s hearing, and the road, as our lives depended on it. I was easily recon- give not the least sign of understanding what they say ciled to be passive, for, the first fever of spirits which in Spanish—your life depends on it; for, though they attended the sense of liberation and of gratified affec- live in opposition to, and evasion of, the laws of Spain, tion having passed away, I felt as it were dizzy with the they would tremble at the idea of violating those of the rapid motion; and my utmost exertion was necessary to church—I see them coming—farewell—farewell.’ keep my place on the saddle, until we suddenly (it was “The last words were hastily uttered-I endeavoured now very dark) saw a strong light before us. to detain him yet a moment by my feeble grasp on his “My husband reined up his horse, and gave a signal by cloak. a low whistle twice repeated, which was answered from a “‘You will meet me, then, I trust, at Saint Jean de distance. The whole party then halted under the boughs Luz?’ of a large cork-tree, and my husband, drawing himself “‘Yes, yes,’ he answered hastily, ‘at Saint Jean de Luz close to my side, said, in a voice which I then thought you will meet your protector.’ was only embarrassed by fear for my safety,—’We must “He then extricated his cloak from my grasp, and was now part. Those to whom I commit you are contraband- lost in the darkness. His companion approached—kissed ists, who only know you as English-women, but who, for my hand, which in the agony of the moment I was scarce a high bribe, have undertaken to escort you through the sensible of, and followed my husband, attended by one passes of the Pyrenees as far as Saint Jean de Luz.’ of the domestics.”

292 Sir Walter Scott The tears of Hermione here flowed so fast as to discharge of feelings so long locked in her own bosom, threaten the interruption of her narrative. When she she rather forgot those which were personal to her audi- resumed it, it was with a kind of apology to Margaret. tor, and by which it must be supposed Margaret’s mind “Every circumstance,” she said, “occurring in those was principally occupied, if not entirely engrossed. moments, when I still enjoyed a delusive idea of happi- “I told you, I think, that one domestic followed the ness, is deeply imprinted in my remembrance, which, gentlemen,” thus the lady continued her story, “the other respecting all that has since happened, is waste and remained with us for the purpose, as it seemed, of in- unvaried as an Arabian desert. But I have no right to troducing us to two persons whom M—, I say, whom inflict on you, Margaret, agitated as you are with your my husband’s signal had brought to the spot. A word or own anxieties, the unavailing details of my useless rec- two of explanation passed between them and the ser- ollections.” vant, in a sort of patois, which I did not understand; Margaret’s eyes were full of tears—it was impossible and one of the strangers taking hold of my bridle, the it could be otherwise, considering that the tale was told other of Monna Paula’s, they led us towards the light, by her suffering benefactress, and resembled, in some which I have already said was the signal of our halting. respects, her own situation; and yet she must not be se- I touched Monna Paula, and was sensible that she verely blamed, if, while eagerly pressing her patroness trembled very much, which surprised me, because I knew to continue her narrative, her eye involuntarily sought her character to be so strong and bold as to border upon the door, as if to chide the delay of Monna Paula. the masculine. The Lady Hermione saw and forgave these conflicting “When we reached the fire, the gipsy figures of those emotions; and she, too, must be pardoned, if, in her turn, who surrounded it, with their swarthy features, large the minute detail of her narrative showed, that, in the Sombrero hats, girdles stuck full of pistols and poniards,

293 The Fortunes of Nigel and all the other apparatus of a roving and perilous life, occasions him. Once or twice, when they were disap- would have terrified me at another moment. But then I pointed in their contraband traffic, lost some goods in a only felt the agony of having parted from my husband rencontre with the Spanish officers of the revenue, and almost in the very moment of my rescue. The females were finally pursued by a military force, their murmurs of the gang—for there were four or five women amongst assumed a more alarming tone, in the terrified ears of these contraband traders—received us with a sort of my attendant and myself, when, without daring to seem rude courtesy. They were, in dress and manners, not to understand them, we heard them curse the insular extremely different from the men with whom they as- heretics, on whose account God, Saint James, and Our sociated—were almost as hardy and adventurous, car- Lady of the Pillar, had blighted their hopes of profit. ried arms like them, and were, as we learned from pass- These are dreadful recollections, Margaret.” ing circumstances, scarce less experienced in the use of “Why, then, dearest lady,” answered Margaret, “will them. you thus dwell on them?” “It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet “It is only,” said the Lady Hermione, “because I lin- they gave us no reason to complain of them, but used ger like a criminal on the scaffold, and would fain pro- us on all occasions with a kind of clumsy courtesy, ac- tract the time that must inevitably bring on the final commodating themselves to our wants and our weak- catastrophe. Yes, dearest Margaret, I rest and dwell on ness during the journey, even while we heard them grum- the events of that journey, marked as it was by fatigue bling to each other against our effeminacy,—like some and danger, though the road lay through the wildest rude carrier, who, in charge of a package of valuable and most desolate deserts and mountains, and though and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its preser- our companions, both men and women, were fierce and vation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it lawless themselves, and exposed to the most merciless

294 Sir Walter Scott retaliation from those with whom they were constantly my freedom, when I was in the convent—than my life, engaged—yet would I rather dwell on these hazardous when I was on my perilous journey—had taken his mea- events than tell that which awaited me at Saint Jean de sures to shake me off, and transfer me, as a privileged Luz.” wanton, to the protection of his libertine friend. At first “But you arrived there in safety?” said Margaret. the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the “Yes, maiden,” replied the Lady Hermione; “and were hysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wan- guided by the chief of our outlawed band to the house ton, or the wily affection of a courtezan. My claim of which had been assigned for reception, with the same marriage he laughed at, assuring me he knew it was a punctilious accuracy with which he would have deliv- mere farce required by me, and submitted to by his ered a bale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I friend, to save some reserve of delicacy; and expressed was told a gentleman had expected me for two days—I his surprise that I should consider in any other light a rushed into the apartment, and, when I expected to ceremony which could be valid neither in Spain nor embrace my husband—I found myself in the arms of England, and insultingly offered to remove my scruples, his friend!” by renewing such a union with me himself. My excla- “The villain!” exclaimed Margaret, whose anxiety had, mations brought Monna Paula to my aid—she was not, in spite of herself, been a moment suspended by the indeed, far distant, for she had expected some such narrative of the lady. scene.” “Yes,” replied Hermione, calmly, though her voice “Good heaven!” said Margaret, “was she a confidant somewhat faltered, “it is the name that best—that well of your base husband?” befits him. He, Margaret, for whom I had sacrificed all— “No,” answered Hermione, “do her not that injustice. whose love and whose memory were dearer to me than It was her persevering inquiries that discovered the place

295 The Fortunes of Nigel of my confinement—it was she who gave the informa- our journey. From the capital I wrote to Master Heriot, tion to my husband, and who remarked even then that my father’s most trusted correspondent; he came in- the news was so much more interesting to his friend than stantly to Paris on receiving the letter; and—But here to him, that she suspected, from an early period, it was comes Monna Paula, with more than the sum you de- the purpose of the villain to shake me off. On the jour- sired. Take it, my dearest maiden—serve this youth if ney, her suspicions were confirmed. She had heard him you will. But, O Margaret, look for no gratitude in re- remark to his companion, with a cold sarcastic sneer, turn!” the total change which my prison and my illness had The Lady Hermione took the bag of gold from her made on my complexion; and she had heard the other attendant, and gave it to her young friend, who threw reply, that the defect might be cured by a touch of Span- herself into her arms, kissed her on both the pale cheeks, ish red. This, and other circumstances, having prepared over which the sorrows so newly awakened by her nar- her for such treachery, Monna Paula now entered, com- rative had drawn many tears, then sprung up, wiped pletely possessed of herself, and prepared to support me. her own overflowing eyes, and left the Foljambe apart- Her calm representations went farther with the stranger ments with a hasty and resolved step. 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; de- sisted 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

296 Sir Walter Scott ing a stump, and performing other actions of petty pharmacy, very nearly as well as his neighbour Raredrench, CHAPTER XXI 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 Rove not from pole to pole-the man lives here which his art had just trimmed. But he carried on these Whose razor’s only equall’d by his beer; trades apart from each other. And where, in either sense, the cockney-put His barber’s shop projected its long and mysterious May, if he pleases, get confounded cut. pole into Fleet Street, painted party-coloured-wise, to On the sign of an Alehouse kept by a Barber. 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 WE ARE UNDER the necessity of transporting our read- red rag at the bottom, to resemble blood, an intimation ers to the habitation of Benjamin Suddlechop, the hus- that patients might be bled, cupped, or blistered, with band of the active and efficient Dame Ursula, and who the assistance of “sufficient advice;” while the more prof- also, in his own person, discharged more offices than itable, but less honourable operations upon the hair of one. For, besides trimming locks and beards, and turn- the head and beard, were briefly and gravely announced. ing whiskers upward into the martial and swaggering Within was the well-worn leather chair for customers, curl, or downward into the drooping form which became the guitar, then called a ghittern or cittern, with which mustaches of civil policy; besides also occasionally let- a customer might amuse himself till his predecessor was ting blood, either by cupping or by the lancet, extract- dismissed from under Benjamin’s hands, and which,

297 The Fortunes of Nigel therefore, often flayed the ears of the patient metaphori- the modest and timid whetters, who were Benjamin’s cally, while his chin sustained from the razor literal scari- best customers, had each had his draught, or his thimble- fication. All, therefore, in this department, spoke the ful, the business of the tap was in a manner ended, and chirurgeon-barber, or the barber-chirurgeon. the charge of attending the back-door passed from one But there was a little back-room, used as a private of the barber’s apprentices to the little mulatto girl, the tap-room, which had a separate entrance by a dark and dingy Iris of Dame Suddlechop. Then came mystery crooked alley, which communicated with Fleet Street, thick upon mystery; muffled gallants, and masked fe- after a circuitous passage through several by-lanes and males, in disguises of different fashions, were seen to courts. This retired temple of Bacchus had also a glide through the intricate mazes of the alley; and even connexion with Benjamin’s more public shop by a long the low tap on the door, which frequently demanded and narrow entrance, conducting to the secret premises the attention of the little Creole, had in it something in which a few old topers used to take their morning that expressed secrecy and fear of discovery. draught, and a few gill-sippers their modicum of strong It was the evening of the same day when Margaret waters, in a bashful way, after having entered the had held the long conference with the Lady Hermione, barber’s shop under pretence of being shaved. Besides, that Dame Suddlechop had directed her little portress this obscure tap-room gave a separate admission to the to “keep the door fast as a miser’s purse-strings; and, as apartments of Dame Ursley, which she was believed to she valued her saffron skin, to let in none but—” the make use of in the course of her multifarious practice, name she added in a whisper, and accompanied it with a both to let herself secretly out, and to admit clients and nod. The little domestic blinked intelligence, went to her employers who cared not to be seen to visit her in pub- post, and in brief time thereafter admitted and ushered lic. Accordingly, after the hour of noon, by which time into the presence of the dame, that very city-gallant

298 Sir Walter Scott whose clothes sat awkwardly upon him, and who had hanging by it with graceful negligence; while his pon- behaved so doughtily in the fray which befell at Nigel’s iard, though fairly hatched and gilded, stuck in his girdle first visit to Beaujeu’s ordinary. The mulatto introduced like a butcher’s steel in the fold of his blue apron. Per- him—“Missis, fine young gentleman, all over gold and sons of fashion had, by the way, the advantage formerly velvet “—then muttered to herself as she shut the door, of being better distinguished from the vulgar than at “fine young gentleman, he!—apprentice to him who present; for, what the ancient farthingale and more makes the tick-tick.” modern hoop were to court ladies, the sword was to the It was indeed—we are sorry to say it, and trust our gentleman; an article of dress, which only rendered those readers will sympathize with the interest we take in the ridiculous who assumed it for the nonce, without being matter—it was indeed honest Jin Vin, who had been so in the habit of wearing it. Vincent’s rapier got between far left to his own devices, and abandoned by his better his legs, and, as he stumbled over it, he exclaimed— angel, as occasionally to travesty himself in this fash- ”Zounds! ’tis the second time it has served me thus—I ion, and to visit, in the dress of a gallant of the day, believe the damned trinket knows I am no true gentle- those places of pleasure and dissipation, in which it man, and does it of set purpose.” would have been everlasting discredit to him to have “Come, come, mine honest Jin Vin—come, my good been seen in his real character and condition; that is, boy,” said the dame, in a soothing tone, “never mind had it been possible for him in his proper shape to have these trankums—a frank and hearty London ‘prentice gained admission. There was now a deep gloom on his is worth all the gallants of the inns of court.” brow, his rich habit was hastily put on, and buttoned “I was a frank and hearty London ‘prentice before I awry; his belt buckled in a most disorderly fashion, so knew you, Dame Suddlechop,” said Vincent; “what your that his sword stuck outwards from his side, instead of advice has made me, you may find a name for; since,

299 The Fortunes of Nigel fore George! I am ashamed to think about it myself.” “And why should you be so idle as to think yourself “A-well-a-day,” quoth the dame, “and is it even so with so, silly boy?” said Dame Suddlechop; “but ’tis always thee?—nay, then, I know but one cure;” and with that, thus—fools and children never know when they are well. going to a little corner cupboard of carved wainscoat, Why, there is not one that walks in St. Paul’s, whether she opened it by the assistance of a key, which, with in flat cap, or hat and feather, that has so many kind half-a-dozen besides, hung in a silver chain at her girdle, glances from the wenches as you, when ye swagger along and produced a long flask of thin glass cased with wicker, Fleet Street with your bat under your arm, and your bringing forth at the same time two Flemish rummer cap set aside upon your head. Thou knowest well, that, glasses, with long stalks and capacious wombs. She filled from Mrs. Deputy’s self down to the waist-coateers in the one brimful for her guest, and the other more mod- the alley, all of them are twiring and peeping betwixt estly to about two-thirds of its capacity, for her own their fingers when you pass; and yet you call yourself a use, repeating, as the rich cordial trickled forth in a miserable dog! and I must tell you all this over and over smooth oily stream—“Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed again, as if I were whistling the chimes of London to a mulligrubs out of a moody brain!” pettish child, in order to bring the pretty baby into good- But, though Jin Vin tossed off his glass without humour!” scruple, while the lady sippped hers more moderately, it The flattery of Dame Ursula seemed to have the fate did not appear to produce the expected amendment upon of her cordial—it was swallowed, indeed, by the party his humour. On the contrary, as he threw himself into to whom she presented it, and that with some degree of the great leathern chair, in which Dame Ursley was wont relish, but it did not operate as a sedative on the dis- to solace herself of an evening, he declared himself “the turbed state of the youth’s mind. He laughed for an in- most miserable dog within the sound of Bow-bell.” stant, half in scorn, and half in gratified vanity, but

300 Sir Walter Scott cast a sullen look on Dame Ursley as he replied to her Ursley, “have not I done every thing to put thee in thy last words, mistress’s good graces? She loves gentry, the proud Scot- “You do treat me like a child indeed, when you sing tish minx, as a Welshman loves cheese, and has her over and over to me a cuckoo song that I care not a cop- father’s descent from that Duke of Daldevil, or whatso- per-filing for.” ever she calls him, as close in her heart as gold in a miser’s “Aha!” said Dame Ursley; “that is to say, you care not chest, though she as seldom shows it—and none she will if you please all, unless you please one—You are a true think of, or have, but a gentleman—and a gentleman I lover, I warrant, and care not for all the city, from here have made of thee, Jin Vin, the devil cannot deny that.” to Whitechapel, so you could write yourself first in your “You have made a fool of me,” said poor Jenkin, look- pretty Peg-a-Ramsay’s good-will. Well, well, take pa- ing at the sleeve of his jacket. tience, man, and be guided by me, for I will be the hoop “Never the worse gentleman for that,” said Dame will bind you together at last.” Ursley, laughing. “It is time you were so,” said Jenkin, “for hitherto “And what is worse,” said he, turning his back to her you have rather been the wedge to separate us.” suddenly, and writhing in his chair, “you have made a Dame Suddlechop had by this time finished her cor- rogue of me.” dial—it was not the first she had taken that day; and, “Never the worse gentleman for that neither,” said though a woman of strong brain, and cautious at least, Dame Ursley, in the same tone; “let a man bear his folly if not abstemious, in her potations, it may nevertheless gaily and his knavery stoutly, and let me see if gravity be supposed that her patience was not improved by the or honesty will look him in the face now-a-days. Tut, regimen which she observed. man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King “Why, thou ungracious and ingrate knave,” said Dame Lud, that a gentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon

301 The Fortunes of Nigel by a leap over the line of reason or honesty—It is the “Hark ye, Dame Ursley Suddlechop,” said Jenkin, bold look, the ready hand, the fine clothes, the brisk starting up, his dark eyes flashing with anger; “remem- oath, and the wild brain, that makes the gallant now-a- ber I am none of your husband—and, if I were, you days.” would do well not to forget whose threshold was swept “I know what you have made me,” said Jin Vin; “since when they last rode the Skimmington* upon such an- I have given up skittles and trap-ball for tennis and other scolding jade as yourself.” bowls, good English ale for thin Bordeaux and sour “I hope to see you ride up Holborn next,” said Dame Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and Ursley, provoked out of all her holiday and sugar-plum kickshaws—my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, expressions, “with a nosegay at your breast, and a par- my forsooth for a modish oath, my Christmas-box for a son at your elbow!” dice-box, my religion for the devil’s matins, and mine “That may well be,” answered Jin Vin, bitterly, “if I honest name for—Woman, I could brain thee, when I walk by your counsels as I have begun by them; but, think whose advice has guided me in all this!” *A species of triumphal procession in honour of female su- “Whose advice, then? whose advice, then? Speak out, premacy, when it rose to such a height as to attract the attention of the neighbourhood. It is described at full length in thou poor, petty cloak-brusher, and say who advised Hudibras. (Part II. Canto II.) As the procession passed on, thee!” retorted Dame Ursley, flushed and indignant— those who attended it in an official capacity were wont to sweep “Marry come up, my paltry companion—say by whose the threshold of the houses in which Fame affirmed the mistresses to exercise paramount authority, which was given and advice you have made a gamester of yourself, and a thief received as a hint that their inmates might, in their turn, be besides, as your words would bear—The Lord deliver us made the subject of a similar ovation. The Skimmington, which from evil!” And here Dame Ursley devoutly crossed her- in some degree resembled the proceedings of Mumbo Jumbo in an African village, has been long discontinued in England, self. apparently because female rule has become either milder or less frequent than among our ancestors. 302 Sir Walter Scott before that day comes, you shall know that Jin Vin has ible appeal; he took up the other glass, and lovingly the brisk boys of Fleet Street still at his wink.—Yes, pledged the dame in her cup of reconciliation, and pro- you jade, you shall be carted for bawd and conjurer, ceeded to make a kind of grumbling apology for his own double-dyed in grain, and bing off to Bridewell, with violence— every brass basin betwixt the Bar and Paul’s beating “For you know,” he said, “it was you persuaded me to before you, as if the devil were banging them with his get these fine things, and go to that godless ordinary, beef-hook.” and ruffle it with the best, and bring you home all the Dame Ursley coloured like scarlet, seized upon the half- news; and you said, I, that was the cock of the ward, emptied flask of cordial, and seemed, by her first ges- would soon be the cock of the ordinary, and would win ture, about to hurl it at the head of her adversary; but ten times as much at gleek and primero, as I used to do suddenly, and as if by a strong internal effort, she at put and beggar-my-neighbour—and turn up doublets checked her outrageous resentment, and, putting the with the dice, as busily as I was wont to trowl down the bottle to its more legitimate use, filled, with wonderful ninepins in the skittle-ground—and then you said I composure, the two glasses, and, taking up one of them, should bring you such news out of the ordinary as should said, with a smile, which better became her comely and make us all, when used as you knew how to use it—and jovial countenance than the fury by which it was ani- now you see what is to come of it all!” mated the moment before— “’Tis all true thou sayest, lad,” said the dame; “but “Here is to thee, Jin Vin, my lad, in all loving kind- thou must have patience. Rome was not built in a day— ness, whatever spite thou bearest to me, that have al- you cannot become used to your court-suit in a month’s ways been a mother to thee.” time, any more than when you changed your long coat Jenkin’s English good-nature could not resist this forc- for a doublet and hose; and in gaming you must expect

303 The Fortunes of Nigel to lose as well as gain—’tis the sitting gamester sweeps you never hear, that when the need is highest the help is the board.” nighest? We may find aid for you yet, and sooner than “The board has swept me, I know,” replied Jin Vin, you are aware of. I am sure I would never have advised “and that pretty clean out.—I would that were the you to such a course, but only you had set heart and eye worst; but I owe for all this finery, and settling-day is on pretty Mistress Marget, and less would not serve coming on, and my master will find my accompt worse you—and what could I do but advise you to cast your than it should be by a score of pieces. My old father will city-slough, and try your luck where folks find fortune?” be called in to make them good; and I—may save the “Ay, ay—I remember your counsel well,” said Jenkin; hangman a labour and do the job myself, or go the Vir- “I was to be introduced to her by you when I was per- ginia voyage.” fect in my gallantries, and as rich as the king; and then “Do not speak so loud, my dear boy,” said Dame she was to be surprised to find I was poor Jin Vin, that Ursley; “but tell me why you borrow not from a friend used to watch, from matin to curfew, for one glance of to make up your arrear. You could lend him as much her eye; and now, instead of that, she has set her soul on when his settling-day came round.” this Scottish sparrow-hawk of a lord that won my last “No, no—I have had enough of that work,” said tester, and be cursed to him; and so I am bankrupt in Vincent. “Tunstall would lend me the money, poor fel- love, fortune, and character, before I am out of my time, low, an he had it; but his gentle, beggarly kindred, plun- and all along of you, Mother Midnight.” der him of all, and keep him as bare as a birch at Christ- “Do not call me out of my own name, my dear boy, mas. No—my fortune may be spelt in four letters, and Jin Vin,” answered Ursula, in a tone betwixt rage and these read, RUIN.” coaxing,—”do not; because I am no saint, but a poor “Now hush, you simple craven,” said the dame; “did sinful woman, with no more patience than she needs, to

304 Sir Walter Scott carry her through a thousand crosses. And if I have done “You would not have me be made to ride the you wrong by evil counsel, I must mend it and put you Skimmington then,” said the dame; “or parade me in a right by good advice. And for the score of pieces that cart, with all the brass basins of the ward beating the must be made up at settling-day, why, here is, in a good march to Bridewell before me?” green purse, as much as will make that matter good; “I would sooner be carted to Tyburn myself,” replied and we will get old Crosspatch, the tailor, to take a long the penitent. day for your clothes; and—” “Why, then, sit up like a man, and wipe thine eyes; “Mother, are you serious?” said Jin Vin, unable to trust and, if thou art pleased with what I have done, I will either his eyes or his ears. show thee how thou mayst requite me in the highest “In troth am I,” said the dame; “and will you call me degree.” Mother Midnight now, Jin Vin?” “How?” said Jenkin Vincent, sitting straight up in his “Mother Midnight!” exclaimed Jenkin, hugging the chair.—“You would have me, then, do you some service dame in his transport, and bestowing on her still comely for this friendship of yours?” cheek a hearty and not unacceptable smack, that sounded “Ay, marry would I,” said Dame Ursley; “for you are to like the report of a pistol,—“Mother Midday, rather, that know, that though I am right glad to stead you with it, has risen to light me out of my troubles—a mother more this gold is not mine, but was placed in my hands in order dear than she who bore me; for she, poor soul, only to find a trusty agent, for a certain purpose; and so—But brought me into a world of sin and sorrow, and your timely what’s the matter with you?—are you fool enough to be aid has helped me out of the one and the other. “And the angry because you cannot get a purse of gold for noth- good-natured fellow threw himself back in his chair, and ing? I would I knew where such were to come by. I never fairly drew his hand across his eyes. could find them lying in my road, I promise you.”

305 The Fortunes of Nigel “No, no, dame,” said poor Jenkin, “it is not for that; some one that will work my turn with better will, and for, look you, I would rather work these ten bones to the more thankfulness. And you may go your own course,— knuckles, and live by my labour; but—” (and here he break your indenture, ruin your father, lose your char- paused.) acter, and bid pretty Mistress Margaret farewell, for ever “But what, man?” said Dame Ursley. “You are will- and a day.” ing to work for what you want; and yet, when I offer “Stay, stay,” said Jenkin “the woman is in as great a you gold for the winning, you look on me as the devil hurry as a brown baker when his oven is overheated. First, looks over Lincoln.” let me hear that which you have to propose to me.” “It is ill talking of the devil, mother,” said Jenkin. “I “Why, after all, it is but to get a gentleman of rank had him even now in my head—for, look you, I am at and fortune, who is in trouble, carried in secret down that pass, when they say he will appear to wretched ru- the river, as far as the Isle of Dogs, or somewhere there- ined creatures, and proffer them gold for the fee-simple about, where he may lie concealed until he can escape of their salvation. But I have been trying these two days aboard. I know thou knowest every place by the river’s to bring my mind strongly up to the thought, that I will side as well as the devil knows an usurer, or the beggar rather sit down in shame, and sin, and sorrow, as I am knows his dish.” like to do, than hold on in ill courses to get rid of my “A plague of your similes, dame,” replied the appren- present straits; and so take care, Dame Ursula, how you tice; “for the devil gave me that knowledge, and beg- tempt me to break such a good resolution.” gary may be the end on’t.—But what has this gentle- “I tempt you to nothing, young man,” answered man done, that he should need to be under hiding? No Ursula; “and, as I perceive you are too wilful to be wise, Papist, I hope—no Catesby and Piercy business—no I will e’en put my purse in my pocket, and look out for Gunpowder Plot?”

306 Sir Walter Scott “Fy, fy!—what do you take me for?” said Dame “No—no—no—a thousand times no,” replied Jenkin. Ursula. “I am as good a churchwoman as the parson’s “Have you not confessed to me, that Margaret loves wife, save that necessary business will not allow me to him?” go there oftener than on Christmas-day, heaven help “Ay,” answered the dame, “that she thinks she does; me!—No, no—this is no Popish matter. The gentleman but that will not last long.” hath but struck another in the Park—” “And have I not told you but this instant,” replied “Ha! what?” said Vincent, interrupting her with a Jenkin, “that it was this same Glenvarloch that rooked start. me, at the ordinary, of every penny I had, and made a “Ay, ay, I see you guess whom I mean. It is even he we knave of me to boot, by gaining more than was my have spoken of so often—just Lord Glenvarloch, and own?—O that cursed gold, which Shortyard, the mer- no one else.” cer, paid me that morning on accompt, for mending the Vincent sprung from his seat, and traversed the room clock of Saint Stephen’s! If I had not, by ill chance, with rapid and disorderly steps. had that about me, I could but have beggared my purse, “There, there it is now—you are always ice or gunpow- without blemishing my honesty; and, after I had been der. You sit in the great leathern armchair, as quiet as a rooked of all the rest amongst them, I must needs risk rocket hangs upon the frame in a rejoicing-night till the the last five pieces with that shark among the minnows!” match be fired, and then, whizz! you are in the third heaven, “Granted,” said Dame Ursula. “All this I know; and I beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or brain.—When own, that as Lord Glenvarloch was the last you played you have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across with, you have a right to charge your ruin on his head. the room, will you tell me your determination, for time Moreover, I admit, as already said, that Margaret has presses? Will you aid me in this matter, or not?” made him your rival. Yet surely, now he is in danger to

307 The Fortunes of Nigel lose his hand, it is not a time to remember all this?” why, then, thou wert odious to her for ever. She will “By my faith, but it is, though,” said the young citi- loathe thee as she will loathe the very cook who is to zen. “Lose his hand, indeed? They may take his head, strike off Glenvarloch’s hand with his cleaver—and then for what I care. Head and hand have made me a miser- she will be yet more fixed in her affections towards this able wretch!” lord. London will hear of nothing but him—speak of “Now, were it not better, my prince of flat-caps,” said nothing but him—think of nothing but him, for three Dame Ursula, “that matters were squared between you; weeks at least, and all that outcry will serve to keep and that, through means of the same Scottish lord, who him uppermost in her mind; for nothing pleases a girl so has, as you say, deprived you of your money and your much as to bear relation to any one who is the talk of mistress, you should in a short time recover both?” the whole world around her. Then, if he suffer this sen- “And how can your wisdom come to that conclusion, tence of the law, it is a chance if she ever forgets him. I dame?” said the apprentice. “My money, indeed, I can saw that handsome, proper young gentleman Babington, conceive—that is, if I comply with your proposal; but— suffer in the Queen’s time myself, and though I was then my pretty Marget!—how serving this lord, whom she but a girl, he was in my head for a year after he was has set her nonsensical head upon, can do me good with hanged. But, above all, pardoned or punished, her, is far beyond my conception.” Glenvarloch will probably remain in London, and his “That is because, in simple phrase,” said Dame Ursula, presence will keep up the silly girl’s nonsensical fancy “thou knowest no more of a woman’s heart than doth a about him. Whereas, if he escapes—” Norfolk gosling. Look you, man. Were I to report to “Ay, show me how that is to avail me?” said Jenkin. Mistress Margaret that the young lord has miscarried “If he escapes,” said the dame, resuming her argument, through thy lack of courtesy in refusing to help him, “he must resign the Court for years, if not for life; and

308 Sir Walter Scott you know the old saying, ‘out of sight, and out of lively lad that all the world takes you for—Said I well?” mind.’” “You have spoken like an empress, most mighty “True—most true,” said Jenkin; “spoken like an Ursula,” said Jenkin Vincent; “and your will shall be oracle, most wise Ursula.” “Ay, ay, I knew you would obeyed.” hear reason at last,” said the wily dame; “and then, when “You know Alsatia well?” continued his tutoress. this same lord is off and away for once and for ever, “Well enough, well enough,” replied he with a nod; “I who, I pray you, is to be pretty pet’s confidential per- have heard the dice rattle there in my day, before I must son, and who is to fill up the void in her affections?— set up for gentleman, and go among the gallants at the why, who but thou, thou pearl of ‘prentices! And then Shavaleer Bojo’s, as they call him,—the worse rookery you will have overcome your own inclinations to com- of the two, though the feathers are the gayest.” ply with hers, and every woman is sensible of that— “And they will have a respect for thee yonder, I war- and you will have run some risk, too, in carrying her rant?” desires into effect—and what is it that woman likes bet- “Ay, ay,” replied Vin, “when I am got into my fustian ter than bravery, and devotion to her will? Then you doublet again, with my bit of a trunnion under my arm, have her secret, and she must treat you with favour and I can walk Alsatia at midnight as I could do that there observance, and repose confidence in you, and hold pri- Fleet Street in midday—they will not one of them swag- vate intercourse with you, till she weeps with one eye ger with the prince of ‘prentices, and the king of clubs— for the absent lover whom she is never to see again, and they know I could bring every tall boy in the ward down blinks with the other blithely upon him who is in pres- upon them.” ence; and then if you know not how to improve the rela- “And you know all the watermen, and so forth?” tion in which you stand with her, you are not the brisk “Can converse with every sculler in his own language,

309 The Fortunes of Nigel from Richmond to Gravesend, and know all the water- “Why, what a fool art thou to ask such a question! cocks, from John Taylor the Poet to little Grigg the Grin- Suppose I am content to advance it to please young ner, who never pulls but he shows all his teeth from ear madam, what is the harm then?” to ear, as if he were grimacing through a horse-collar.” “I will suppose no such thing,” said Jenkin, hastily; “And you can take any dress or character upon you “I know that you, dame, have no gold to spare, and well, such as a waterman’s, a butcher’s, a foot-soldier’s,” maybe would not spare it if you had—so that cock will continued Ursula, “or the like?” not crow. It must be from Margaret herself.” “Not such a mummer as I am within the walls, and thou “Well, thou suspicious animal, and what if it were?” knowest that well enough, dame,” replied the apprentice. said Ursula. “I can touch the players themselves, at the Ball and at the “Only this,” replied Jenkin, “that I will presently to her, Fortune, for presenting any thing except a gentleman. Take and learn if she has come fairly by so much ready money; but this d—d skin of frippery off me, which I think the for sooner than connive at her getting it by any indirection, devil stuck me into, and you shall put me into nothing else I would hang myself at once. It is enough what I have done that I will not become as if I were born to it.” myself, no need to engage poor Margaret in such villainy— “Well, we will talk of your transmutation by and by,” I’ll to her, and tell her of the danger—I will, by heaven!” said the dame, “and find you clothes withal, and money “You are mad to think of it,” said Dame Suddlechop, besides; for it will take a good deal to carry the thing considerably alarmed—“hear me but a moment. I know handsomely through.” not precisely from whom she got the money; but sure I “But where is that money to come from, dame?” said am that she obtained it at her godfather’s.” Jenkin; “there is a question I would fain have answered “Why, Master George Heriot is not returned from before I touch it.” France,” said Jenkin.

310 Sir Walter Scott “No,” replied Ursula, “but Dame Judith is at home— “Well, let that pass,” said Ursula; “and now, tell me and the strange lady, whom they call Master Heriot’s how you will manage to be absent from shop a day or ghost—she never goes abroad.” two, for you must think that this matter will not be “It is very true, Dame Suddlechop,” said Jenkin; “and ended sooner.” I believe you have guessed right—they say that lady “Why, as to that, I can say nothing,” said Jenkin, “I has coin at will; and if Marget can get a handful of fairy- have always served duly and truly; I have no heart to gold, why, she is free to throw it away at will.” play truant, and cheat my master of his time as well as “Ah, Jin Vin,” said the dame, reducing her voice al- his money.” most to a whisper, “we should not want gold at will nei- “Nay, but the point is to get back his money for him,” ther, could we but read the riddle of that lady!” said Ursula, “which he is not likely to see on other con- “They may read it that list,” said Jenkin, “I’ll never ditions. Could you not ask leave to go down to your uncle pry into what concerns me not—Master George Heriot in Essex for two or three days? He may be ill, you know.” is a worthy and brave citizen, and an honour to Lon- “Why, if I must, I must,” said Jenkin, with a heavy don, and has a right to manage his own household as he sigh; “but I will not be lightly caught treading these likes best.—There was once a talk of rabbling him the dark and crooked paths again.” fifth of November before the last, because they said he “Hush thee, then,” said the dame, “and get leave for kept a nunnery in his house, like old Lady Foljambe; this very evening; and come back hither, and I will in- but Master George is well loved among the ‘prentices, troduce you to another implement, who must be em- and we got so many brisk boys of us together as should ployed in the matter.—Stay, stay!—the lad is mazed— have rabbled the rabble, had they had but the heart to you would not go into your master’s shop in that guise, rise.” surely? Your trunk is in the matted chamber, with your

311 The Fortunes of Nigel ‘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 CHAPTER XXII 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 Chance will not do the work— me to a gipsy, to carry pots, pans, and beggar’s bant- Chance sends the breeze; lings, all the rest of my life.” So saying, he retired to But if the pilot slumber at the helm, change his apparel. 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

312 Sir Walter Scott that his intercourse with the better and more respect- window, he examined with more interest the furniture able class of society, was, for the present, entirely cut and appearance of the apartment which he tenanted. off. This was a melancholy, and, to a proud mind like Much of it had been in its time rich and curious— that of Nigel, a degrading reflection. there was a huge four-post bed, with as much carved He went to the window of his apartment, and found oak about it as would have made the head of a man-of- the street enveloped in one of those thick, dingy, yel- war, and tapestry hangings ample enough to have been low-coloured fogs, which often invest the lower part of her sails. There was a huge mirror with a massy frame London and Westminster. Amid the darkness, dense and of gilt brass-work, which was of Venetian manufacture, palpable, were seen to wander like phantoms a reveller and must have been worth a considerable sum before it or two, whom the morning had surprised where the received the tremendous crack, which, traversing it from evening left them; and who now, with tottering steps, one corner to the other, bore the same proportion to the and by an instinct which intoxication could not wholly surface that the Nile bears to the map of Egypt. The overcome, were groping the way to their own homes, to chairs were of different forms and shapes, some had been convert day into night, for the purpose of sleeping off carved, some gilded, some covered with damasked the debauch which had turned night into day. Although leather, some with embroidered work, but all were dam- it was broad day in the other parts of the city, it was aged and worm-eaten. There was a picture of Susanna scarce dawn yet in Alsatia; and none of the sounds of and the Elders over the chimney-piece, which might have industry or occupation were there heard, which had long been accounted a choice piece, had not the rats made before aroused the slumberers in any other quarter. The free with the chaste fair one’s nose, and with the beard prospect was too tiresome and disagreeable to detain of one of her reverend admirers. Lord Glenvarloch at his station, so, turning from the In a word, all that Lord Glenvarloch saw, seemed to

313 The Fortunes of Nigel have been articles carried off by appraisement or dis- fancy.—“I must stop its march, however,” he thought; tress, or bought as pennyworths at some obscure “for this morning is chill and raw enough to demand broker’s, and huddled together in the apartment, as in some fire.” a sale-room, without regard to taste or congruity. He called accordingly from the top of a large stair- The place appeared to Nigel to resemble the houses case, with a heavy oaken balustrade, which gave access near the sea-coast, which are too often furnished with to his own and other apartments, for the house was old the spoils of wrecked vessels, as this was probably fit- and of considerable size; but, receiving no answer to his ted up with the relics of ruined profligates.—“My own repeated summons, he was compelled to go in search of skiff is among the breakers,” thought Lord Glenvarloch, some one who might accommodate him with what he “though my wreck will add little to the profits of the wanted. spoiler.” Nigel had, according to the fashion of the old world in He was chiefly interested in the state of the grate, a Scotland, received an education which might, in most huge assemblage of rusted iron bars which stood in the particulars, be termed simple, hardy, and unostenta- chimney, unequally supported by three brazen feet, tious; but he had, nevertheless, been accustomed to much moulded into the form of lion’s claws, while the fourth, personal deference, and to the constant attendance and which had been bent by an accident, seemed proudly ministry of one or more domestics. This was the univer- uplifted as if to paw the ground; or as if the whole ar- sal custom in Scotland, where wages were next to noth- ticle had nourished the ambitious purpose of pacing ing, and where, indeed, a man of title or influence might forth into the middle of the apartment, and had one have as many attendants as he pleased, for the mere foot ready raised for the journey. A smile passed over expense of food, clothes, and countenance. Nigel was Nigel’s face as this fantastic idea presented itself to his therefore mortified and displeased when he found him-

314 Sir Walter Scott self without notice or attendance; and the more dissat- positing papers. A sword, musketoon, and a pair of pis- isfied, because he was at the same time angry with him- tols, hung over the chimney, in ostentatious display, as self for suffering such a trifle to trouble him at all, if to intimate that the proprietor would be prompt in amongst matters of more deep concernment. “There the defence of his premises. must surely be some servants in so large a house as this,” “This must be the usurer’s den,” thought Nigel; and said he, as he wandered over the place, through which he was about to call aloud, when the old man, awak- he was conducted by a passage which branched off from ened even by the slightest noise, for avarice seldom sleeps the gallery. As he went on, he tried the entrance to sev- sound, soon was heard from the inner room, speaking in eral apartments, some of which he found were locked a voice of irritability, rendered more tremulous by his and others unfurnished, all apparently unoccupied; so morning cough. that at length he returned to the staircase, and resolved “Ugh, ugh, ugh—who is there? I say—ugh, ugh—who to make his way down to the lower part of the house, is there? Why, Martha!—ugh! ugh—Martha Trapbois— where he supposed he must at least find the old gentle- here be thieves in the house, and they will not speak to man, and his ill-favoured daughter. With this purpose me—why, Martha!—thieves, thieves—ugh, ugh, ugh!” he first made his entrance into a little low, dark parlour, Nigel endeavoured to explain, but the idea of thieves containing a well-worn leathern easy-chair, before which had taken possession of the old man’s pineal gland, and stood a pair of slippers, while on the left side rested a he kept coughing and screaming, and screaming and crutch-handled staff; an oaken table stood before it, and coughing, until the gracious Martha entered the apart- supported a huge desk clamped with iron, and a mas- ment; and, having first outscreamed her father, in order sive pewter inkstand. Around the apartment were to convince him that there was no danger, and to assure shelves, cabinets, and other places convenient for de- him that the intruder was their new lodger, and having

315 The Fortunes of Nigel as often heard her sire ejaculate—”Hold him fast—ugh, to grizzle her tresses. Her figure was tall, thin, and flat, ugh—hold him fast till I come,” she at length succeeded with skinny arms and hands, and feet of the larger size, in silencing his fears and his clamour, and then coldly cased in huge high-heeled shoes, which added height to and dryly asked Lord Glenvarloch what he wanted in a stature already ungainly. Apparently some art had her father’s apartment. been used by the tailor, to conceal a slight defect of Her lodger had, in the meantime, leisure to contem- shape, occasioned by the accidental elevation of one plate her appearance, which did not by any means im- shoulder above the other; but the praiseworthy efforts prove the idea he had formed of it by candlelight on the of the ingenious mechanic, had only succeeded in call- preceding evening. She was dressed in what was called a ing the attention of the observer to his benevolent pur- Queen Mary’s ruff and farthingale; not the falling ruff pose, without demonstrating that he had been able to with which the unfortunate Mary of Scotland is usu- achieve it. ally painted, but that which, with more than Spanish Such was Mrs. Martha Trapbois, whose dry “What stiffness, surrounded the throat, and set off the morose were you seeking here, sir?” fell again, and with reiter- head, of her fierce namesake, of Smithfield memory. ated sharpness, on the ear of Nigel, as he gazed upon This antiquated dress assorted well with the faded com- her presence, and compared it internally to one of the plexion, grey eyes, thin lips, and austere visage of the faded and grim figures in the old tapestry which adorned antiquated maiden, which was, moreover, enhanced by his bedstead. It was, however, necessary to reply, and a black hood, worn as her head-gear, carefully disposed he answered, that he came in search of the servants, as so as to prevent any of her hair from escaping to view, he desired to have a fire kindled in his apartment on probably because the simplicity of the period knew no account of the rawness of the morning. art of disguising the colour with which time had begun “The woman who does our char-work,” answered Mis-

316 Sir Walter Scott tress Martha, “comes at eight o’clock-if you want fire tecting clause, by which he guarded himself against all sooner, there are fagots and a bucket of sea-coal in the inconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering stone-closet at the head of the stair—and there is a flint service or civility of any kind, the which, when hastily and steel on the upper shelf—you can light fire for your- snapped at by those to whom they are uttered, give the self if you will.” profferer sometimes room to repent his promptitude. “No—no—no, Martha,” ejaculated her father, who, “For shame, father,” said Martha, “that must not be. having donned his rustic tunic, with his hose all ungirt, Master Grahame will kindle his own fire, or wait till the and his feet slip-shod, hastily came out of the inner char-woman comes to do it for him, just as likes him apartment, with his mind probably full of robbers, for best.” he had a naked rapier in his hand, which still looked “No, child—no, child. Child Martha, no,” reiterated formidable, though rust had somewhat marred its the old miser—“no char-woman shall ever touch a grate shine.—What he had heard at entrance about lighting in my house; they put—ugh, ugh—the faggot upper- a fire, had changed, however, the current of his ideas. most, and so the coal kindles not, and the flame goes up “No—no—no,” he cried, and each negative was more the chimney, and wood and heat are both thrown away. emphatic than its predecessor.—“The gentleman shall Now, I will lay it properly for the gentleman, for a con- not have the trouble to put on a fire—ugh—ugh. I’ll sideration, so that it shall last—ugh, ugh—last the whole put it on myself, for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on.” day.” Here his vehemence increased his cough so vio- This last word was a favourite expression with the old lently, that Nigel could only, from a scattered word here gentleman, which he pronounced in a peculiar manner, and there, comprehend that it was a recommendation gasping it out syllable by syllable, and laying a strong to his daughter to remove the poker and tongs from the emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed, a sort of pro- stranger’s fireside, with an assurance, that, when neces-

317 The Fortunes of Nigel sary, his landlord would be in attendance to adjust it tance, madam, or to give trouble,” said the guest; “nev- himself, “for a consideration.” ertheless, I shall need the assistance of a domestic to Martha paid as little attention to the old man’s in- assist me to dress—Perhaps you can recommend me to junctions as a predominant dame gives to those of a such?” henpecked husband. She only repeated, in a deeper and “Yes, to twenty,” answered Mistress Martha, “who will more emphatic tone of censure,—“For shame, father— pick your purse while they tie your points, and cut your for shame!” then, turning to her guest, said, with her throat while they smooth your pillow.” usual ungraciousness of manner—”Master Grahame— “I will be his servant, myself,” said the old man, whose it is best to be plain with you at first. My father is an intellect, for a moment distanced, had again, in some old, a very old man, and his wits, as you may see, are measure, got up with the conversation. “I will brush his somewhat weakened—though I would not advise you cloak—ugh, ugh—and tie his points—ugh, ugh—and to make a bargain with him, else you may find them too clean his shoes—ugh—and run on his errands with speed sharp for your own. For myself, I am a lone woman, and safety—ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh—for a consideration.” and, to say truth, care little to see or converse with any “Good-morrow to you, sir,” said Martha, to Nigel, in one. If you can be satisfied with house-room, shelter, a tone of direct and positive dismissal. “It cannot be and safety, it will be your own fault if you have them agreeable to a daughter that a stranger should hear her not, and they are not always to be found in this un- father speak thus. If you be really a gentleman, you happy quarter. But, if you seek deferential observance will retire to your own apartment.” and attendance, I tell you at once you will not find them “I will not delay a moment,” said Nigel, respectfully, here.” for he was sensible that circumstances palliated the “I am not wont either to thrust myself upon acquain- woman’s rudeness. “I would but ask you, if seriously

318 Sir Walter Scott there can be danger in procuring the assistance of a serv- “Say nothing of that, housewife,” said the miser, his ing-man in this place?” irritability increased by the very supposition of his be- “Young gentleman,” said Martha, “you must know ing wealthy—“Say nothing of that, or I will beat thee, little of Whitefriars to ask the question. We live alone housewife—beat thee with my staff, for fetching and in this house, and seldom has a stranger entered it; nor carrying lies that will procure our throats to be cut at should you, to be plain, had my will been consulted. Look last—ugh, ugh.—I am but a poor man,” he continued, at the door—see if that of a castle can be better se- turning to Nigel—“a very poor man, that am willing to cured; the windows of the first floor are grated on the do any honest turn upon earth, for a modest consider- outside, and within, look to these shutters.” ation.” She pulled one of them aside, and showed a ponderous “I therefore warn you of the life you must lead, young apparatus of bolts and chains for securing the window-shut- gentleman,” said Martha; “the poor woman who does ters, while her father, pressing to her side, seized her gown the char-work will assist you so far as in her power, but with a trembling hand, and said, in a low whisper, “Show the wise man is his own best servant and assistant.” not the trick of locking and undoing them. Show him not “It is a lesson you have taught me, madam, and I thank the trick on’t, Martha—ugh, ugh—on no consideration.” you for it—I will assuredly study it at leisure.” Martha went on, without paying him any attention. “You will do well,” said Martha; “and as you seem “And yet, young gentleman, we have been more than thankful for advice, I, though I am no professed coun- once like to find all these defences too weak to protect sellor of others, will give you more. Make no intimacy our lives; such an evil effect on the wicked generation with any one in Whitefriars—borrow no money, on any around us hath been made by the unhappy report of score, especially from my father, for, dotard as he seems, my poor father’s wealth.” he will make an ass of you. Last, and best of all, stay

319 The Fortunes of Nigel here not an instant longer than you can help it. Fare- communicating to the spectator what is supposed to be well, sir.” passing in the bosom of the scenic personage. There are “A gnarled tree may bear good fruit, and a harsh na- no such soliloquies in nature, it is true, but unless they ture may give good counsel,” thought the Lord of were received as a conventional medium of communica- Glenvarloch, as he retreated to his own apartment, where tion betwixt the poet and the audience, we should reduce the same reflection occurred to him again and again, dramatic authors to the recipe of Master Puff, who makes while, unable as yet to reconcile himself to the thoughts Lord Burleigh intimate a long train of political reason- of becoming his own fire-maker, he walked up and down ing to the audience, by one comprehensive shake of his his bedroom, to warm himself by exercise. noddle. In narrative, no doubt, the writer has the alter- At length his meditations arranged themselves in the native of telling that his personages thought so and so, following soliloquy—by which expression I beg leave to inferred thus and thus, and arrived at such and such a observe once for all, that I do not mean that Nigel liter- conclusion; but the soliloquy is a more concise and spir- ally said aloud with his bodily organs, the words which ited mode of communicating the same information; and follow in inverted commas, (while pacing the room by therefore thus communed, or thus might have communed, himself,) but that I myself choose to present to my dear- the Lord of Glenvarloch with his own mind. est reader the picture of my hero’s mind, his reflections “She is right, and has taught me a lesson I will profit and resolutions, in the form of a speech, rather than in by. I have been, through my whole life, one who leant that of a narrative. In other words, I have put his thoughts upon others for that assistance, which it is more truly into language; and this I conceive to be the purpose of noble to derive from my own exertions. I am ashamed the soliloquy upon the stage as well as in the closet, being of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long habit had at once the most natural, and perhaps the only way of led me to annex to the want of a servant’s assistance—

320 Sir Walter Scott I am ashamed of that; but far, far more am I ashamed He had just put his tablets in his pocket when the old to have suffered the same habit of throwing my own charwoman, who, to add to her efficiency, was sadly burden on others, to render me, since I came to this city, crippled by rheumatism, hobbled into the room, to try a mere victim of those events, which I have never even if she could gain a small gratification by waiting on the attempted to influence—a thing never acting, but per- stranger. She readily undertook to get Lord petually acted upon—protected by one friend, deceived Glenvarloch’s breakfast, and as there was an eating- by another; but in the advantage which I received from house at the next door, she succeeded in a shorter time the one, and the evil I have sustained from the other, as than Nigel had augured. passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without oar or As his solitary meal was finished, one of the Temple rudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a porters, or inferior officers, was announced, as seeking courtier, because Heriot so advised it—a gamester, be- Master Grahame, on the part of his friend, Master cause Dalgarno so contrived it—an Alsatian, because Lowestoffe; and, being admitted by the old woman to Lowestoffe so willed it. Whatever of good or bad has his apartment, he delivered to Nigel a small mail-trunk, befallen me, has arisen out of the agency of others, not with the clothes he had desired should be sent to him, from my own. My father’s son must no longer hold this and then, with more mystery, put into his hand a cas- facile and puerile course. Live or die, sink or swim, Nigel ket, or strong-boy, which he carefully concealed beneath Olifaunt, from this moment, shall owe his safety, suc- his cloak. “I am glad to be rid on’t,” said the fellow, as cess, and honour, to his own exertions, or shall fall with he placed it on the table. the credit of having at least exerted his own free agency. “Why, it is surely not so very heavy,” answered Nigel, I will write it down in my tablets, in her very words,— “and you are a stout young man.” ‘The wise man is his own best assistant.’” “Ay, sir,” replied the fellow; “but Samson himself would

321 The Fortunes of Nigel not have carried such a matter safely through Alsatia, ranged than they had been in the dishabille of his first had the lads of the Huff known what it was. Please to appearance, and his nerves and intellects seemed to be look into it, sir, and see all is right—I am an honest fel- less fluttered; for, without much coughing or hesitation, low, and it comes safe out of my hands. How long it he invited Nigel to partake of a morning draught of may remain so afterwards, will depend on your own care. wholesome single ale, which he brought in a large leath- I would not my good name were to suffer by any after- ern tankard, or black-jack, carried in the one hand, while clap.” the other stirred it round with a sprig of rosemary, to To satisfy the scruples of the messenger, Lord give it, as the old man said, a flavour. Glenvarloch opened the casket in his presence, and saw Nigel declined the courteous proffer, and intimated by that his small stock of money, with two or three valu- his manner, while he did so, that he desired no intrusion able papers which it contained, and particularly the on the privacy of his own apartment; which, indeed, he original sign-manual which the king had granted in his was the more entitled to maintain, considering the cold favour, were in the same order in which he had left them. reception he had that morning met with when straying At the man’s further instance, he availed himself of the from its precincts into those of his landlord. But the writing materials which were in the casket, in order to open casket contained matter, or rather metal, so at- send a line to Master Lowestoffe, declaring that his prop- tractive to old Trapbois, that he remained fixed, like a erty had reached him in safety. He added some grateful setting-dog at a dead point, his nose advanced, and one acknowledgments for Lowestoffe’s services, and, just as hand expanded like the lifted forepaw, by which that he was sealing and delivering his billet to the messenger, sagacious quadruped sometimes indicates that it is a hare his aged landlord entered the apartment. His thread- which he has in the wind. Nigel was about to break the bare suit of black clothes was now somewhat better ar- charm which had thus arrested old Trapbois, by shut-

322 Sir Walter Scott ting the lid of the casket, when his attention was with- Lowestoffe to have no delicacy upon this score, but, since drawn from him by the question of the messenger, who, his surrender was what he had determined upon as a holding out the letter, asked whether he was to leave it sacrifice due to his own character, that he would have at Mr. Lowestoffe’s chambers in the Temple, or carry it the frankness to mention in what manner it could be to the Marshalsea? best arranged, so as to extricate him, Lowestoffe, from “The Marshalsea?” repeated Lord Glenvarloch; “what the restraint to which the writer could not but fear his of the Marshalsea?” friend had been subjected, on account of the generous “Why, sir,” said the man, “the poor gentleman is laid interest which he had taken in his concerns. The letter up there in lavender, because, they say, his own kind concluded, that the writer would suffer twenty-four heart led him to scald his fingers with another man’s hours to elapse in expectation of hearing from him, and, broth.” at the end of that period, was determined to put his Nigel hastily snatched back the letter, broke the seal, purpose in execution. He delivered the billet to the mes- joined to the contents his earnest entreaty that he might senger, and, enforcing his request with a piece of money, be instantly acquainted with the cause of his confine- urged him, without a moment’s delay, to convey it to ment, and added, that, if it arose out of his own un- the hands of Master Lowestoffe. happy affair, it would be of a brief duration, since he “I—I—I—will carry it to him myself,” said the old had, even before hearing of a reason which so peremp- usurer, “for half the consideration.” torily demanded that he should surrender himself, The man who heard this attempt to take his duty and adopted the resolution to do so, as the manliest and most perquisites over his head, lost no time in pocketing the proper course which his ill fortune and imprudence had money, and departed on his errand as fast as he could. left in his own power. He therefore conjured Mr. “Master Trapbois,” said Nigel, addressing the old man

323 The Fortunes of Nigel somewhat impatiently, “had you any particular commands for me?” “I—I—came to see if you rested well,” answered the CHAPTER XXIII old man; “and—if I could do anything to serve you, on any consideration.” “Sir, I thank you,” said Lord Glenvarloch—I thank SWASH-BUCKLER. Bilboe’s the word— you;” and, ere he could say more, a heavy footstep was heard on the stair. PIERROT. It hath been spoke too often, “My God!” exclaimed the old man, starting up— The spell hath lost its charm—I tell thee, friend, “Why, Dorothy—char-woman—why, daughter,—draw The meanest cur that trots the street, will turn, bolt, I say, housewives—the door hath been left a-latch!” And snarl against your proffer’d bastinado. The door of the chamber opened wide, and in strut- ted the portly bulk of the military hero whom Nigel SWASH-BUCKLER. ’Tis art shall do it, then— had on the preceding evening in vain endeavoured to I will dose the mongrels— recognise. 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;

324 Sir Walter Scott had a martial and a swashing exterior, which, on the malt to a butt of Thames—as dead as a corpse, too, and present occasion, was rendered yet more peculiar, by a yet it went hissing down my throat—bubbling, by Jove, patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek. The like water upon hot iron.—You left us early, noble Mas- sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and ter Grahame, but, good faith, we had a carouse to your shone with grease,—his buff gloves had huge tops, which honour—we heard butt ring hollow ere we parted; we reached almost to the elbow; his sword-belt of the same were as loving as inkle-weavers—we fought, too, to fin- materials extended its breadth from his haunchbone to ish off the gawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about his small ribs, and supported on the one side his large me, you see—a note of the sermon or so, which should black-hilted back-sword, on the other a dagger of like have been addressed to my ear, but missed its mark, and proportions He paid his compliments to Nigel with that reached my left eye. The man of God bears my sign- air of predetermined effrontery, which announces that manual too, but the Duke made us friends again, and it it will not be repelled by any coldness of reception, asked cost me more sack than I could carry, and all the Rhenish Trapbois how he did, by the familiar title of old Peter to boot, to pledge the seer in the way of love and recon- Pillory, and then, seizing upon the black-jack, emptied ciliation—But, Caracco! ’tis a vile old canting slave for it off at a draught, to the health of the last and young- all that, whom I will one day beat out of his devil’s liv- est freeman of Alsatia, the noble and loving master Nigel ery into all the colours of the rainbow.—Basta!—Said I Grahame. well, old Trapbois? Where is thy daughter, man?—what When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn says she to my suit?—’tis an honest one—wilt have a his breath, he began to criticise the liquor which it had soldier for thy son-in-law, old Pillory, to mingle the soul lately contained.—“Sufficient single beer, old Pillory— of martial honour with thy thieving, miching, petty- and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a nutshell of larceny blood, as men put bold brandy into muddy ale?”

325 The Fortunes of Nigel “My daughter receives not company so early, noble at any game which gentlemen play at.” captain,” said the usurer, and concluded his speech with “Marry, thou hast me on the hip there, thou old mi- a dry, emphatical “ugh, ugh.” serly cony-catcher!” answered the captain, taking a bale “What, upon no con-si-de-ra-ti-on?” said the captain; of dice from the sleeve of his coat; “I must always keep and wherefore not, old Truepenny? she has not much company with these damnable doctors, and they have time to lose in driving her bargain, methinks.” made me every baby’s cully, and purged my purse into “Captain,” said Trapbois, “I was upon some little busi- an atrophy; but never mind, it passes the time as well as ness with our noble friend here, Master Nigel Green— aught else—How say you, Master Grahame?” ugh, ugh, ugh—” The fellow paused; but even the extremity of his im- “And you would have me gone, I warrant you?” an- pudence could scarcely hardly withstand the cold look swered the bully; “but patience, old Pillory, thine hour of utter contempt with which Nigel received his pro- is not yet come, man—You see,” he said, pointing to posal, returning it with a simple, “I only play where I the casket, “that noble Master Grahame, whom you call know my company, and never in the morning.” Green, has got the decuses and the smelt.” “Cards may be more agreeable,” said Captain Which you would willingly rid him of, ha! ha!—ugh, Colepepper; “and, for knowing your company, here is ugh,” answered the usurer, “if you knew how—but, lack- honest old Pillory will tell you Jack Colepepper plays as a-day! thou art one of those that come out for wool, truly on the square as e’er a man that trowled a die— and art sure to go home shorn. Why now, but that I am Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles, sworn against laying of wagers, I would risk some con- topping, knapping, slurring, stabbing, and a hundred sideration that this honest guest of mine sends thee home ways of rooking besides; but broil me like a rasher of penniless, if thou darest venture with him—ugh, ugh— bacon, if I could ever learn the trick on ‘em!”

326 Sir Walter Scott “You have got the vocabulary perfect, sir, at the least,” Here the old man, who had been watching with his said Nigel, in the same cold tone. little peery eyes, pulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, “Yes, by mine honour have I,” returned the Hector; and whispered, “Do not vapour him the huff, it will not “they are phrases that a gentleman learns about town.— pass—let the trout play, he will rise to the hook pres- But perhaps you would like a set at tennis, or a game at ently.” balloon—we have an indifferent good court hard by here, But the bully, confiding in his own strength, and prob- and a set of as gentleman-like blades as ever banged ably mistaking for timidity the patient scorn with which leather against brick and mortar.” Nigel received his proposals, incited also by the open “I beg to be excused at present,” said Lord casket, began to assume a louder and more threatening Glenvarloch; “and to be plain, among the valuable privi- tone. He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed a leges your society has conferred on me, I hope I may look of professional ferocity, and continued, “In Alsatia, reckon that of being private in my own apartment when look ye, a man must be neighbourly and companion- I have a mind.” able. Zouns! sir, we would slit any nose that was turned “Your humble servant, sir,” said the captain; “and I up at us honest fellows.—Ay, sir, we would slit it up to thank you for your civility—Jack Colepepper can have the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life but enough of company, and thrusts himself on no one.— musk, ambergris, and court-scented water.—Rabbit me, But perhaps you will like to make a match at skittles?” I am a soldier, and care no more for a lord than a “I am by no means that way disposed,” replied the lamplighter!” young nobleman, “Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?” said Nigel, calmly, “Or to leap a flea—run a snail—match a wherry, eh?” having in truth no desire to engage himself in a discred- “No—I will do none of these,” answered Nigel. itable broil in such a place, and with such a character.

327 The Fortunes of Nigel “Quarrel, sir?” said the captain; “I am not seeking a the peace on any consideration! Noble guest, forbear the quarrel, though I care not how soon I find one. Only I captain—he is a very Hector of Troy—Trusty Hector, wish you to understand you must be neighbourly, that’s forbear my guest, he is like to prove a very Achilles- all. What if we should go over the water to the garden, ugh-ugh—” and see a bull hanked this fine morning—’sdeath, will Here he was interrupted by his asthma, but, never- you do nothing?” theless, continued to interpose his person between “Something I am strangely tempted to do at this mo- Colepepper (who had unsheathed his whinyard, and was ment,” said Nigel. making vain passes at his antagonist) and Nigel, who “Videlicet,” said Colepepper, with a swaggering air, had stepped back to take his sword, and now held it “let us hear the temptation.” undrawn in his left hand. “I am tempted to throw you headlong from the win- “Make an end of this foolery, you scoundrel!” said dow, unless you presently make the best of your way Nigel—“Do you come hither to vent your noisy oaths down stairs.” and your bottled-up valour on me? You seem to know “Throw me from the window?—hell and furies!” ex- me, and I am half ashamed to say I have at length been claimed the captain; “I have confronted twenty crooked able to recollect you—remember the garden behind the sabres at Buda with my single rapier, and shall a chitty- ordinary,—you dastardly ruffian, and the speed with faced, beggarly Scots lordling, speak of me and a win- which fifty men saw you run from a drawn sword.—Get dow in the same breath?—Stand off, old Pillory, let me you gone, sir, and do not put me to the vile labour of make Scotch collops of him—he dies the death!” cudgelling such a cowardly rascal down stairs.” “For the love of Heaven, gentlemen,” exclaimed the The bully’s countenance grew dark as night at this old miser, throwing himself between them, “do not break unexpected recognition; for he had undoubtedly thought

328 Sir Walter Scott himself secure in his change of dress, and his black and prevail on them to leave me the unmolested privacy patch, from being discovered by a person who had seen of my own apartment.” him but once. He set his teeth, clenched his hands, and “If you came hither for quiet or retirement, young it seemed as if he was seeking for a moment’s courage to man,” answered she, “you have been advised to an evil fly upon his antagonist. But his heart failed, he sheathed retreat. You might seek mercy in the Star-Chamber, or his sword, turned his back in gloomy silence, and spoke holiness in hell, with better success than quiet in Alsatia. not until he reached the door, when, turning round, he But my father shall trouble you no longer.” said, with a deep oath, “If I be not avenged of you for So saying, she entered the apartment, and, fixing her this insolence ere many days go by, I would the gallows eyes on the casket, she said with emphasis—“If you dis- had my body and the devil my spirit!” play such a loadstone, it will draw many a steel knife to So saying, and with a look where determined spite and your throat.” malice made his features savagely fierce, though they While Nigel hastily shut the casket, she addressed her could not overcome his fear, he turned and left the house. father, upbraiding him, with small reverence, for keep- Nigel followed him as far as the gallery at the head of ing company with the cowardly, hectoring, murdering the staircase, with the purpose of seeing him depart, villain, John Colepepper. and ere he returned was met by Mistress Martha “Ay, ay, child,” said the old man, with the cunning leer Trapbois, whom the noise of the quarrel had summoned which intimated perfect satisfaction with his own supe- from her own apartment. He could not resist saying to rior address—“I know—I know—ugh—but I’ll crossbite her in his natural displeasure—“I would, madam, you him—I know them all, and I can manage them—ay, could teach your father and his friends the lesson which ay—I have the trick on’t—ugh-ugh.” you had the goodness to bestow on me this morning, “You manage, father!” said the austere damsel; “you will

329 The Fortunes of Nigel manage to have your throat cut, and that ere long. You can- “Nature made him a man senseless of danger, and that not hide from them your gains and your gold as formerly.” insensibility is the best thing I have derived from him,” “My gains, wench? my gold?” said the usurer; “alack- said she; “age has left him shrewdness enough to tread a-day, few of these and hard got—few and hard got.” his old beaten paths, but not to seek new courses. The “This will not serve you, father, any longer,” said she, old blind horse will long continue to go its rounds in the “and had not served you thus long, but that Bully mill, when it would stumble in the open meadow.” Colepepper had contrived a cheaper way of plundering “Daughter!—why, wench—why, housewife!” said the your house, even by means of my miserable self.—But old man, awakening out of some dream, in which he why do I speak to him of all this,” she said, checking had been sneering and chuckling in imagination, prob- herself, and shrugging her shoulders with an expression ably over a successful piece of roguery,—“go to cham- of pity which did not fall much short of scorn. “He hears ber, wench—go to chamber—draw bolts and chain— me not—he thinks not of me.—Is it not strange that look sharp to door—let none in or out but worshipful the love of gathering gold should survive the care to Master Grahame—I must take my cloak, and go to Duke preserve both property and life?” Hildebrod—ay, ay, time has been, my own warrant was “Your father,” said Lord Glenvarloch, who could not enough; but the lower we lie, the more are we under the help respecting the strong sense and feeling shown by wind.” this poor woman, even amidst all her rudeness and se- And, with his wonted chorus of muttering and cough- verity, “your father seems to have his faculties suffi- ing, the old man left the apartment. His daughter stood ciently alert when he is in the exercise of his ordinary for a moment looking after him, with her usual expres- pursuits and functions. I wonder he is not sensible of sion of discontent and sorrow. the weight of your arguments.” “You ought to persuade your father,” said Nigel, “to

330 Sir Walter Scott leave this evil neighbourhood, if you are in reality ap- “Who shall assure me of that?” said Martha, sharply. prehensive for his safety.” “They say you are a brawler and a gamester, and I know “He would be safe in no other quarter,” said the daugh- how far these are to be trusted by the unhappy.” ter; “I would rather the old man were dead than pub- “They do me wrong, by Heaven!” said Lord licly dishonoured. In other quarters he would be pelted Glenvarloch. and pursued, like an owl which ventures into sunshine. “It may be so,” said Martha; “I am little interested in Here he was safe, while his comrades could avail them- the degree of your vice or your folly; but it is plain, that selves of his talents; he is now squeezed and fleeced by the one or the other has conducted you hither, and that them on every pretence. They consider him as a vessel your best hope of peace, safety, and happiness, is to be on the strand, from which each may snatch a prey; and gone, with the least possible delay, from a place which is the very jealousy which they entertain respecting him always a sty for swine, and often a shambles.” So say- as a common property, may perhaps induce them to ing, she left the apartment. guard him from more private and daring assaults.” There was something in the ungracious manner of this “Still, methinks, you ought to leave this place,” an- female, amounting almost to contempt of him she spoke swered Nigel, “since you might find a safe retreat in some to—an indignity to which Glenvarloch, notwithstand- distant country.” ing his poverty, had not as yet been personally exposed, “In Scotland, doubtless,” said she, looking at him with and which, therefore, gave him a transitory feeling of a sharp and suspicious eye, “and enrich strangers with painful surprise. Neither did the dark hints which our rescued wealth—Ha! young man?” Martha threw out concerning the danger of his place of “Madam, if you knew me,” said Lord Glenvarloch, refuge, sound by any means agreeably to his ears. The “you would spare the suspicion implied in your words.” bravest man, placed in a situation in which he is sur-

331 The Fortunes of Nigel rounded by suspicious persons, and removed from all “Good-morrow to your lordship,” said the greasy pun- counsel and assistance, except those afforded by a val- cheon, cocking his single eye, and rolling it upon Nigel with iant heart and a strong arm, experiences a sinking of a singular expression of familiar impudence; whilst his grim the spirit, a consciousness of abandonment, which for a bull-dog, which was close at his heels, made a kind of gur- moment chills his blood, and depresses his natural gal- gling in his throat, as if saluting, in similar fashion, a starved lantry of disposition. cat, the only living thing in Trapbois’ house which we have But, if sad reflections arose in Nigel’s mind, he had not yet enumerated, and which had flown up to the top of not time to indulge them; and, if he saw little prospect the tester, where she stood clutching and grinning at the of finding friends in Alsatia, he found that he was not mastiff, whose greeting she accepted with as much good- likely to be solitary for lack of visitors. will as Nigel bestowed on that of the dog’s master. He had scarcely paced his apartment for ten minutes, “Peace, Belzie!—D—n thee, peace!” said Duke endeavouring to arrange his ideas on the course which Hildebrod. “Beasts and fools will be meddling, my lord.” he was to pursue on quitting Alsatia, when he was in- “I thought, sir,” answered Nigel, with as much haugh- terrupted by the Sovereign of the quarter, the great tiness as was consistent with the cool distance which he Duke Hildebrod himself, before whose approach the desired to preserve, “I thought I had told you, my name bolts and chains of the miser’s dwelling fell, or with- at present was Nigel Grahame.” drew, as of their own accord; and both the folding leaves His eminence of Whitefriars on this burst out into a of the door were opened, that he might roll himself into loud, chuckling, impudent laugh, repeating the word, the house like a huge butt of liquor, a vessel to which he till his voice was almost inarticulate,—“Niggle Green— bore a considerable outward resemblance, both in size, Niggle Green—Niggle Green!—why, my lord, you would shape, complexion, and contents.” be queered in the drinking of a penny pot of Malmsey,

332 Sir Walter Scott if you cry before you are touched. Why, you have told “Time to begin—time to begin,” answered the Duke.— me the secret even now, had I not had a shrewd guess of ”Here, you old refuse of Sathan, go to our palace, and it before. Why, Master Nigel, since that is the word, I fetch Lord Green’s morning draught. Let us see—what only called you my lord, because we made you a peer of shall it be, my lord?—a humming double pot of ale, Alsatia last night, when the sack was predominant. with a roasted crab dancing in it like a wherry above —How you look now!—Ha! ha! ha!” bridge?—or, hum—ay, young men are sweet-toothed— Nigel, indeed, conscious that he had unnecessarily be- a quart of burnt sack, with sugar and spice?—good trayed himself, replied hastily,—“he was much obliged against the fogs. Or, what say you to sipping a gill of to him for the honours conferred, but did not propose to right distilled waters? Come, we will have them all, and remain in the Sanctuary long enough to enjoy them.” you shall take your choice.—Here, you Jezebel, let Tim “Why, that may be as you will, an you will walk by send the ale, and the sack, and the nipperkin of double- wise counsel,” answered the ducal porpoise; and, al- distilled, with a bit of diet-loaf, or some such trinket, though Nigel remained standing, in hopes to accelerate and score it to the new comer.” his guest’s departure, he threw himself into one of the Glenvarloch, bethinking himself that it might be as old tapestry-backed easy-chairs, which cracked under well to endure this fellow’s insolence for a brief season, his weight, and began to call for old Trapbois. as to get into farther discreditable quarrels, suffered him The crone of all work appearing instead of her mas- to take his own way, without interruption, only observ- ter, the Duke cursed her for a careless jade, to let a ing, “You make yourself at home, sir, in my apartment; strange gentleman, and a brave guest, go without his but, for the time, you may use your pleasure. Meanwhile, morning’s draught. I would fain know what has procured me the honour of “I never take one, sir,” said Glenvarloch. this unexpected visit?”

333 The Fortunes of Nigel “You shall know that when old Deb has brought the having observed, that, excepting three poached eggs, a liquor—I never speak of business dry-lipped. Why, how pint of bastard, and a cup of clary, he was fasting from she drumbles—I warrant she stops to take a sip on the every thing but sin, set himself seriously to reinforce road, and then you will think you have had unchristian the radical moisture. Glenvarloch had seen Scottish measure.—In the meanwhile, look at that dog there— lairds and Dutch burgomasters at their potations; but look Belzebub in the face, and tell me if you ever saw a their exploits (though each might be termed a thirsty sweeter beast—never flew but at head in his life.” generation) were nothing to those of Duke Hildebrod, And, after this congenial panegyric, he was proceed- who seemed an absolute sandbed, capable of absorbing ing with a tale of a dog and a bull, which threatened to any given quantity of liquid, without being either vivi- be somewhat of the longest, when he was interrupted fied or overflowed. He drank off the ale to quench a by the return of the old crone, and two of his own thirst which, as he said, kept him in a fever from morn- tapsters, bearing the various kinds of drinkables which ing to night, and night to morning; tippled off the sack he had demanded, and which probably was the only to correct the crudity of the ale; sent the spirits after species of interruption he would have endured with the sack to keep all quiet, and then declared that, prob- equanimity. ably, he should not taste liquor till post meridiem, unless When the cups and cans were duly arranged upon the it was in compliment to some especial friend. Finally, he table, and when Deborah, whom the ducal generosity intimated that he was ready to proceed on the business honoured with a penny farthing in the way of gratuity, which brought him from home so early, a proposition had withdrawn with her satellites, the worthy poten- which Nigel readily received, though he could not help tate, having first slightly invited Lord Glenvarloch to suspecting that the most important purpose of Duke partake of the liquor which he was to pay for, and after Hildebrod’s visit was already transacted.

334 Sir Walter Scott In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch proved to be mis- “Say away, then, sir,” said Nigel, edging his chair some- taken. Hildebrod, before opening what he had to say, made what closer to the Quicksand, “although I cannot con- an accurate survey of the apartment, laying, from time ceive what business I have either with mine host or his to time, his finger on his nose, and winking on Nigel with daughter.” his single eye, while he opened and shut the doors, lifted “We will see that in the twinkling of a quart-pot,” the tapestry, which concealed, in one or two places, the answered the gracious Duke; “and first, my lord, you dilapidation of time upon the wainscoted walls, peeped must not think to dance in a net before old Jack into closets, and, finally, looked under the bed, to assure Hildebrod, that has thrice your years o’er his head, and himself that the coast was clear of listeners and interlop- was born, like King Richard, with all his eye-teeth ready ers. He then resumed his seat, and beckoned confiden- cut.” tially to Nigel to draw his chair close to him. “Well, sir, go on,” said Nigel. “I am well as I am, Master Hildebrod,” replied the “Why, then, my lord, I presume to say, that, if you young lord, little disposed to encourage the familiarity are, as I believe you are, that Lord Glenvarloch whom which the man endeavoured to fix on him; but the un- all the world talk of—the Scotch gallant that has spent dismayed Duke proceeded as follows: all, to a thin cloak and a light purse—be not moved, my “You shall pardon me, my lord—and I now give you lord, it is so noised of you—men call you the sparrow- the title right seriously—if I remind you that our wa- hawk, who will fly at all—ay, were it in the very Park— ters may be watched; for though old Trapbois be as deaf Be not moved, my lord.” as Saint Paul’s, yet his daughter has sharp ears, and “I am ashamed, sirrah,” replied Glenvarloch, “that sharp eyes enough, and it is of them that it is my busi- you should have power to move me by your insolence— ness to speak.” but beware—and, if you indeed guess who I am, con-

335 The Fortunes of Nigel sider how long I may be able to endure your tone of “Your words must be still plainer before I can under- insolent familiarity.” stand them,” said Nigel. “I crave pardon, my lord,” said Hildebrod, with a sul- “What the devil—a gamester, one who deals with the len, yet apologetic look; “I meant no harm in speaking devil’s bones and the doctors, and not understand my poor mind. I know not what honour there may be in Pedlar’s French! Nay, then, I must speak plain English, being familiar with your lordship, but I judge there is and that’s the simpleton’s tongue.” little safety, for Lowestoffe is laid up in lavender only “Speak, then, sir,” said Nigel; “and I pray you be brief, for having shown you the way into Alsatia; and so, what for I have little more time to bestow on you.” is to come of those who maintain you when you are here, “Well, then, my lord, to be brief, as you and the law- or whether they will get most honour or most trouble yers call it—I understand you have an estate in the by doing so, I leave with your lordship’s better judg- north, which changes masters for want of the redeem- ment.” ing ready.—Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in a net “I will bring no one into trouble on my account,” said before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the Lord Glenvarloch. “I will leave Whitefriars to-morrow. frowning humour on you, and the Court vapours you Nay, by Heaven, I will leave it this day.” the go-by; and the Prince scowls at you from under his “You will have more wit in your anger, I trust,” said cap; and the favourite serves you out the puckered brow Duke Hildebrod; “listen first to what I have to say to and the cold shoulder; and the favourite’s favourite—” you, and, if honest Jack Hildebrod puts you not in the “To go no further, sir,” interrupted Nigel, “suppose way of nicking them all, may he never cast doublets, or all this true—and what follows?” dull a greenhorn again! And so, my lord, in plain words, “What follows?” returned Duke Hildebrod. “Marry, you must wap and win.” this follows, that you will owe good deed, as well as good

336 Sir Walter Scott will, to him who shall put you in the way to walk with it to the old man, who will lose his golden smelts in some your beaver cocked in the presence, as an ye were Earl worse way—for now that he is well-nigh past his day of of Kildare; bully the courtiers; meet the Prince’s blight- work, his day of payment is like to follow.” ing look with a bold brow; confront the favourite; baffle “Truly, this is a most courteous offer,” said Lord his deputy, and—” Glenvarloch; “but may I pray of your candour, most “This is all well,” said Nigel! “but how is it to be ac- noble duke, to tell me why you dispose of a ward of so complished?” much wealth on a stranger like me, who may leave you “By making thee a Prince of Peru, my lord of the to-morrow?” northern latitudes; propping thine old castle with in- “In sooth, my lord,” said the Duke, “that question gots,—fertilizing thy failing fortunes with gold dust— smacks more of the wit of Beaujeu’s ordinary, than any it shall but cost thee to put thy baron’s coronet for a word I have yet heard your lordship speak, and reason day or so on the brows of an old Caduca here, the man’s it is you should be answered. Touching my peers, it is daughter of the house, and thou art master of a mass but necessary to say, that Mistress Martha Trapbois will of treasure that shall do all I have said for thee, and—” none of them, whether clerical or laic. The captain hath “What, you would have me marry this old gentle- asked her, so hath the parson, but she will none of woman here, the daughter of mine host?” said Nigel, them—she looks higher than either, and is, to say truth, surprised and angry, yet unable to suppress some desire a woman of sense, and so forth, too profound, and of to laugh. spirit something too high, to put up with greasy buff or “Nay, my lord, I would have you marry fifty thou- rusty prunella. For ourselves, we need but hint that we sand good sterling pounds; for that, and better, hath old have a consort in the land of the living, and, what is Trapbois hoarded; and thou shall do a deed of mercy in more to purpose, Mrs. Martha knows it. So, as she will

337 The Fortunes of Nigel not lace her kersey hood save with a quality binding, “Touching that matter, my lord, I have always heard you, my lord, must be the man, and must carry off fifty your countrymen knew as well as other folks, on which thousand decuses, the spoils of five thousand bullies, side their bread was buttered. And, truly, speaking from cutters, and spendthrifts,—always deducting from the report, I know no place where fifty thousand pounds— main sum some five thousand pounds for our princely fifty thousand pounds, I say—will make a woman more advice and countenance, without which, as matters welcome than it is likely to do in your ancient kingdom. stand in Alsatia, you would find it hard to win the plate.” And, truly, saving the slight twist in her shoulder, Mrs. “But has your wisdom considered, sir,” replied Martha Trapbois is a person of very awful and majestic Glenvarloch, “how this wedlock can serve me in my appearance, and may, for aught I know, be come of bet- present emergence?” ter blood than any one wots of; for old Trapbois looks “As for that, my lord,” said Duke Hildebrod, “if, with not over like to be her father, and her mother was a gen- forty or fifty thousand pounds in your pouch, you can- erous, liberal sort of a woman.” not save yourself, you will deserve to lose your head for “I am afraid,” answered Nigel, “that chance is rather your folly, and your hand for being close-fisted.” too vague to assure her a gracious reception into an “But, since your goodness has taken my matters into honourable house.” such serious consideration,” continued Nigel, who con- “Why, then, my lord,” replied Hildebrod, “I think it ceived there was no prudence in breaking with a man, like she will be even with them; for I will venture to say, who, in his way, meant him favour rather than offence, she has as much ill-nature as will make her a match for “perhaps you may be able to tell me how my kindred your whole clan.” will be likely to receive such a bride as you recommend “That may inconvenience me a little,” replied Nigel. to me?” “Not a whit—not a whit,” said the Duke, fertile in

338 Sir Walter Scott expedients; “if she should become rather intolerable, “Aha! art avised of that?” said the Duke, touching which is not unlikely, your honourable house, which I the side of his nose with his finger; “nay, if you have presume to be a castle, hath, doubtless, both turrets and marked me so closely, you are thinking on the case more dungeons, and ye may bestow your bonny bride in ei- nearly than I believed, till you trapped me. Well, well, ther the one or the other, and then you know you will be we will not quarrel about the consideration, as old out of hearing of her tongue, and she will be either above Trapbois would call it—do you win and wear the dame; or below the contempt of your friends.” it will be no hard matter with your face and figure, and “It is sagely counselled, most equitable sir,” replied I will take care that no one interrupts you. I will have Nigel, “and such restraint would be a fit meed for her an edict from the Senate as soon as they meet for their folly that gave me any power over her.” meridiem.” “You entertain the project then, my lord?” said Duke So saying, Duke Hildebrod took his leave. 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.”

339 The Fortunes of Nigel only persons possessed of wealth in this unhappy district, seemed like a wreck on the sea-shore of a barba- CHAPTER XXIV rous 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 This is the time—Heaven’s maiden sentinel residence here was upon conditions equally precarious, Hath quitted her high watch—the lesser spangles and that he was considered by the Alsatians in the same Are paling one by one; give me the ladder light of a godsend on the Cornish coast, or a sickly but And the short lever—bid Anthony wealthy caravan travelling through the wilds of Africa, Keep with his carabine the wicket-gate; and emphatically termed by the nations of despoilers And do thou bare thy knife and follow me, through whose regions it passes Dummalafong, which For we will in and do it—darkness like this signifies a thing given to be devoured—a common prey Is dawning of our fortunes. to all men. Old Play. 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 WHEN DUKE HILDEBROD had withdrawn, Nigel’s first im- instant execution, he only awaited the return of pulse was an irresistible feeling to laugh at the sage ad- Lowestoffe’s messenger. He expected him, however, in viser, who would have thus connected him with age, vain, and could only amuse himself by looking through ugliness, and ill-temper; but his next thought was pity such parts of his baggage as had been sent to him from for the unfortunate father and daughter, who, being the his former lodgings, in order to select a small packet of

340 Sir Walter Scott the most necessary articles to take with him, in the event examined its point, bent it once or twice against the of his quitting his lodgings secretly and suddenly, as ground to prove its well-known metal, and finally re- speed and privacy would, he foresaw, be particularly placed it in the scabbard, the more hastily, that he heard necessary, if he meant to obtain an interview with the a tap at the door of his chamber, and had no mind to be king, which was the course his spirit and his interest found vapouring in the apartment with his sword drawn. alike determined him to pursue. It was his old host who entered, to tell him with many While he was thus engaged, he found, greatly to his cringes that the price of his apartment was to be a crown satisfaction, that Master Lowestoffe had transmitted not per diem; and that, according to the custom of only his rapier and poniard, but a pair of pistols, which Whitefriars, the rent was always payable per advance, he had used in travelling; of a smaller and more conve- although he never scrupled to let the money lie till a nient size than the large petronels, or horse pistols, which week or fortnight, or even a month, in the hands of any were then in common use, as being made for wearing at honourable guest like Master Grahame, always upon the girdle or in the pockets. Next to having stout and some reasonable consideration for the use. Nigel got rid friendly comrades, a man is chiefly emboldened by find- of the old dotard’s intrusion, by throwing down two ing himself well armed in case of need, and Nigel, who pieces of gold, and requesting the accommodation of had thought with some anxiety on the hazard of trust- his present apartment for eight days, adding, however, ing his life, if attacked, to the protection of the clumsy he did not think he should tarry so long. weapon with which Lowestoffe had equipped him, in The miser, with a sparkling eye and a trembling hand, order to complete his disguise, felt an emotion of confi- clutched fast the proffered coin, and, having balanced dence approaching to triumph, as, drawing his own good the pieces with exquisite pleasure on the extremity of and well-tried rapier, he wiped it with his handkerchief, his withered finger, began almost instantly to show that

341 The Fortunes of Nigel not even the possession of gold can gratify for more than without great hardship to the landlord, when Nigel, an instant the very heart that is most eager in the pur- growing impatient, told him that the money was his suit of it. First, the pieces might be light—with hasty absolutely, and without any intention on his part of re- hand he drew a small pair of scales from his bosom, and suming any of it—all he asked in return was the liberty weighed them, first together, then separately, and smiled of enjoying in private the apartment he had paid for. with glee as he saw them attain the due depression in Old Trapbois, who had still at his tongue’s end much of the balance—a circumstance which might add to his the smooth language, by which, in his time, he had has- profits, if it were true, as was currently reported, that tened the ruin of many a young spendthrift, began to little of the gold coinage was current in Alsatia in a per- launch out upon the noble and generous disposition of fect state, and that none ever left the Sanctuary in that his new guest, until Nigel, growing impatient, took the condition. old gentleman by the hand, and gently, yet irresistibly, Another fear then occurred to trouble the old miser’s leading him to the door of the chamber, put him out, pleasure. He had been just able to comprehend that Nigel but with such decent and moderate exertion of his su- intended to leave the Friars sooner than the arrival of perior strength, as to render the action in no shape in- the term for which he had deposited the rent. This might decorous, and, fastening the door, began to do that for imply an expectation of refunding, which, as a Scotch his pistols which he had done for his favourite sword, wag said, of all species of funding, jumped least with examining with care the flints and locks, and reviewing the old gentleman’s humour. He was beginning to enter the state of his small provision of ammunition. a hypothetical caveat on this subject, and to quote sev- In this operation he was a second time interrupted by eral reasons why no part of the money once consigned a knocking at the door—he called upon the person to as room-rent, could be repaid back on any pretence, enter, having no doubt that it was Lowestoffe’s messen-

342 Sir Walter Scott ger at length arrived. It was, however, the ungracious “I should do so mistress,” replied Nigel, “for it has daughter of old Trapbois, who, muttering something been my occupation.” about her father’s mistake, laid down upon the table “You are a soldier, then?” she demanded. one of the pieces of gold which Nigel had just given to “No farther as yet, than as every gentleman of my him, saying, that what she retained was the full rent for country is a soldier.” the term he had specified. Nigel replied, he had paid the “Ay, that is your point of honour—to cut the throats money, and had no desire to receive it again. of the poor—a proper gentlemanlike occupation for “Do as you will with it, then,” replied his hostess, “for those who should protect them!” there it lies, and shall lie for me. If you are fool enough “I do not deal in cutting throats, mistress,” replied to pay more than is reason, my father shall not be knave Nigel; “but I carry arms to defend myself, and my coun- enough to take it.” try if it needs me.” “But your father, mistress,” said Nigel, “your father “Ay,” replied Martha, “it is fairly worded; but men say told me—” you are as prompt as others in petty brawls, where nei- “Oh, my father, my father,” said she, interrupting ther your safety nor your country is in hazard; and that him,—“my father managed these affairs while he was had it not been so, you would not have been in the Sanc- able—I manage them now, and that may in the long tuary to-day.” run be as well for both of us.” “Mistress,” returned Nigel, “I should labour in vain to She then looked on the table, and observed the weap- make you understand that a man’s honour, which is, or ons. should be, dearer to him than his life, may often call on “You have arms, I see,” she said; “do you know how and compel us to hazard our own lives, or those of oth- to use them?” ers, on what would otherwise seem trifling contingencies.”

343 The Fortunes of Nigel “God’s law says nought of that,” said the female; “I which he had been sitting; and nothing short of a stern have only read there, that thou shall not kill. But I have and positive injunction to the contrary could compel neither time nor inclination to preach to you—you will him to use another board (though there were two in the find enough of fighting here if you like it, and well if it room) for the purpose of laying the cloth. come not to seek you when you are least prepared. Fare- Having at length obliged him to relinquish his pur- well for the present—the char-woman will execute your pose, he could not help observing that the eyes of the commands for your meals.” old dotard seemed still anxiously fixed upon the small She left the room, just as Nigel, provoked at her as- table on which lay his sword and pistols; and that, amidst suming a superior tone of judgment and of censure, was all the little duties which he seemed officiously anxious about to be so superfluous as to enter into a dispute with to render to his guest, he took every opportunity of look- an old pawnbroker’s daughter on the subject of the point ing towards and approaching these objects of his atten- of honour. He smiled at himself for the folly into which tion. At length, when Trapbois thought he had com- the spirit of self-vindication had so nearly hurried him. pletely avoided the notice of his guest, Nigel, through Lord Glenvarloch then applied to old Deborah the the observation of one of the cracked mirrors, oh which char-woman, by whose intermediation he was provided channel of communication the old man had not calcu- with a tolerably decent dinner; and the only embarrass- lated, beheld him actually extend his hand towards the ment which he experienced, was from the almost forc- table in question. He thought it unnecessary to use fur- ible entry of the old dotard his landlord, who insisted ther ceremony, but telling his landlord, in a stern voice, upon giving his assistance at laying the cloth. Nigel had that he permitted no one to touch his arms, he com- some difficulty to prevent him from displacing his arms manded him to leave the apartment. The old usurer com- and some papers which were lying on a small table at menced a maundering sort of apology, in which all that

344 Sir Walter Scott Nigel distinctly apprehended, was a frequent repetition Nigel accepted the careful sound of the bolts and bars of the word consideration, and which did not seem to as they were severally drawn by the trembling hand of him to require any other answer than a reiteration of old Trapbois, as an omen that the senior did not mean his command to him to leave the apartment, upon pain again to revisit him in the course of the evening, and of worse consequences. heartily rejoiced that he was at length to be left to un- The ancient Hebe who acted as Lord Glenvarloch’s interrupted solitude. cup-bearer, took his part against the intrusion of the The old woman asked if there was aught else to be still more antiquated Ganymede, and insisted on old done for his accommodation; and, indeed, it had hith- Trapbois leaving the room instantly, menacing him at erto seemed as if the pleasure of serving him, or more the same time with her mistress’s displeasure if he re- properly the reward which she expected, had renewed mained there any longer. The old man seemed more un- her youth and activity. Nigel desired to have candles, to der petticoat government than any other, for the threat have a fire lighted in his apartment, and a few fagots of the char-woman produced greater effect upon him placed beside it, that he might feed it from time to time, than the more formidable displeasure of Nigel. He with- as he began to feel the chilly effects of the damp and drew grumbling and muttering, and Lord Glenvarloch low situation of the house, close as it was to the Thames. heard him bar a large door at the nearer end of the gal- But while the old woman was absent upon his errand, lery, which served as a division betwixt the other parts he began to think in what way he should pass the long of the extensive mansion, and the apartment occupied solitary evening with which he was threatened. by his guest, which, as the reader is aware, had its ac- His own reflections promised to Nigel little amuse- cess from the landing-place at the head of the grand ment, and less applause. He had considered his own per- staircase. ilous situation in every light in which it could be viewed,

345 The Fortunes of Nigel and foresaw as little utility as comfort in resuming the of Witte, being the second part of Arithmetic, by Rob- survey. To divert the current of his ideas, books were, ert Record, with the Cossike Practice and Rule of Equa- of course, the readiest resource; and although, like most tion; which promising volume Nigel declined to borrow. of us, Nigel had, in his time, sauntered through large She offered, however, to bring him some books from libraries, and even spent a long time there without Duke Hildebrod—“who sometimes, good gentleman, greatly disturbing their learned contents, he was now in gave a glance at a book when the State affairs of Alsatia a situation where the possession of a volume, even of left him as much leisure.” very inferior merit, becomes a real treasure. The old Nigfil embraced the proposal, and his unwearied Iris housewife returned shortly afterwards with fagots, and scuttled away on this second embassy. She returned in a some pieces of half-burnt wax-candles, the perquisites, short time with a tattered quarto volume under her arm, probably, real or usurped, of some experienced groom and a bottle of sack in her hand; for the Duke, judging of the chambers, two of which she placed in large brass that mere reading was dry work, had sent the wine by candlesticks, of different shapes and patterns, and laid way of sauce to help it down, not forgetting to add the the others on the table, that Nigel might renew them price to the morning’s score, which he had already run from time to time as they burnt to the socket. She heard up against the stranger in the Sanctuary. with interest Lord Glenvarloch’s request to have a Nigel seized on the book, and did not refuse the wine, book—any sort of book—to pass away the night withal, thinking that a glass or two, as it really proved to be of and returned for answer, that she knew of no other books good quality, would be no bad interlude to his studies. in the house than her young mistress’s (as she always He dismissed, with thanks and assurance of reward, the denominated Mistress Martha Trapbois) Bible, which poor old drudge who had been so zealous in his service; the owner would not lend; and her master’s Whetstone trimmed his fire and candles, and placed the easiest of

346 Sir Walter Scott the old arm-chairs in a convenient posture betwixt the out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of fire and the table at which he had dined, and which now wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, supported the measure of sack and the lights; and thus and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally accompanying his studies with such luxurious appliances temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the as were in his power, he began to examine the only vol- canary sack which he had already drank, and had no ume with which the ducal library of Alsatia had been farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted able to supply him. to compose a memorial addressed to the king, in which The contents, though of a kind generally interesting, he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily were not well calculated to dispel the gloom by which stung with the idea that his supplication would be he was surrounded. The book was entitled “God’s Re- treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, venge against Murther;” not, as the bibliomaniacal in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds laid aside. published under that imposing name, but one of a much Nigel became more interested in the volume at the sec- earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, ond than at the first attempt which he made to peruse could a copy now be found, would sell for much more it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to than its weight in gold.* Nigel had soon enough of the human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awak- one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked ening horrors. Much was told of the strange and hor- *Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at rible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and Kennaquhair, and two—one foxed and cropped, the other humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of re- tall and in good condition—both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.—Note by CAPTAIN venge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular am- CLUTTERBUCK. 347 The Fortunes of Nigel bition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more sur- when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as prising and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The very act of extending his withered hand towards the elements had seemed to betray the deed which had pol- table which supported his arms. Convinced by this un- luted them—earth had ceased to support the murderer’s timely apparition that something evil was meditated steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, and placing it at the old man’s breast, demanded of him bore evidence to the homicide’s guilt. In other circum- what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. stances, the criminal’s own awakened conscience pur- Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only an- sued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives swered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of would part with his life rather than with his property; the sufferer might call for revenge. and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not It was now wearing late in the night, and the book what to think of the intruder’s motives, and still less was still in Nigel’s hands, when the tapestry which hung how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind pro- intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition duced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose to possess her father’s insensibility to danger, for, com- from the nature of his studies, especially at a period ing close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his na-

348 Sir Walter Scott ked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. bers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his “For shame,” she said, “your sword on a man of eighty cracked and feeble voice— years and more!—this the honour of a Scottish gentle- “It is mine—it is mine!—he gave it to me for a consid- man!—give it to me to make a spindle of!” eration—I will die ere I part with my property!” “Stand back,” said Nigel; “I mean your father no in- “It is indeed his own, mistress,” said Nigel, “and I do jury—but I will know what has caused him to prowl entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet.” around my arms.” “I will account with you for it, then,”—said the maiden, “Your arms!” repeated she; “alas! young man, the reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Mammon, whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a con- which I left this morning on the table of a young spend- tented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he thrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice own purse.” round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; “This shall be properly fastened to-morrow,” said the and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her fa- on his imagination, that he had made use of a private ther, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not passage long disused, to enter his guest’s apartment, in hear her; “to-night I will continue to watch him order to possess himself of the treasure during his slum- closely.—I wish you good repose.”

349 The Fortunes of Nigel These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civil- Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current among ity than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and an- contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, al- other, and another, succeeded so close, that he was cer- though her guest, presently after her departure, retired tain, though the noise was remote and sounded stifled, to bed. it must be in the same house with himself. There was a slight fever in Nigel’s blood, occasioned Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, by the various events of the evening, which put him, as seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of his the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams redoubled, thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and and, as he thought, the sounds came from the usurer’s the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the far- apartment. All access to the gallery was effectually ex- ther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all cluded by the intermediate door, which the brave young the resources common in such cases; kept counting from lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the se- one to a thousand, until his head was giddy—he watched cret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were dazzled— hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swing- difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by ing and creaking of signs which projected from the hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they houses, and the baying of here and there a homeless should sink into silence. dog, till his very ear was weary. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his which startled him at once. It was a female shriek. He ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which sat up in his bed to listen, then remembered he was in terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of

350 Sir Walter Scott men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. “D—n her, effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, strike her down—silence her—beat her brains out!”— lost heart, made for the window, leaped over it, and es- while the voice of his hostess, though now almost ex- caped. Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a hausted, was repeating the cry of “murder,” and “help.” venture, and then called for light. At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which “There is light in the kitchen,” answered Martha gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon Trapbois, with more presence of mind than could have the scene of action,—a cocked pistol in one hand, a been expected. “Stay, you know not the way; I will fetch candle in the other, and his naked sword under his arm. it myself.—Oh! my father—my poor father!—I knew it Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, would come to this—and all along of the accursed or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the daugh- gold!—They have murdered him!” ter 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

351 The Fortunes of Nigel also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy CHAPTER XXV 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 Death finds us ‘mid our playthings—snatches us, at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if un- As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, disturbed either by passion or terror, failed not to inter- From all our toys and baubles. His rough call pret justly. Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth; “Fear not,” she cried, “fear not; they are base cow- And well if they are such as may be answer’d ards, to whom courage is as much unknown as mercy. If In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. I had had weapons, I could have defended myself against Old Play. them without assistance or protection.—Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.—He is dead—dead!” IT WAS A GHASTLY SCENE which opened, upon Martha While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the Trapbois’s return with a light. Her own haggard and dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even austere features were exaggerated by all the despera- from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, tion of grief, fear, and passion—but the latter was pre- that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a dominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing with more presence of mind than a daughter could at plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay the time have been supposed capable of exerting, dis-

352 Sir Walter Scott covered the instrument of his murder—a sort of scarf, twisted by the violence of the murderers; “It is in vain— which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to he is murdered—I always knew it would be thus; and stifle his cries for assistance, in the first instance, and now I witness it!” afterwards to extinguish life. She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man’s but it was only to dash them again on the floor, as she body in the arms of Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for wa- exclaimed, “Accursed be ye both, for you are the causes ter, for spirits, for essences, in the vain hope that life of this deed!” might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed vain. Nigel would have spoken—would have reminded her, She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his that measures should be instantly taken for the pursuit nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed of the murderer who had escaped, as well as for her own upon hearing the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, security against his return; but she interrupted him opened, with difficulty, his fixed and closely-clenched sharply. hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other “Be silent,” she said, “be silent. Think you, the the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract had been a little before so anxious, and which probably, me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, be in the impaired state of his mental faculties, he was dis- silent,” she said again, and in a yet sterner tone—“Can posed to defend with as desperate energy as if its amount a daughter listen, and her father’s murdered corpse ly- had been necessary to his actual existence. ing on her knees?” “It is in vain—it is in vain,” said the daughter, desist- Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy ing from her fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his had been effectually dislodged, for the neck had been own situation. He had discharged both his pistols—the

353 The Fortunes of Nigel robber might return—he had probably other assistants nor pleasure at Nigel’s return, but said to him calmly— besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, “My moan is made—my sorrow—all the sorrow at least indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the win- that man shall ever have noting of, is gone past; but I dows. He explained hastily to his companion the neces- will have justice, and the base villain who murdered this sity of procuring ammunition. poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course “You are right,” she said, somewhat contemptuously, of nature, a twelvemonth’s life in him, shall not cumber “and have ventured already more than ever I expected the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your sent to forward the revenge reserved for this action, go purpose—leave me to my fate.” to Hildebrod’s—there they are awake all night in their Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel revels—bid him come hither—he is bound by his duty, hastened to his own room through the secret passage, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which furnished himself with the ammunition he sought for, he knows well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?—go in- and returned with the same celerity; wondering him- stantly.” self at the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, “I would,” said Nigel, “but I am fearful of leaving all the meanderings of the passage which he had tra- you alone; the villains may return, and—” versed only once, and that in a moment of such violent “True, most true,” answered Martha, “he may return; agitation. and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman stand- possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep ing like a statue by the body of her father, which she this key and this piece of gold; they are both of impor- had laid straight on the floor, having covered the face tance—defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither surprise villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid.”

354 Sir Walter Scott Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfort- departed, and in a moment he heard the house-door able than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and clank behind her. For an instant he thought of follow- reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the ing her; but upon recollection that the distance was but deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of He now thought he heard the well-worn damask night- Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he— gown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratch- do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she ing the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he recommended. deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such returned ruffian under the window from which he had scenes to remain in the apartment with two dead bod- lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, ies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had and to parry the terrors which the other class of feel- both, within the space of less than half an hour, suf- ings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the fered violent death; one of them by the hand of the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, him, by the spectator’s own deed of violence, though of armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with super- of duke, but in that which he really possessed of bailiff stition; and he found, when he had done so, that the of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances.

355 The Fortunes of Nigel It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these and that the more readily, because she was watching him debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their mid- on account of some alarm concerning his health. On her night revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They entrance, she had seen her father sinking under the stared on each other, and on the bloody work before strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawl- and their figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the ing voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with hurry of a moment so dreadfully agitating, to distinguish spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were either of them as persons whom she had seen before. She still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk, they remembered little more except the firing of shots, until seemed like men walking in their sleep. she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condi- ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as tion. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus capable of motion, when there occurred a motive suffi- received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that ciently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much the villains had made their entrance by the window out shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in conse- of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed quence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, singular that they should have done so, as it was secured than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting with strong iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first ex- of shutting with his own hand at nightfall. He minuted amined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinct- down with great accuracy, the state of every thing in the ness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a apartment, and examined carefully the features of the noise of struggling and violence in her father’s apartment, slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest

356 Sir Walter Scott order, but his face was known to none present. Hildebrod you know whom I mean?” next sent for an Alsatian surgeon, whose vices, undoing “Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say what his skill might have done for him, had consigned I have seen Captain Peppercull have one of such a fash- him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him ion, and he was not a man to change his suits often.” examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration “Send out, then,” said Martha, “and have him appre- of the manner in which the sufferers seemed to have come hended.” by their end. The circumstances of the sash did not es- “If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will com- cape the learned judge, and having listened to all that municate with the higher powers,” answered the judge. could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and col- “You would have him escape,” resumed she, fixing her lected all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear eyes on him sternly. on the bloody transaction, he commanded the door of “By cock and pie,” replied Hildebrod, “did it depend the apartment to be locked until next morning; and car- on me, the murdering cut-throat should hang as high as rying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered man ever Haman did—but let me take my time. He has into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but friends among us, that you wot well; and all that should Lord Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she sus- assist me are as drunk as fiddlers.” pected no one in particular of having committed the deed. “I will have revenge—I will have it,” repeated she; “Do you suspect no one?” answered Martha, looking “and take heed you trifle not with me.” fixedly on him. “Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute “Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask ques- after they had baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but tions, yours to answer them. That’s the rule of the game.” patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, “Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have trap-

357 The Fortunes of Nigel doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, her with the tear in her eye, man—take her with the for you have the means to get it.” tear in her eye. Let me hear from you to-morrow. Good- “They who help me in my revenge,” said Martha, night, good-night—a nod is as good as a wink. I must to “shall share those means.” my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this “Enough said,” replied Hildebrod; “and now I would horrid work has put all out of my head.—Here is a fel- have you go to my house, and get something hot—you low from Mr. Lowestoffe has been asking to see you. As will be but dreary here by yourself.” he said his business was express, the Senate only made “I will send for the old char-woman,” replied Martha, him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming “and we have the stranger gentleman, besides.” to beat up your quarters when this breeze blew up.— “Umph, umph—the stranger gentleman!” said Hildebrod Ahey, friend! there is Master Nigel Grahame.” to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. “I fancy the captain A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a has made the stranger gentleman’s fortune when he was badge on the sleeve, and having the appearance of a making a bold dash for his own. I can tell your honour—I waterman, approached and took Nigel aside, while Duke must not say lordship—that I think my having chanced to Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise his au- give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I thority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. of the apartment locked up. The news communicated The better for you—you will get the cash without the fa- by Lowestoffe’s messenger were not the most pleasant. ther-in-law.—You will keep conditions, I trust?” They were intimated in a courteous whisper to Nigel, to “I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme the following effect:—That Master Lowestoffe prayed so absurd,” said Nigel. him to consult his safety by instantly leaving “Absurd!—Why, think you she will not have thee? Take Whitefriars, for that a warrant from the Lord Chief-

358 Sir Walter Scott Justice had been issued out for apprehending him, and Lord Glenvarloch. would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a “The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yester- party of musketeers, a force which the Alsatians nei- day by water, like a noble sovereign as he is, who will ther would nor dared to resist. always float where he can. He was to have hunted this “And so, squire,” said the aquatic emissary, “my week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and the wherry is to wait you at the Temple Stairs yonder, at Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, five this morning, and, if you would give the blood- are as merry as minnows.” hounds the slip, why, you may.” “Well,” replied Nigel, “I will be ready to go at five; do “Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me?” said Nigel. thou come hither to carry my baggage.” “Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it “Ay, ay, master,” replied the fellow, and left the house himself, and has as little to do with pen and ink as if he mixing himself with the disorderly attendants of Duke were a parson.” Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate en- “Did he send any token to me?” said Nigel. treated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and, “Token!—ay, marry did he—token enough, an I have pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with not forgot it,” said the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the her limbs outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death waistband of his breeches, he said,—“Ay, I have it— had already arrested, he whispered, “Mind your hits, you were to believe me, because your name was written and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.—Well, you before you can draw it.” shall we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could rec- the river like a twelve-oared barge?” ommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such “Where is the king just now, knowest thou?” answered a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his tem-

359 The Fortunes of Nigel per so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to but, as he was about to leave the Friars—” She inter- the former part of it, by barring the door carefully be- rupted him— hind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope “You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you.” that he should never again see or hear of them. He then “You go with me!” exclaimed Lord Glenvarloch. returned to the kitchen, in which the unhappy woman “Yes,” she said, “I will persuade my father to leave remained, her hands still clenched, her eyes fixed, and this murdering den.” But, as she spoke, the more per- her limbs extended, like those of a person in a trance. fect recollection of what had passed crowded on her Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which mind. She hid her face in her hands, and burst out into lay before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence a dreadful fit of sobs, moans, and lamentations, which by every means in his power, and at length apparently terminated in hysterics, violent in proportion to the succeeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her at- uncommon strength of her body and mind. tention. He then explained to her that he was in the act Lord Glenvarloch, shocked, confused, and inexperi- of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours—that his future enced, was about to leave the house in quest of medical, destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously or at least female assistance; but the patient, when the to know whether he could contribute to her protection paroxysm had somewhat spent its force, held him fast by apprizing any friend of her situation, or otherwise. by the sleeve with one hand, covering her face with the With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his mean- other, while a copious flood of tears came to relieve the ing, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious emotions of grief by which she had been so violently manner. “He might mean well,” she said, “but he ought agitated. to know that the miserable had no friends.” “Do not leave me,” she said—“do not leave me, and Nigel said, “He would not willingly be importunate, call no one. I have never been in this way before, and

360 Sir Walter Scott would not now,” she said, sitting upright, and wiping correspondent highness of mind, seemed determined to her eyes with her apron,—“would not now—but that— owe as little as possible either to the humanity or the but that he loved me. if he loved nothing else that was pity of others. human—To die so, and by such hands!” “I am not wont to be in this way,” she said,—“but— And again the unhappy woman gave way to a parox- but—Nature will have power over the frail beings it has ysm of sorrow, mingling her tears with sobbing, wail- made. Over you, sir, I have some right; for, without you, I ing, and all the abandonment of female grief, when at had not survived this awful night. I wish your aid had been its utmost height. At length, she gradually recovered either earlier or later—but you have saved my life, and you the austerity of her natural composure, and maintained are bound to assist in making it endurable to me.” it as if by a forcible exertion of resolution, repelling, as “If you will show me how it is possible,” answered she spoke, the repeated returns of the hysterical affec- Nigel. tion, by such an effort as that by which epileptic pa- “You are going hence, you say, instantly—carry me tients are known to suspend the recurrence of their fits. with you,” said the unhappy woman. “By my own ef- Yet her mind, however resolved, could not so absolutely forts, I shall never escape from this wilderness of guilt overcome the affection of her nerves, but that she was and misery.” agitated by strong fits of trembling, which, for a minute “Alas! what can I do for you?” replied Nigel. “My own or two at a time, shook her whole frame in a manner way, and I must not deviate from it, leads me, in all frightful to witness. Nigel forgot his own situation, and, probability, to a dungeon. I might, indeed, transport indeed, every thing else, in the interest inspired by the you from hence with me, if you could afterwards be- unhappy woman before him—an interest which affected stow yourself with any friend.” a proud spirit the more deeply, that she herself, with “Friend!” she exclaimed—“I have no friend—they have

361 The Fortunes of Nigel long since discarded us. A spectre arising from the dead our journey, and it will be hard if the contents cannot were more welcome than I should be at the doors of those purchase me a place of refuge.” who have disclaimed us; and, if they were willing to re- “But the door communicating with the kitchen has store their friendship to me now, I would despise it, be- been locked by these people,” said Nigel. cause they withdrew it from him—from him”—(here she “True, I had forgot; they had their reasons for that, underwent strong but suppressed agitation, and then doubtless,” answered she. “But the secret passage from added firmly)—“from him who lies yonder.—I have no your apartment is open, and you may go that way.” friend.” Here she paused; and then suddenly, as if recol- Lord Glenvarloch took the key, and, as he lighted a lecting herself, added, “I have no friend, but I have that lamp to show him the way, she read in his countenance will purchase many—I have that which will purchase both some unwillingness to the task imposed. friends and avengers.—It is well thought of; I must not “You fear?” said she—“there is no cause; the murderer leave it for a prey to cheats and ruffians.—Stranger, you and his victim are both at rest. Take courage, I will go must return to yonder room. Pass through it boldly to with you myself—you cannot know the trick of the his—that is, to the sleeping apartment; push the bed- spring, and the chest will be too heavy for you.” stead aside; beneath each of the posts is a brass plate, as “No fear, no fear,” answered Lord Glenvarloch, if to support the weight, but it is that upon the left, near- ashamed of the construction she put upon a momen- est to the wall, which must serve your turn—press the tary hesitation, arising from a dislike to look upon what corner of the plate, and it will spring up and show a key- is horrible, often connected with those high-wrought hole, which this key will open. You will then lift a con- minds which are the last to fear what is merely danger- cealed trap-door, and in a cavity of the floor you will dis- ous—“I will do your errand as you desire; but for you, cover a small chest. Bring it hither; it shall accompany you must not—cannot go yonder.”

362 Sir Walter Scott “I can—I will,” she said. “I am composed. You shall to oppose the entrance of the villains into the next apart- see that I am so.” She took from the table a piece of ment. The hard mattress scarcely showed the slight pres- unfinished sewing-work, and, with steadiness and com- sure where the emaciated body of the old miser had been posure, passed a silken thread into the eye of a fine deposited. His daughter sank beside the bed, clasped needle.—“Could I have done that,” she said, with a smile her hands, and prayed to heaven, in a short and affec- yet more ghastly than her previous look of fixed de- tionate manner, for support in her affliction, and for spair, “had not my heart and hand been both steady?” vengeance on the villains who had made her fatherless. She then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel’s cham- A low-muttered and still more brief petition recom- ber, and proceeded through the secret passage with the mended to Heaven the soul of the sufferer, and invoked same haste, as if she had feared her resolution might pardon for his sins, in virtue of the great Christian atone- have failed her ere her purpose was executed. At the ment. bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before en- This duty of piety performed, she signed to Nigel to tering the fatal apartment, then hurried through with a aid her; and, having pushed aside the heavy bedstead, rapid step to the sleeping chamber beyond, followed they saw the brass plate which Martha had described. closely by Lord Glenvarloch, whose reluctance to ap- She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate starting proach the scene of butchery was altogether lost in the up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in anxiety which he felt on account of the survivor of the lifting the trap-door, which, when raised, displayed the tragedy. strong box, or small chest, she had mentioned, and which Her first action was to pull aside the curtains of her proved indeed so very weighty, that it might perhaps father’s bed. The bed-clothes were thrown aside in con- have been scarcely possible for Nigel, though a very fusion, doubtless in the action of his starting from sleep strong man, to have raised it without assistance.

363 The Fortunes of Nigel Having replaced everything as they had found it, she said, “as part of your baggage. I will be in readiness Nigel, with such help as his companion was able to af- so soon as the waterman calls.” ford, assumed his load, and made a shift to carry it into She retired; and Lord Glenvarloch, who saw the hour the next apartment, where lay the miserable owner, in- of their departure approach, tore down a part of the sensible to sounds and circumstances, which, if any thing old hanging to make a covering, which he corded upon could have broken his long last slumber, would certainly the trunk, lest the peculiarity of its shape, and the care have done so. His unfortunate daughter went up to his with which it was banded and counterbanded with bars body, and had even the courage to remove the sheet of steel, might afford suspicions respecting the treasure which had been decently disposed over it. She put her which it contained. Having taken this measure of pre- hand on the heart, but there was no throb—held a caution, he changed the rascally disguise, which he had feather to the lips, but there was no motion—then kissed assumed on entering Whitefriars, into a suit becoming with deep reverence the starting veins of the pale fore- his quality, and then, unable to sleep, though exhausted head, and then the emaciated hand. with the events of the night, he threw himself on his “I would you could hear me,” she said,—“Father! I bed to await the summons of the waterman. 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,”

364 Sir Walter Scott them, in a rough impressive whisper, “time and tide wait for no man.” CHAPTER XXVI “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, Give us good voyage, gentle stream—we stun not unless he means to load the wherry like a six-horse Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry; waggon. When they don’t want to shift the whole kitt, Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks they take a sculler, and be d—d to them. Come, come, With voice of flute and horn—we do but seek where be your rattle-traps?” On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom One of the men was soon sufficiently loaded, in his own To glide in silent safety. estimation at least, with Lord Glenvarloch’s mail and its The Double Bridal. 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 GREY, OR RATHER yellow light, was beginning to twinkle miser’s treasure, but pitched it down again in an instant, through the fogs of Whitefriars, when a low tap at the declaring, with a great oath, that it was as reasonable to door of the unhappy miser announced to Lord expect a man to carry Paul’s on his back. The daughter Glenvarloch the summons of the boatman. He found at of Trapbois, who had by this time joined them, muffled the door the man whom he had seen the night before, up in a long dark hood and mantle, exclaimed to Lord with a companion. Glenvarloch—“Let them leave it if they will, let them “Come, come, master, let us get afloat,” said one of leave it all; let us but escape from this horrible place.”

365 The Fortunes of Nigel We have mentioned elsewhere, that Nigel was a very woman, what, are you stepping in for?—our gunwale athletic young man, and, impelled by a strong feeling lies deep enough in the water without live lumber to of compassion and indignation, he showed his bodily boot.” strength singularly on this occasion, by seizing on the “This person comes with me,” said Lord Glenvarloch; ponderous strong-box, and, by means of the rope he had “she is for the present under my protection.” cast around it, throwing it on his shoulders, and march- “Come, come, master,” rejoined the fellow, “that is out ing resolutely forward under a weight, which would have of my commission. You must not double my freight on sunk to the earth three young gallants, at the least, of me—she may go by land—and, as for protection, her our degenerate day. The waterman followed him in face will protect her from Berwick to the Land’s End.” amazement, calling out, “Why, master, master, you “You will not except at my doubling the loading, if I might as well gie me t’other end on’t!” and anon offered double the fare?” said Nigel, determined on no account his assistance to support it in some degree behind, which to relinquish the protection of this unhappy woman, after the first minute or two Nigel was fain to accept. for which he had already devised some sort of plan, likely His strength was almost exhausted when he reached the now to be baffled by the characteristic rudeness of the wherry, which was lying at the Temple Stairs according Thames watermen. to appointment; and, when he pitched the trunk into it, “Ay, by G—, but I will except, though, “said the fel- the weight sank the bow of the boat so low in the water low with the green plush jacket: “I will overload my as well-nigh to overset it. wherry neither for love nor money—I love my boat as “We shall have as hard a fare of it,” said the waterman well as my wife, and a thought better.” to his companion, “as if we were ferrying over an hon- “Nay, nay, comrade,” said his mate, “that is speaking est bankrupt with all his secreted goods—Ho, ho! good no true water language. For double fare we are bound to

366 Sir Walter Scott row a witch in her eggshell if she bid us; and so pull Meanwhile, Lord Glenvarloch asked his desolate com- away, Jack, and let us have no more prating.” panion if she had thought on any place where she could They got into the stream-way accordingly, and, al- remain in safety with her property. She confessed, in though heavily laden, began to move down the river with more detail than formerly, that her father’s character reasonable speed. had left her no friends; and that, from the time he had The lighter vessels which passed, overtook, or crossed betaken himself to Whitefriars, to escape certain legal them, in their course, failed not to assail them with their consequences of his eager pursuit of gain, she had lived boisterous raillery, which was then called water-wit; for a life of total seclusion; not associating with the society which the extreme plainness of Mistress Martha’s features, which the place afforded, and, by her residence there, as contrasted with the youth, handsome figure, and good looks well as her father’s parsimony, effectually cut off from of Nigel, furnished the principal topics; while the circum- all other company. What she now wished, was, in the stance of the boat being somewhat overloaded, did not first place, to obtain the shelter of a decent lodging, and escape their notice. They were hailed successively, as a the countenance of honest people, however low in life, grocer’s wife upon a party of pleasure with her eldest ap- until she should obtain legal advice as to the mode of prentice—as an old woman carrying her grandson to obtaining justice on her father’s murderer. She had no school—and as a young strapping Irishman, conveying an hesitation to charge the guilt upon Colepepper, (com- ancient maiden to Dr. Rigmarole’s, at Redriffe, who buck- monly called Peppercull,) whom she knew to be as ca- les beggars for a tester and a dram of Geneva. All this abuse pable of any act of treacherous cruelty, as he was cow- was retorted in a similar strain of humour by Greenjacket ardly, where actual manhood was required. He had been and his companion, who maintained the war of wit with strongly suspected of two robberies before, one of which the same alacrity with which they were assailed. was coupled with an atrocious murder. He had, she inti-

367 The Fortunes of Nigel mated, made pretensions to her hand as the easiest and most likely to instigate the bravo to the deed of vio- safest way of obtaining possession of her father’s wealth; lence which had been committed. The reflection that and, on her refusing his addresses, if they could be his own name was in some degree implicated with the termed so, in the most positive terms, he had thrown causes of this horrid tragedy, doubled Lord Glenvarloch’s out such obscure hints of vengeance, as, joined with anxiety in behalf of the victim whom he had rescued, some imperfect assaults upon the house, had kept her while at the same time he formed the tacit resolution, in frequent alarm, both on her father’s account and her that, so soon as his own affairs were put upon some foot- own. ing, he would contribute all in his power towards the Nigel, but that his feeling of respectful delicacy to the investigation of this bloody affair. unfortunate woman forebade him to do so, could here After ascertaining from his companion that she could have communicated a circumstance corroborative of her form no better plan of her own, he recommended to her suspicions, which had already occurred to his own mind. to take up her lodging for the time, at the house of his He recollected the hint that old Hildebrod threw forth old landlord, Christie the ship-chandler, at Paul’s Wharf, on the preceding night, that some communication be- describing the decency and honesty of that worthy twixt himself and Colepepper had hastened the catas- couple, and expressing his hopes that they would re- trophe. As this communication related to the plan which ceive her into their own house, or recommend her at least Hildebrod had been pleased to form, of promoting a to that of some person for whom they would be respon- marriage betwixt Nigel himself and the rich heiress of sible, until she should have time to enter upon other ar- Trapbois, the fear of losing an opportunity not to be rangements for herself. regained, together with the mean malignity of a low- The poor woman received advice so grateful to her in bred ruffian, disappointed in a favourite scheme, was her desolate condition, with an expression of thanks,

368 Sir Walter Scott brief indeed, but deeper than any thing had yet ex- portance. The note he subscribed with his real name, tracted from the austerity of her natural disposition. and, delivering it to his protegee, who received it with Lord Glenvarloch then proceeded to inform Martha, another deeply uttered “I thank you,” which spoke the that certain reasons, connected with his personal safety, sterling feelings of her gratitude better than a thousand called him immediately to Greenwich, and, therefore, it combined phrases, he commanded the watermen to pull would not be in his power to accompany her to Christie’s in for Paul’s Wharf, which they were now approaching. house, which he would otherwise have done with plea- “We have not time,” said Green-jacket; “we cannot be sure: but, tearing a leaf from his tablet, he wrote on it a stopping every instant.” few lines, addressed to his landlord, as a man of hon- But, upon Nigel insisting upon his commands being esty and humanity, in which he described the bearer as obeyed, and adding, that it was for the purpose of put- a person who stood in singular necessity of temporary ting the lady ashore, the waterman declared that he protection and good advice, for which her circumstances would rather have her room than her company, and put enabled her to make ample acknowledgment. He there- the wherry alongside the wharf accordingly. Here two fore requested John Christie, as his old and good friend, of the porters, who ply in such places, were easily in- to afford her the shelter of his roof for a short time; or, duced to undertake the charge of the ponderous strong- if that might not be consistent with his convenience, at box, and at the same time to guide the owner to the least to direct her to a proper lodging-and, finally, he well-known mansion of John Christie, with whom all imposed on him the additional, and somewhat more dif- who lived in that neighbourhood were perfectly ac- ficult commission, to recommend her to the counsel and quainted. services of an honest, at least a reputable and skilful The boat, much lightened of its load, went down the attorney, for the transacting some law business of im- Thames at a rate increased in proportion. But we must

369 The Fortunes of Nigel forbear to pursue her in her voyage for a few minutes, shelter even in the house of a humble tradesman. since we have previously to mention the issue of Lord While she thus delayed, a more reasonable cause for Glenvarloch’s recommendation. hesitation arose, in a considerable noise and altercation Mistress Martha Trapbois reached the shop in perfect within the house, which grew louder and louder as the safety, and was about to enter it, when a sickening sense disputants issued forth upon the street or lane before of the uncertainty of her situation, and of the singu- the door. larly painful task of telling her story, came over her so The first who entered upon the scene was a tall raw- strongly, that she paused a moment at the very thresh- boned hard-favoured man, who stalked out of the shop old of her proposed place of refuge, to think in what hastily, with a gait like that of a Spaniard in a passion, manner she could best second the recommendation of who, disdaining to add speed to his locomotion by run- the friend whom Providence had raised up to her. Had ning, only condescends, in the utmost extremity of his she possessed that knowledge of the world, from which angry haste, to add length to his stride. He faced about, her habits of life had completely excluded her, she might so soon as he was out of the house, upon his pursuer, a have known that the large sum of money which she decent-looking, elderly, plain tradesman—no other than brought along with her, might, judiciously managed, John Christie himself, the owner of the shop and tene- have been a passport to her into the mansions of nobles, ment, by whom he seemed to be followed, and who was and the palaces of princes. But, however conscious of in a state of agitation more than is usually expressed by its general power, which assumes so many forms and such a person. complexions, she was so inexperienced as to be most “I’ll hear no more on’t,” said the personage who first unnecessarily afraid that the means by which the wealth appeared on the scene.—“Sir, I will hear no more on it. had been acquired, might exclude its inheretrix from Besides being a most false and impudent figment, as I

370 Sir Walter Scott can testify—it is Scandaalum Magnaatum, sir— he had caught up as the readiest weapon of working his Scandaalum Magnaatum” he reiterated with a broad foeman damage, and advanced therewith upon him. The accentuation of the first vowel, well known in the col- cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already leges of Edinburgh and Glasgow, which we can only pronounced him, from his language and pedantry) drew express in print by doubling the said first of letters and back as the enraged ship-chandler approached, but in a of vowels, and which would have cheered the cockles of surly manner, and bearing his hand on his sword-hilt the reigning monarch had he been within hearing,—as rather in the act of one who was losing habitual for- he was a severer stickler for what he deemed the genu- bearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed ine pronunciation of the Roman tongue, than for any by the attack of an antagonist inferior to himself in of the royal prerogatives, for which he was at times dis- youth, strength, and weapons. posed to insist so strenuously in his speeches to Parlia- “Bide back,” he said, “Maister Christie—I say bide ment. back, and consult your safety, man. I have evited strik- “I care not an ounce of rotten cheese,” said John ing you in your ain house under muckle provocation, Christie in reply, “what you call it—but it is TRUE; and because I am ignorant how the laws here may pronounce I am a free Englishman, and have right to speak the respecting burglary and hamesucken, and such matters; truth in my own concerns; and your master is little bet- and, besides, I would not willingly hurt ye, man, e’en ter than a villain, and you no more than a swaggering on the causeway, that is free to us baith, because I mind coxcomb, whose head I will presently break, as I have your kindness of lang syne, and partly consider ye as a known it well broken before on lighter occasion.” poor deceived creature. But deil d—n me, sir, and I am And, so saying, he flourished the paring-shovel which not wont to swear, but if you touch my Scotch shouther usually made clean the steps of his little shop, and which with that shule of yours, I will make six inches of my

371 The Fortunes of Nigel Andrew Ferrara deevilish intimate with your guts, is that a kindly Scot should ever have married in foreign neighbour.” parts, and given life to a purse-proud, pudding-headed, And therewithal, though still retreating from the bran- fat-gutted, lean-brained Southron, e’en such as you, dished shovel, he made one-third of the basket-hilled Maister Christie. But fare ye weel—fare ye weel, for ever broadsword which he wore, visible from the sheath. The and a day; and, if you quarrel wi’ a Scot again, man, wrath of John Christie was abated, either by his natu- say as mickle ill o’ himsell as ye like, but say nane of his ral temperance of disposition, or perhaps in part by the patron or of his countrymen, or it will scarce be your glimmer of cold steel, which flashed on him from his flat cap that will keep your lang lugs from the sharp adversary’s last action. abridgement of a Highland whinger, man.” “I would do well to cry clubs on thee, and have thee “And, if you continue your insolence to me before my ducked at the wharf,” he said, grounding his shovel, own door, were it but two minutes longer,” retorted John however, at the same time, “for a paltry swaggerer, that Christie, “I will call the constable, and make your Scot- would draw thy bit of iron there on an honest citizen tish ankles acquainted with an English pair of stocks!” before his own door; but get thee gone, and reckon on a So saying, he turned to retire into his shop with some salt eel for thy supper, if thou shouldst ever come near show of victory; for his enemy, whatever might be his my house again. I wish it had been at the bottom of the innate valour, manifested no desire to drive matters to Thames when it first gave the use of its roof to smooth- extremity—conscious, perhaps, that whatever advan- faced, oily-tongued, double-minded Scots thieves!” tage he might gain in single combat with Jonn Christie, “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest,” replied his would be more than overbalanced by incurring an affair adversary, not perhaps the less bold that he saw matters with the constituted authorities of Old England, not at were taking the turn of a pacific debate; “and a pity it that time apt to be particularly favourable to their new

372 Sir Walter Scott fellow-subjects, in the various successive broils which word, or taking the trouble to gather more of the infor- were then constantly taking place between the individu- mation contained in the letter than was expressed in als of two proud nations, who still retained a stronger the subscription, the incensed ship chandler threw it sense of their national animosity during centuries, than down on the ground, trampled it in high disdain, and, of their late union for a few years under the govern- without addressing a single word to the bearer, except, ment of the same prince. indeed, something much more like a hearty curse than Mrs. Martha Trapbois had dwelt too long in Alsatia, was perfectly consistent with his own grave appearance, to be either surprised or terrified at the altercation she he retired into his shop, and shut the hatch-door. had witnessed. Indeed, she only wondered that the de- It was with the most inexpressible anguish that the bate did not end in some of those acts of violence by desolate, friendless and unhappy female, thus beheld her which they were usually terminated in the Sanctuary. sole hope of succour, countenance, and protection, van- As the disputants separated from each other, she, who ish at once, without being able to conceive a reason; for, had no idea that the cause of the quarrel was more to do her justice, the idea that her friend, whom she deeply rooted than in the daily scenes of the same na- knew by the name of Nigel Grahame, had imposed on ture which she had heard of or witnessed, did not hesi- her, a solution which might readily have occurred to tate to stop Master Christie in his return to his shop, many in her situation, never once entered her mind. Al- and present to him the letter which Lord Glenvarloch though it was not her temper easily to bend her mind to had given to her. Had she been better acquainted with entreaty, she could not help exclaiming after the ireful life and its business, she would certainly have waited for and retreating ship-chandler,—“Good Master, hear me a more temperate moment; and she had reason to re- but a moment! for mercy’s sake, for honesty’s sake!” pent of her precipitation, when, without saying a single “Mercy and honesty from him, mistress!” said the Scot,

373 The Fortunes of Nigel who, though he essayed not to interrupt the retreat of ant speech, something leaning to the kindly north-coun- his antagonist, still kept stout possession of the field of try accentuation, but not much, in respect of his hav- action,—“ye might as weel expect brandy from bean- ing been resident abroad?” stalks, or milk from a craig of blue whunstane. The man “All this is true—and what of it all?” said the daugh- is mad, bom mad, to boot.” ter of the miser. “I must have mistaken the person to whom the letter “Hair of my complexion?” was addressed, then;” and, as she spoke, Mistress Martha “Yours is red,” replied she. Trapbois was in the act of stooping to lift the paper “I pray you peace,” said the Scotsman. “I was going which had been so uncourteously received. Her compan- to say—of my complexion, but with a deeper shade of ion, with natural civility, anticipated her purpose; but, the chestnut. Weel, mistress, if I have guessed the man what was not quite so much in etiquette, he took a sly aright, he is one with whom I am, and have been, inti- glance at it as he was about to hand it to her, and his eye mate and familiar,—nay,—I may truly say I have done having caught the subscription, he said, with surprise, him much service in my time, and may live to do him “Glenvarloch—Nigel Olifaunt of Glenvarloch! Do you more. I had indeed a sincere good-will for him, and I know the Lord Glenvarloch, mistress?” doubt he has been much at a loss since we parted; but “I know not of whom you speak,” said Mrs. Martha, the fault is not mine. Wherefore, as this letter will not peevishly. “I had that paper from one Master Nigel avail you with him to whom it is directed, you may be- Gram.” lieve that heaven hath sent it to me, who have a special “Nigel Grahame!—umph.—O, ay, very true—I had regard for the writer—I have, besides, as much mercy forgot,” said the Scotsman. “A tall, well-set young man, and honesty within me as man can weel make his bread about my height; bright blue eyes like a hawk’s; a pleas- with, and am willing to aid any distressed creature, that

374 Sir Walter Scott is my friend’s friend, with my counsel, and otherwise, so by twa rampallians, wha wanted yestreen, nae farther that I am not put to much charges, being in a strange gane, to harle me into a change-house—however, if ye country, like a poor lamb that has wandered from its be a decent honest woman,” (here he took another peep ain native hirsel, and leaves a tait of its woo’ in every at features certainly bearing no beauty which could in- d—d Southron bramble that comes across it.” While he fer suspicion,) “as decent and honest ye seem to be, why, spoke thus, he read the contents of the letter, without I will advise you to a decent house, where you will get waiting for permission, and then continued,—“And so douce, quiet entertainment, on reasonable terms, and this is all that you are wanting, my dove? nothing more the occasional benefit of my own counsel and direction— than safe and honourable lodging, and sustenance, upon that is, from time to time, as my other avocations may your own charges?” permit.” “Nothing more,” said she. “If you are a man and a “May I venture to accept of such an offer from a Christian, you will help me to what I need so much.” stranger?” said Martha, with natural hesitation. “A man I am,” replied the formal Caledonian, “e’en “Troth, I see nothing to hinder you, mistress,” replied sic as ye see me; and a Christian I may call myself, though the bonny Scot; “ye can but see the place, and do after unworthy, and though I have heard little pure doctrine as ye think best. Besides, we are nae such strangers, nei- since I came hither—a’ polluted with men’s devices— ther; for I know your friend, and you, it’s like, know ahem! Weel, and if ye be an honest woman,” (here he mine, whilk knowledge, on either hand, is a medium of peeped under her muffler,) “as an honest woman ye seem communication between us, even as the middle of the likely to be—though, let me tell you, they are a kind of string connecteth its twa ends or extremities. But I will cattle not so rife in the streets of this city as I would enlarge on this farther as we pass along, gin ye list to desire them—I was almost strangled with my own band bid your twa lazy loons of porters there lift up your

375 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 CHAPTER XXVII 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 This way lie safety and a sure retreat; her with wealth, had left her, for the moment, no wiser Yonder lie danger, shame, and punishment counsellor, or more distinguished protector, than hon- Most welcome danger then—Nay, let me say, est Richie Moniplies, a discarded serving-man. 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 af- fable in his disposition, or apt to enter into conversation with those into whose company he was casually thrown.

376 Sir Walter Scott This was, indeed, an error in his conduct, arising less should have regretted not to have learned, and which from pride, though of that feeling we do not pretend to we should be sorry to have immediately forgotten. But exculpate him, than from a sort of bashful reluctance Nigel was somewhat immured within the Bastile of his to mix in the conversation of those with whom he was rank, as some philosopher (Tom Paine, we think) has not familiar. It is a fault only to be cured by experience happily enough expressed that sort of shyness which and knowledge of the world, which soon teaches every men of dignified situations are apt to be beset with, sensible and acute person the important lesson, that rather from not exactly knowing how far, or with whom, amusement, and, what is of more consequence, that in- they ought to be familiar, than from any real touch of formation and increase of knowledge, are to be derived aristocratic pride. Besides, the immediate pressure of from the conversation of every individual whatever, with our adventurer’s own affairs was such as exclusively to whom he is thrown into a natural train of communica- engross his attention. tion. For ourselves, we can assure the reader—and per- He sat, therefore, wrapt in his cloak, in the stern of haps if we have ever been able to afford him amuse- the boat, with his mind entirely bent upon the probable ment, it is owing in a great degree to this cause—that issue of the interview with his Sovereign, which it was we never found ourselves in company with the stupid- his purpose to seek; for which abstraction of mind he est of all possible companions in a post-chaise, or with may be fully justified, although perhaps, by question- the most arrant cumber-corner that ever occupied a ing the watermen who were transporting him down the place in the mail-coach, without finding, that, in the river, he might have discovered matters of high concern- course of our conversation with him, we had some ideas ment to him. suggested to us, either grave orgay, or some information At any rate, Nigel remained silent till the wherry ap- communicated in the course of our journey, which we proached the town of Greenwich, when he commanded

377 The Fortunes of Nigel the men to put in for the nearest landing-place, as it “Suppose we are content to risk that,” said the un- was his purpose to go ashore there, and dismiss them daunted waterman, “I wish to know how you, who talk from further attendance. so big—I mean no offence, master, but you do talk big— “That is not possible,” said the fellow with the green would help yourself in such a case?” jacket, who, as we have already said, seemed to take on “Simply thus,” answered Lord Glenvarloch—“You saw himself the charge of pilotage. “We must go,” he con- me, an hour since, bring down to the boat a trunk that tinued, “to Gravesend, where a Scottish vessel, which neither of you could lift. If we are to contest the desti- dropped down the river last tide for the very purpose, nation of our voyage, the same strength which tossed lies with her anchor a-peak, waiting to carry you to your that chest into the wherry, will suffice to fling you out own dear northern country. Your hammock is slung, and of it; wherefore, before we begin the scuffle, I pray you all is ready for you, and you talk of going ashore at to remember, that, whither I would go, there I will oblige Greenwich, as seriously as if such a thing were possible!” you to carry me.” “I see no impossibility,” said Nigel, “in your landing me “Gramercy for your kindness,” said Green-jacket; “and where I desire to be landed; but very little possibility of now mark me in return. My comrade and I are two your carrying me anywhere I am not desirous of going.” men—and you, were you as stout as George-a-Green, “Why, whether do you manage the wherry, or we, mas- can pass but for one; and two, you will allow, are more ter?” asked Green-jacket, in a tone betwixt jest and ear- than a match for one. You mistake in your reckoning, nest; “I take it she will go the way we row her.” my friend.” “Ay,” retorted Nigel, “but I take it you will row her on “It is you who mistake,” answered Nigel, who began the course I direct you, otherwise your chance of pay- to grow warm; “it is I who am three to two, sirrah—I ment is but a poor one.” carry two men’s lives at my girdle.”

378 Sir Walter Scott So saying, he opened his cloak and showed the two of indifference, “I shall not show my commission. For pistols which he had disposed at his girdle. Green-jacket myself, I care not, as I said, whether you land at Green- was unmoved at the display. wich to get yourself hanged, or go down to get aboard “I have got,” said he, “a pair of barkers that will match the Royal Thistle, to make your escape to your own coun- yours,” and he showed that he also was armed with pis- try; you will be equally out of my reach either way. But tols; “so you may begin as soon as you list.” it is fair to put the choice before you.” “Then,” said Lord Glenvarloch, drawing forth and “My choice is made,” said Nigel. “I have told you thrice cocking a pistol, “the sooner the better. Take notice, I already it is my pleasure to be landed at Greenwich.” hold you as a ruffian, who have declared you will put “Write it on a piece of paper,” said the waterman, force on my person; and that I will shoot you through “that such is your positive will; I must have something the head if you do not instantly put me ashore at Green- to show to my employers, that the transgression of their wich.” orders lies with yourself, not with me.” The other waterman, alarmed at Nigel’s gesture, lay “I choose to hold this trinket in my hand for the upon his oar; but Green-jacket replied coolly—“Look present,” said Nigel, showing his pistol, “and will write you, master, I should not care a tester to venture a life you the acquittance when I go ashore.” with you on this matter; but the truth is, I am employed “I would not go ashore with you for a hundred pieces,” to do you good, and not to do you harm.” said the waterman. “Luck has ever attended you, ex- “By whom are you employed?” said the Lord cept in small gaming; do me fair justice, and give me Glenvarloch; “or who dare concern themselves in me, or the testimony I desire. If you are afraid of foul play my affairs, without my authority?” while you write it, you may hold my pistols, if you will.” “As to that,” answered the waterman, in the same tone He offered the weapons to Nigel accordingly, who, while

379 The Fortunes of Nigel they were under his control, and all possibility of his fall into any, it will be of your own wilful seeking.” As being taken at disadvantage was excluded, no longer he spoke, they approached the landing-place, where hesitated to give the waterman an acknowledgment, in Nigel instantly jumped ashore. The waterman placed the following terms:— his small mail-trunk on the stairs, observing that there “Jack in the Green, with his mate, belonging to the were plenty of spare hands about, to carry it where he wherry called the Jolly Raven, have done their duty would. faithfully by me, landing me at Greenwich by my ex- “We part friends, I hope, my lads,” said the young press command; and being themselves willing and de- nobleman, offering at the same time a piece of money sirous to carry me on board the Royal Thistle, presently more than double the usual fare, to the boatmen. lying at Gravesend.” Having finished this acknowledg- “We part as we met,” answered Green-jacket; “and, ment, which he signed with the letters, N. O. G. as indi- for your money, I am paid sufficiently with this bit of cating his name and title, he again requested to know paper. Only, if you owe me any love for the cast I have of the waterman, to whom he delivered it, the name of given you, I pray you not to dive so deep into the pock- his employers. ets of the next apprentice that you find fool enough to “Sir,” replied Jack in the Green, “I have respected your play the cavalier.—And you, you greedy swine,” said he secret, do not you seek to pry into mine. It would do to his companion, who still had a longing eye fixed on you no good to know for whom I am taking this present the money which Nigel continued to offer, “push off, or, trouble; and, to be brief, you shall not know it—and, if if I take a stretcher in hand, I’ll break the knave’s pate you will fight in the quarrel, as you said even now, the of thee.” The fellow pushed off, as he was commanded, sooner we begin the better. Only this you may be cock- but still could not help muttering, “This was entirely sure of, that we designed you no harm, and that, if you out of waterman’s rules.”

380 Sir Walter Scott Glenvarloch, though without the devotion of the “in- laughable, from the whimsical uncertainty of his conjured Thales” of the moralist, to the memory of that duct; so that the wisest things he ever said, and the best great princess, had now attained actions he ever did, were often touched with a strain of the ludicrous and fidgety character of the man. Accord- “The hallow’d soil which gave Eliza birth,” ingly, though at different periods of his reign he contrived to acquire with his people a certain degree of tem- whose halls were now less respectably occupied by her porary popularity, it never long outlived the occasion successor. It was not, as has been well shown by a late which produced it; so true it is, that the mass of man- author, that James was void either of parts or of good kind will respect a monarch stained with actual guilt, intentions; and his predecessor was at least as arbitrary more than one whose foibles render him only ridiculous. in effect as he was in theory. But, while Elizabeth pos- To return from this digression, Lord Glenvarloch soon sessed a sternness of masculine sense and determina- received, as Green-jacket had assured him, the offer of tion which rendered even her weaknesses, some of which an idle bargeman to transport his baggage where he were in themselves sufficiently ridiculous, in a certain listed; but that where was a question of momentary degree respectable, James, on the other hand, was so doubt. At length, recollecting the necessity that his hair utterly devoid of “firm resolve,” so well called by the and beard should be properly arranged before he at- Scottish bard, tempted to enter the royal presence, and desirous, at the same time, of obtaining some information of the “The stalk of carle-hemp in man,” motions of the Sovereign and of the Court, he desired to be guided to the next barber’s shop, which we have that even his virtues and his good meaning became already mentioned as the place where news of every kind

381 The Fortunes of Nigel circled and centred. He was speedily shown the way to “Yes, sir—Malcrowder, sir, as you say, sir—hard names such an emporium of intelligence, and soon found he the Scots have, sir, for an English mouth. Sir Munko is a was likely to hear all he desired to know, and much more, handsome person, sir—perhaps you know him—bating while his head was subjected to the art of a nimble the loss of his fingers, and the lameness of his leg, and tonsor, the glibness of whose tongue kept pace with the the length of his chin. Sir, it takes me one minute, twelve nimbleness of his fingers while he ran on, without stint seconds, more time to trim that chin of his, than any or stop, in the following excursive manner:— chin that I know in the town of Greenwich, sir. But he “The Court here, master?—yes, master—much to the is a very comely gentleman, for all that; and a pleas- advantage of trade—good custom stirring. His Majesty ant—a very pleasant gentleman, sir—and a good- loves Greenwich—hunts every morning in the Park— humoured, saving that he is so deaf he can never hear all decent persons admitted that have the entries of the good of any one, and so wise, that he can never believe Palace—no rabble—frightened the king’s horse with it; but he is a very good-natured gentleman for all that, their hallooing, the uncombed slaves.—Yes, sir, the beard except when one speaks too low, or when a hair turns more peaked? Yes, master, so it is worn. I know the last awry.—Did I graze you, sir? We shall put it to rights in cut—dress several of the courtiers—one valet-of-the- a moment, with one drop of styptic—my styptic, or chamber, two pages of the body, the clerk of the kitchen, rather my wife’s, sir—She makes the water herself. One three running footmen, two dog-boys, and an honourable drop of the styptic, sir, and a bit of black taffeta patch, Scottish knight, Sir Munko Malgrowler.” just big enough to be the saddle to a flea, sir—Yes, sir, “Malagrowther, I suppose?” said Nigel, thrusting in rather improves than otherwise. The Prince had a patch his conjectural emendation, with infinite difficulty, be- the other day, and so had the Duke: and, if you will twixt two clauses of the barber’s text. believe me, there are seventeen yards three quarters of

382 Sir Walter Scott black taffeta already cut into patches for the courtiers.” a doublet for a flea, just under the left moustache; it “But Sir Mungo Malagrowther?” again interjected will become you when you smile, sir, as well as a dimple; Nigel, with difficulty. and if you would salute your fair mistress—but I beg “Ay, ay, sir—Sir Munko, as you say; a pleasant, good- pardon, you are a grave gentleman, very grave to be so humoured gentleman as ever—To be spoken with, did young.—Hope I have given no offence; it is my duty to you say? O ay, easily to be spoken withal, that is, as entertain customers—my duty, sir, and my pleasure— easily as his infirmity will permit. He will presently, Sir Munko Malcrowther?—yes, sir, I dare say he is at unless some one hath asked him forth to breakfast, be this moment in Ned’s eating-house, for few folks ask him taking his bone of broiled beef at my neighbour Ned out, now Lord Huntinglen is gone to London. You will Kilderkin’s yonder, removed from over the way. Ned get touched again—yes, sir—there you shall find him keeps an eating-house, sir, famous for pork-griskins; but with his can of single ale, stirred with a sprig of rose- Sir Munko cannot abide pork, no more than the King’s mary, for he never drinks strong potations, sir, unless to most Sacred Majesty,* nor my Lord Duke of Lennox, oblige Lord Huntinglen—take heed, sir—or any other nor Lord Dalgarno,—nay, I am sure, sir, if I touched person who asks him forth to breakfast—but single beer you this time, it was your fault, not mine.—But a single he always drinks at Ned’s, with his broiled bone of beef drop of the styptic, another little patch that would make or mutton—or, it may be, lamb at the season—but not pork, though Ned is famous for his griskins. But the *The Scots, till within the last generation, disliked swine’s flesh as an article of food as much as the Highlanders do at Scots never eat pork—strange that! some folk think they present. It was remarked as extraordinary rapacity, when are a sort of Jews. There is a resemblance, sir,—Do you the Border depredators condescended to make prey of the not think so? Then they call our most gracious Sover- accursed race, whom the fiend made his habitation. Ben Jonson, in drawing James’s character, says, he loved “no part eign the Second Solomon, and Solomon, you know, was of a swine.” 383 The Fortunes of Nigel King of the Jews; so the thing bears a face, you see. I your custom. “So saying, he at length permitted Nigel believe, sir, you will find yourself trimmed now to your to depart, whose ears, so long tormented with contin- content. I will be judged by the fair mistress of your ued babble, tingled when it had ceased, as if a bell had affections. Crave pardon—no offence, I trust. Pray, con- been rung close to them for the same space of time. sult the glass—one touch of the crisping tongs, to re- Upon his arrival at the eating-house, where he proposed duce this straggler.—Thank your munificence, sir—hope to meet with Sir Mungo Malagrowther, from whom, in your custom while you stay in Greenwich. Would you despair of better advice, he trusted to receive some infor- have a tune on that ghittern, to put your temper in con- mation as to the best mode of introducing himself into cord for the day?—Twang, twang—twang, twang, dillo. the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host Something out of tune, sir—too many hands to touch with whom he communed, the consequential taciturnity it—we cannot keep these things like artists. Let me help of an Englishman well to pass in the world. Ned Kilderkin you with your cloak, sir—yes, sir—You would not play spoke as a banker writes, only touching the needful. Being yourself, sir, would you?—Way to Sir Munko’s eating- asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied, house?—Yes, sir; but it is Ned’s eating-house, not Sir No. Being interrogated whether he was expected? he said, Munko’s.—The knight, to be sure, eats there, and makes Yes. And being again required to say when he was expected, it his eating-house in some sense, sir—ha, ha! Yonder it he answered, Presently. As Lord Glenvarloch next inquired, is, removed from over the way, new white-washed posts, whether he himself could have any breakfast? the land- and red lattice—fat man in his doublet at the door— lord wasted not even a syllable in reply, but, ushering him Ned himself, sir—worth a thousand pounds, they say— into a neat room where there were several tables, he placed better singeing pigs’ faces than trimming courtiers—but one of them before an armchair, and beckoning Lord ours is the less mechanical vocation.—Farewell, sir; hope Glenvarloch to take possession, he set before him, in a very

384 Sir Walter Scott few minutes, a substantial repast of roast-beef, together Comus whom the vulgar call cooks; and the air with with a foaming tankard, to which refreshment the keen air which he rated the publican for having neglected to send of the river disposed him, notwithstanding his mental em- some provisions to the Palace, showed that he minis- barrassments, to do much honour. tered to royalty itself. While Nigel was thus engaged in discussing his com- “This will never answer,” he said, “Master Kilderkin— mons, but raising his head at the same time whenever the king twice asked for sweetbreads, and fricasseed cox- he heard the door of the apartment open, eagerly desir- combs, which are a favourite dish of his most Sacred ing the arrival of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, (an event Majesty, and they were not to be had, because Master which had seldom been expected by any one with so Kilderkin had not supplied them to the clerk of the much anxious interest,) a personage, as it seemed, of at kitchen, as by bargain bound.” Here Kilderkin made least equal importance with the knight, entered into the some apology, brief, according to his own nature, and apartment, and began to hold earnest colloquy with the muttered in a lowly tone after the fashion of all who publican, who thought proper to carry on the confer- find themselves in a scrape. His superior replied, in a ence on his side unbonneted. This important gentleman’s lofty strain of voice, “Do not tell me of the carrier and occupation might be guessed from his dress. A milk- his wain, and of the hen-coops coming from Norfolk white jerkin, and hose of white kersey; a white apron with the poultry; a loyal man would have sent an ex- twisted around his body in the manner of a sash, in press—he would have gone upon his stumps, like which, instead of a war-like dagger, was stuck a long- Widdrington. What if the king had lost his appetite, bladed knife, hilted with buck’s-horn; a white nightcap Master Kilderkin? What if his most Sacred Majesty had on his head, under which his hair was neatly tucked, lost his dinner? O, Master Kilderkin, if you had but the sufficiently pourtrayed him as one of those priests of just sense of the dignity of our profession, which is told

385 The Fortunes of Nigel of by the witty African slave, for so the king’s most ex- “Ail nothing,” replied the learned rival of the philo- cellent Majesty designates him, Publius Terentius, sophical Syrus; “Nothing—and yet I do feel a little giddy. Tanguam in specula—in patinas inspicerejubeo.” I could taste a glass of your dame’s aqua mirabilis.” “You are learned, Master Linklater,” replied the En- “I will fetch it,” said Ned, giving a nod; and his back glish publican, compelling, as it were with difficulty, his was no sooner turned, than the cook walked near the mouth to utter three or four words consecutively. table where Lord Glenvarloch was seated, and regard- “A poor smatterer,” said Mr. Linklater; “but it would ing him with a look of significance, where more was be a shame to us, who are his most excellent Majesty’s meant than met the ear, said,—“You are a stranger in countrymen, not in some sort to have cherished those Greenwich, sir. I advise you to take the opportunity to arts wherewith he is so deeply embued—Regis ad exem- step into the Park—the western wicket was ajar when I plar, Master Kilderkin, totus componitur orbis—which is came hither; I think it will be locked presently, so you as much as to say, as the king quotes the cook learns. In had better make the best of your way—that is, if you brief, Master Kilderkin, having had the luck to be bred have any curiosity. The venison are coming into season where humanities may be had at the matter of an En- just now, sir, and there is a pleasure in looking at a hart glish five groats by the quarter, I, like others, have ac- of grease. I always think when they are bounding so quired—ahem-hem!—” Here, the speaker’s eye having blithely past, what a pleasure it would be, to broach fallen upon Lord Glenvarloch, he suddenly stopped in their plump haunches on a spit, and to embattle their his learned harangue, with such symptoms of embar- breasts in a noble fortification of puff-paste, with plenty rassment as induced Ned Kilderkin to stretch his taci- of black pepper.” turnity so far as not only to ask him what he ailed, but He said no more, as Kilderkin re-entered with the cor- whether he would take any thing. dial, but edged off from Nigel without waiting any re-

386 Sir Walter Scott ply, only repeating the same look of intelligence with “Not much of that, my lord—but I know your which he had accosted him. honour’s noble house well.—My name is Laurie Nothing makes men’s wits so alert as personal danger. Linklater, my lord.” Nigel took the first opportunity which his host’s atten- “Linklater!” repeated Nigel. “I should recollect—’ tion to the yeoman of the royal kitchen permitted, to “Under your lordship’s favour,” he continued, “I was discharge his reckoning, and readily obtained a direc- ‘prentice, my lord, to old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher at tion to the wicket in question. He found it upon the latch, the wanton West-Port of Edinburgh, which I wish I saw as he had been taught to expect; and perceived that it again before I died. And, your honour’s noble father hav- admitted him to a narrow footpath, which traversed a ing taken Richie Moniplies into his house to wait on your close and tangled thicket, designed for the cover of the lordship, there was a sort of connexion, your lordship sees.” does and the young fawns. Here he conjectured it would “Ah!” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I had almost forgot your be proper to wait; nor had he been stationary above five name, but not your kind purpose. You tried to put Richie minutes, when the cook, scalded as much with heat of in the way of presenting a supplication to his Majesty?” motion as ever he had been by his huge fire-place, ar- “Most true, my lord,” replied the king’s cook. “I had rived almost breathless, and with his pass-key hastily like to have come by mischief in the job; for Richie, who locked the wicket behind him. was always wilful, ‘wadna be guided by me,’ as the sang Ere Lord Glenvarloch had time to speculate upon this says. But nobody amongst these brave English cooks action, the man approached with anxiety, and said— can kittle up his Majesty’s most sacred palate with our ”Good lord, my Lord Glenvarloch!—why will you en- own gusty Scottish dishes. So I e’en betook myself to danger yourself thus?” my craft, and concocted a mess of friar’s chicken for the “You know me then, my friend?” said Nigel. soup, and a savoury hachis, that made the whole cabal

387 The Fortunes of Nigel coup the crans; and, instead of disgrace, I came by pre- “Amen,” said Nigel. ferment. I am one of the clerks of the kitchen now, make “For, say your lordship may have been a little wild, me thankful—with a finger in the purveyor’s office, and like other young gentlemen—” may get my whole hand in by and by.” “We have little time to talk of it, my friend,” said “I am truly glad,” said Nigel, “to hear that you have Nigel. “The point in question is, how am I to get speech not suffered on my account,—still more so at your good of the king?” fortune.” “The king, my lord!” said Linklater in astonishment; “You bear a kind heart, my lord,” said Linklater, “and “why, will not that be rushing wilfully into danger?— do not forget poor people; and, troth, I see not why they scalding yourself, as I may say, with your own ladle?” should be forgotten, since the king’s errand may some- “My good friend,” answered Nigel, “my experience of times fall in the cadger’s gate. I have followed your lord- the Court, and my knowledge of the circumstances in ship in the street, just to look at such a stately shoot of which I stand, tell me, that the manliest and most di- the old oak-tree; and my heart jumped into my throat, rect road is, in my case, the surest and the safest. The when I saw you sitting openly in the eating-house yon- king has both a head to apprehend what is just, and a der, and knew there was such danger to your person.” heart to do what is kind.” “What! there are warrants against me, then?” said “It is e’en true, my lord, and so we, his old servants, Nigel. know,” added Linklater; “but, woe’s me, if you knew “It is even true, my lord; and there are those who are how many folks make it their daily and nightly purpose willing to blacken you as much as they can.—God for- to set his head against his heart, and his heart against give them, that would sacrifice an honourable house for his head—to make him do hard things because they are their own base ends!” called just, and unjust things because they are repre-

388 Sir Walter Scott sented as kind. Woe’s me! it is with his Sacred Majesty, if you can bring in any thing about the judgment of and the favourites who work upon him, even according Solomon, in the original Hebrew, and season with a to the homely proverb that men taunt my calling with,— merry jest or so, the dish will be the more palatable.— ’God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks.’” Truly, I think, that, besides my skill in art, I owe much “It signifies not talking of it, my good friend,” said to the stripes of the Rector of the High School, who Nigel, “I must take my risk, my honour peremptorily imprinted on my mind that cooking scene in the demands it. They may maim me, or beggar me, but they Heautontimorumenos.” shall not say I fled from my accusers. My peers shall “Leaving that aside, my friend,” said Lord hear my vindication.” Glenvarloch, “can you inform me which way I shall most “Your peers?” exclaimed the cook—“Alack-a-day, my readily get to the sight and speech of the king?” lord, we are not in Scotland, where the nobles can bang “To the sight of him readily enough,” said Linklater; “he it out bravely, were it even with the king himself, now is galloping about these alleys, to see them strike the hart, and then. This mess must be cooked in the Star-Cham- to get him an appetite for a nooning—and that reminds me ber, and that is an oven seven times heated, my lord;— I should be in the kitchen. To the speech of the king you will and yet, if you are determined to see the king, I will not not come so easily, unless you could either meet him alone, say but you may find some favour, for he likes well any which rarely chances, or wait for him among the crowd that thing that is appealed directly to his own wisdom, and go to see him alight. And now, farewell, my lord, and God sometimes, in the like cases, I have known him stick by speed!—if I could do more for you, I would offer it.” his own opinion, which is always a fair one. Only mind, “You have done enough, perhaps, to endanger your- if you will forgive me, my lord—mind to spice high with self,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I pray you to be gone, Latin; a curn or two of Greek would not be amiss; and, and leave me to my fate.”

389 The Fortunes of Nigel The honest cook lingered, but a nearer burst of the which had attended the rash exploit of Richie Moniplies, horns apprized him that there was no time to lose; and, he should not repair to the Palace-gate, in order to ad- acquainting Nigel that he would leave the postern-door dress the king on his return, when Fortune presented on the latch to secure his retreat in that direction, he him the opportunity of doing so, in her own way. bade God bless him, and farewell. He was in one of those long walks by which the Park In the kindness of this humble countryman, flowing was traversed, when he heard, first a distant rustling, partly from national partiality, partly from a sense of then the rapid approach of hoofs shaking the firm earth long-remembered benefits, which had been scarce on which he stood; then a distant halloo, warned by thought on by those who had bestowed them, Lord which he stood up by the side of the avenue, leaving Glenvarloch thought he saw the last touch of sympa- free room for the passage of the chase. The stag, reel- thy which he was to receive in this cold and courtly re- ing, covered with foam, and blackened with sweat, his gion, and felt that he must now be sufficient to himself, nostrils extended as he gasped for breath, made a shift or be utterly lost. to come up as far as where Nigel stood, and, without He traversed more than one alley, guided by the sounds turning to bay, was there pulled down by two tall grey- of the chase, and met several of the inferior attendants hounds of the breed still used by the hardy deer-stalk- upon the king’s sport, who regarded him only as one of ers of the Scottish Highlands, but which has been long the spectators who were sometimes permitted to enter unknown in England. One dog struck at the buck’s the Park by the concurrence of the officers about the throat, another dashed his sharp nose and fangs, I might Court. Still there was no appearance of James, or any almost say, into the animal’s bowels. It would have been of his principal courtiers, and Nigel began to think natural for Lord Glenvarloch, himself persecuted as if whether, at the risk of incurring disgrace similar to that by hunters, to have thought upon the occasion like the

390 Sir Walter Scott melancholy Jacques; but habit is a strange matter, and of flattery to permit the Sovereign to suppose he had I fear that his feelings on the occasion were rather those outridden and distanced all the rest of the chase. of the practised huntsman than of the moralist. He had “Weel dune, Bash—weel dune, Battie!” he exclaimed no time, however, to indulge them, for mark what be- as he came up. “By the honour of a king, ye are a credit fell. to the Braes of Balwhither!—Haud my horse, man,” A single horseman followed the chase, upon a steed so he called out to Nigel, without stopping to see to whom thoroughly subjected to the rein, that it obeyed the touch he had addressed himself—“Haud my naig, and help of the bridle as if it had been a mechanical impulse op- me doun out o’ the saddle—deil ding your saul, sirrah, erating on the nicest piece of machinery; so that, seated canna ye mak haste before these lazy smaiks come up?— deep in his demipique saddle, and so trussed up there as haud the rein easy—dinna let him swerve—now, haud to make falling almost impossible, the rider, without ei- the stirrup—that will do, man, and now we are on terra ther fear or hesitation, might increase or diminish the firma.” So saying, without casting an eye on his assis- speed at which he rode, which, even on the most ani- tant, gentle King Jamie, unsheathing the short, sharp mating occasions of the chase, seldom exceeded three- hanger, (couteau de chasse,) which was the only thing fourths of a gallop, the horse keeping his haunches un- approaching to a sword that he could willingly endure der him, and never stretching forward beyond the man- the sight of, drew the blade with great satisfaction across aged pace of the academy. The security with which he the throat of the buck, and put an end at once to its chose to prosecute even this favourite, and, in the ordi- struggles and its agonies. nary case, somewhat dangerous amusement, as well as Lord Glenvarloch, who knew well the silvan duty the rest of his equipage, marked King James. No atten- which the occasion demanded, hung the bridle of the dant was within sight; indeed, it was often a nice strain king’s palfrey on the branch of a tree, and, kneeling

391 The Fortunes of Nigel duteously down, turned the slaughtered deer upon its Nigel, and observing what in his first emotion of silvan back, and kept the quarree in that position, while the delight had escaped him,—“Ye are nane of our train, king, too intent upon his sport to observe any thing else, man. In the name of God, what the devil are ye?” drew his couteau down the breast of the animal, secun- “An unfortunate man, sire,” replied Nigel. dum artem; and, having made a cross cut, so as to ascer- “I dare say that,” answered the king, snappishly, “or I tain the depth of the fat upon the chest, exclaimed, in a wad have seen naething of you. My lieges keep a’ their sort of rapture, “Three inches of white fat on the bris- happiness to themselves; but let bowls row wrang wi’ ket!—prime—prime—as I am a crowned sinner—and them, and I am sure to hear of it.” deil ane o’ the lazy loons in but mysell! Seven—aught— “And to whom else can we carry our complaints but aught tines on the antlers. By G—d, a hart of aught to your Majesty, who is Heaven’s vicegerent over us!” tines, and the first of the season! Bash and Battie, bless- answered Nigel. ings on the heart’s-root of ye! Buss me, my bairns, buss “Right, man, right—very weel spoken,” said the king; me. “The dogs accordingly fawned upon him, licked him “but you should leave Heaven’s vicegerent some quiet with bloody jaws, and soon put him in such a state that on earth, too.” it might have seemed treason had been doing its full work “If your Majesty will look on me,” (for hitherto the upon his anointed body.” Bide doun, with a mischief to king had been so busy, first with the dogs, and then with ye—bide doun, with a wanion,” cried the king, almost the mystic operation of breaking, in vulgar phrase, cut- overturned by the obstreperous caresses of the large ting up the deer, that he had scarce given his assistant stag-hounds. “But ye are just like ither folks, gie ye an above a transient glance,) “you will see whom necessity inch and ye take an ell.—And wha may ye be, friend? makes bold to avail himself of an opportunity which “he said, now finding leisure to take a nearer view of may never again occur.”

392 Sir Walter Scott King James looked; his blood left his cheek, though it That which he asked was entirely out of the monarch’s continued stained with that of the animal which lay at power to grant. The timidity which he showed was not his feet, he dropped the knife from his hand, cast be- the plain downright cowardice, which, like a natural hind him a faltering eye, as if he either meditated flight impulse, compels a man to flight, and which can excite or looked out for assistance, and then exclaimed,— little but pity or contempt, but a much more ludicrous, ”Glenvarlochides! as sure as I was christened James as well as more mingled sensation. The poor king was Stewart. Here is a bonny spot of work, and me alone, frightened at once and angry, desirous of securing his and on foot too!” he added, bustling to get upon his safety, and at the same time ashamed to compromise horse. his dignity; so that without attending to what Lord “Forgive me that I interrupt you, my liege,” said Nigel, Glenvarloch endeavoured to explain, he kept making at placing himself between the king and his steed; “hear his horse, and repeating, “We are a free king, man,—we me but a moment!” are a free king—we will not be controlled by a subject.— “I’ll hear ye best on horseback,” said the king. “I canna In the name of God, what keeps Steenie? And, praised hear a word on foot, man, not a word; and it is not seemly be his name, they are coming—Hillo, ho—here, here— to stand cheek-for-chowl confronting us that gate. Bide Steenie, Steenie!” out of our gate, sir, we charge you on your allegiance.— The Duke of Buckingham galloped up, followed by The deil’s in them a’, what can they be doing?” several courtiers and attendants of the royal chase, and “By the crown that you wear, my liege,” said Nigel, commenced with his usual familiarity,—”I see Fortune “and for which my ancestors have worthily fought, I has graced our dear dad, as usual.—But what’s this?” conjure you to be composed, and to hear me but a mo- “What is it? It is treason for what I ken,” said the ment!” king; “and a’ your wyte, Steenie. Your dear dad and

393 The Fortunes of Nigel gossip might have been murdered, for what you care.” dames at a late high solemnity—not that very pistol caused “Murdered? Secure the villain!” exclaimed the Duke. more temporary consternation than was so groundlessly “By Heaven, it is Olifaunt himself!” A dozen of the excited by the arms which were taken from Lord hunters dismounted at once, letting their horses run wild Glenvarloch’s person; and not Mhic-Allastar-More himself through the park. Some seized roughly on Lord could repel with greater scorn and indignation, the insinu- Glenvarloch, who thought it folly to offer resistance, ations that they were worn for any sinister purposes. while others busied themselves with the king. “Are you “Away with the wretch—the parricide—the bloody- wounded, my liege—are you wounded?” minded villain!” was echoed on all hands; and the king, “Not that I ken of,” said the king, in the paroxysm of who naturally enough set the same value on his own his apprehension, (which, by the way, might be pardoned life, at which it was, or seemed to be, rated by others, in one of so timorous a temper, and who, in his time, cried out, louder than all the rest, “Ay, ay—away with had been exposed to so many strange attempts)—“Not him. I have had enough of him and so has the country. that I ken of—but search him—search him. I am sure I But do him no bodily harm—and, for God’s sake, sirs, saw fire-arms under his cloak. I am sure I smelled pow- if ye are sure ye have thoroughly disarmed him, put up der—I am dooms sure of that.” your swords, dirks, and skenes, for you will certainly do Lord Glenvarloch’s cloak being stripped off, and his pis- each other a mischief.” tols discovered, a shout of wonder and of execration on There was a speedy sheathing of weapons at the king’s the supposed criminal purpose, arose from the crowd now command; for those who had hitherto been brandishing thickening every moment. Not that celebrated pistol, them in loyal bravado, began thereby to call to mind which, though resting on a bosom as gallant and as loyal the extreme dislike which his Majesty nourished against as Nigel’s, spread such cause less alarm among knights and naked steel, a foible which seemed to be as constitutional

394 Sir Walter Scott as his timidity, and was usually ascribed to the brutal And, at the very idea of the general grief which must murder of Rizzio having been perpetrated in his unfor- have attended his death, the good-natured monarch cried tunate mother’s presence before he yet saw the light. heartily himself. At this moment, the Prince, who had been hunting in “Is this possible?” said Charles, sternly; for his pride a different part of the then extensive Park, and had re- was hurt at his father’s demeanour on the one hand, ceived some hasty and confused information of what while on the other, he felt the resentment of a son and a was going forward, came rapidly up, with one or two subject, at the supposed attempt on the king’s life. “Let noblemen in his train, and amongst others Lord some one speak who has seen what happened—My Lord Dalgarno. He sprung from his horse and asked eagerly of Buckingham!” if his father were wounded. “I cannot say my lord,” replied the Duke, “that I saw “Not that I am sensible of, Baby Charles—but a wee any actual violence offered to his Majesty, else I should matter exhausted, with struggling single-handed with have avenged him on the spot.” the assassin.—Steenie, fill up a cup of wine—the leath- “You would have done wrong, then, in your zeal, ern bottle is hanging at our pommel.—Buss me, then, George,” answered the Prince; “such offenders were bet- Baby Charles,” continued the monarch, after he had ter left to be dealt with by the laws. But was the villain taken this cup of comfort; “O man, the Commonwealth not struggling with his Majesty?” and you have had a fair escape from the heavy and “I cannot term it so, my lord,” said the Duke, who, with bloody loss of a dear father; for we are pater patriae, as many faults, would have disdained an untruth; “he seemed weel as pater familias.—Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus to desire to detain his Majesty, who, on the contrary, ap- tarn cari capitis!—Woe is me, black cloth would have peared to wish to mount his horse; but they have found been dear in England, and dry een scarce!” pistols on his person, contrary to the proclamation, and,

395 The Fortunes of Nigel as it proves to be by Nigel Olifaunt, of whose ungoverned ror of the crime supposed to have been intended, and disposition your Royal Highness has seen some samples, the escape which was presumed so narrow. we seem to be justified in apprehending the worst.” Nigel had not yet spoken a word—he now calmly de- “Nigel Olifaunt!” said the Prince; “can that unhappy sired to be heard. man so soon have engaged in a new trespass? Let me see “To what purpose?” answered the Prince coldly. “You those pistols.” knew yourself accused of a heavy offence, and, instead “Ye are not so unwise as to meddle with such snap- of rendering yourself up to justice, in terms of the proc- haunces, Baby Charles?” said James—“Do not give him lamation, you are here found intruding yourself on his them, Steenie—I command you on your allegiance! They Majesty’s presence, and armed with unlawful weapons.” may go off of their own accord, whilk often befalls.— “May it please you, sir,” answered Nigel, “I wore these You will do it, then?—Saw ever a man sic wilful bairns as unhappy weapons for my own defence; and not very we are cumbered with!—Havena we guardsmen and sol- many hours since they were necessary to protect the diers enow, but you must unload the weapons yoursell— lives of others.” you, the heir of our body and dignities, and sae mony “Doubtless, my lord,” answered the Prince, still calm men around that are paid for venturing life in our cause?” and unmoved,—“your late mode of life, and the associ- But without regarding his father’s exclamations, ates with whom you have lived, have made you familiar Prince Charles, with the obstinacy which characterised with scenes and weapons of violence. But it is not to me him in trifles, as well as matters of consequence, per- you are to plead your cause.” sisted in unloading the pistols with his own hand, of the “Hear me—hear me, noble Prince!” said Nigel, eagerly. double bullets with which each was charged. The hands “Hear me! You—even you yourself—may one day ask of all around were held up in astonishment at the hor- to be heard, and in vain.”

396 Sir Walter Scott “How, sir,” said the Prince, haughtily—“how am I to “I profess neither love nor favour to the young man,” construe that, my lord?” answered Buckingham, whose high-spirited ambition bore “If not on earth, sir,” replied the prisoner, “yet to Heaven always an open character: “but I cannot but agree with we must all pray for patient and favourable audience.” your Highness, that our dear gossip hath been something “True, my lord,” said the Prince, bending his head with hasty in apprehending personal danger from him.” haughty acquiescence; “nor would I now refuse such “By my saul, Steenie, ye are not blate, to say so!” said audience to you, could it avail you. But you shall suffer the king. “Do I not ken the smell of pouther, think ye? no wrong. We will ourselves look into your case.” Who else nosed out the Fifth of November, save our royal “Ay, ay,” answered the king, “he hath made appellatio selves? Cecil, and Suffolk, and all of them, were at fault, ad Casarem—we will interrogate Glenvarlochides our- like sae mony mongrel tikes, when I puzzled it out: and selves, time and place fitting; and, in the meanwhile, trow ye that I cannot smell pouther? Why, ‘sblood, man, have him and his weapons away, for I am weary of the Joannes Barclaius thought my ingine was in some mea- sight of them.” sure inspiration, and terms his history of the plot, Se- In consequence of directions hastily given, Nigel was ries patefacti divinitus parricidii; and Spondanus, in like accordingly removed from the presence, where, however, manner, saith of us, Divinitus evasit.” his words had not altogether fallen to the ground. “This “The land was happy in your Majesty’s escape,” said is a most strange matter, George,” said the Prince to the the Duke of Buckingham, “and not less in the quick favourite; “this gentleman hath a good countenance, a wit which tracked that labyrinth of treason by so fine happy presence, and much calm firmness in his look and and almost invisible a clew.” speech. I cannot think he would attempt a crime so des- “Saul, man, Steenie, ye are right! There are few youths perate and useless.” have sic true judgment as you, respecting the wisdom

397 The Fortunes of Nigel of their elders; and, as for this fause, traitorous smaik, I “Surely, man—surely,” replied the king—“but a sight doubt he is a hawk of the same nest. Saw ye not some- of your father, with his long whinyard, would have been thing papistical about him? Let them look that he bears a blithe matter a short while syne; and in future we will not a crucifix, or some sic Roman trinket, about him.” aid the ends of Providence in our favour, by keeping “It would ill become me to attempt the exculpation near us two stout beef-eaters of the guard.—And so this of this unhappy man,” said Lord Dalgarno, “consider- Olifaunt is a Puritan?—not the less like to be a Papist, ing the height of his present attempt, which has made for all that—for extremities meet, as the scholiast all true men’s blood curdle in their veins. Yet I cannot proveth. There are, as I have proved in my book, Puri- avoid intimating, with all due submission to his tans of papistical principles—it is just a new tout on an Majesty’s infallible judgment, in justice to one who old horn.” showed himself formerly only my enemy, though he now Here the king was reminded by the Prince, who displays himself in much blacker colours, that this dreaded perhaps that he was going to recite the whole Olifaunt always appeared to me more as a Puritan than Basilicon Doron, that it would be best to move towards as a Papist.” the Palace, and consider what was to be done for satis- “Ah, Dalgarno, art thou there, man?” said the king. fying the public mind, in whom the morning’s adven- “And ye behoved to keep back, too, and leave us to our ture was likely to excite much speculation. As they en- own natural strength and the care of Providence, when tered the gate of the Palace, a female bowed and pre- we were in grips with the villain!” sented a paper, which the king received, and, with a sort “Providence, may it please your most Gracious Maj- of groan, thrust it into his side pocket. The Prince ex- esty, would not fail to aid, in such a strait, the care of pressed some curiosity to know its contents. “The valet three weeping kingdoms,” said Lord Dalgarno. in waiting will tell you them,” said the king, “when I

398 Sir Walter Scott strip off my cassock. D’ye think, Baby, that I can read the weather, by my conscience, England was a bieldy all that is thrust into my hands? See to me, man,—(he bit; one would have thought the king had little to do pointed to the pockets of his great trunk breeches, which but to walk by quiet waters, per aquam refectionis. But, were stuffed with papers)—“We are like an ass—that I kenna how or why, the place is sair changed—read that we should so speak—stooping betwixt two burdens. Ay, libel upon us and on our regimen. The dragon’s teeth ay, Asinus fortis accumbens inter terminos, as the are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their Vulgate hath it—Ay, ay, Vidi terrain quod esset optima, armed harvest in your day, if I suld not live to see it. et supposui humerum ad portandum, et factus sum God forbid I should, for there will be an awful day’s tributis serviens—I saw this land of England, and be- kemping at the shearing of them.” came an overburdened king thereof.” “I shall know how to stifle the crop in the blade,—ha, “You are indeed well loaded, my dear dad and gos- George?” said the Prince, turning to the favourite with sip,” said the Duke of Buckingham, receiving the pa- a look expressive of some contempt for his father’s ap- pers which King James emptied out of his pockets. prehensions, and full of confidence in the superior firm- “Ay, ay,” continued the monarch; “take them to you ness and decision of his own counsels. per aversionem, bairns—the one pouch stuffed with pe- While this discourse was passing, Nigel, in charge of a titions, t’other with pasquinadoes; a fine time we have pursuivant-at-arms, was pushed and dragged through on’t. On my conscience, I believe the tale of Cadmus the small town, all the inhabitants of which, having been was hieroglyphical, and that the dragon’s teeth whilk alarmed by the report of an attack on the king’s life, he sowed were the letters he invented. Ye are laughing, now pressed forward to see the supposed traitor. Amid Baby Charles?—Mind what I say.—When I came here the confusion of the moment, he could descry the face first frae our ain country, where the men are as rude as of the victualler, arrested into a stare of stolid wonder,

399 The Fortunes of Nigel and that of the barber grinning betwixt horror and ea- acknowledgment for the body of Nigel, Lord ger curiosity. He thought that he also had a glimpse of Glenvarloch. 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 ord- nance, 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 Lieu- tenant of the Tower appeared, received, and granted an

400 Sir Walter Scott his prisoner that distant and measured respect which authority pays as a tax to decorum, all struck upon CHAPTER XXVIII Nigel’s heart, impressing on him the cruel consciousness of captivity. “I am a prisoner,” he said, the words escaping from him Ye towers of Julius! London’s lasting shame; almost unawares; “I am a prisoner, and in the Tower !” With many a foul and midnight murder fed! The Lieutenant bowed—“And it is my duty,” he said, Gray. “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.” SUCH IS THE EXCLAMATION of Gray. Bandello, long before Nigel only bowed in return to this compliment, and him, has said something like it; and the same sentiment followed the Lieutenant to the ancient buildings on the must, in some shape or other, have frequently occurred western side of the parade, and adjoining to the chapel, to those, who, remembering the fate of other captives used in those days as a state-prison, but in ours as the in that memorable state-prison, may have had but too mess-room of the officers of the guard upon duty at the much reason to anticipate their own. The dark and low fortress. The double doors were unlocked, the prisoner arch, which seemed, like the entrance to Dante’s Hell, ascended a few steps, followed by the Lieutenant, and a to forbid hope of regress—the muttered sounds of the warder of the higher class. They entered a large, but warders, and petty formalities observed in opening and irregular, low-roofed, and dark apartment, exhibiting a shutting the grated wicket—the cold and constrained very scanty proportion of furniture. The warder had salutation of the Lieutenant of the fortress, who showed orders to light a fire, and attend to Lord Glenvarloch’s

401 The Fortunes of Nigel commands in all things consistent with his duty; and Tyburn, mingled with those of the firm Protestant, about the Lieutenant, having made his reverence with the cus- to feed the fires of Smithfield. There the slender hand of tomary compliment, that he trusted his lordship would the unfortunate Jane Grey, whose fate was to draw tears not long remain under his guardianship, took his leave. from future generations, might be contrasted with the Nigel would have asked some questions of the warder, bolder touch which impressed deep on the walls the Bear who remained to put the apartment into order, but the and Ragged Staff, the proud emblem of the proud man had caught the spirit of his office. He seemed not Dudleys. It was like the roll of the prophet, a record of to hear some of the prisoner’s questions, though of the lamentation and mourning, and yet not unmixed with most ordinary kind, did not reply to others, and when brief interjections of resignation, and sentences expres- he did speak, it was in a short and sullen tone, which, sive of the firmest resolution.* though not positively disrespectful, was such as at least In the sad task of examining the miseries of his pre- to encourage no farther communication. decessors in captivity, Lord Glenvarloch was interrupted Nigel left him, therefore, to do his work in silence, and by the sudden opening of the door of his prison-room. proceeded to amuse himself with the melancholy task of It was the warder, who came to inform him, that, by deciphering the names, mottoes, verses, and hieroglyph- order of the Lieutenant of the Tower, his lordship was ics, with which his predecessors in captivity had covered to have the society and attendance of a fellow-prisoner the walls of their prison-house. There he saw the names *These memorials of illustrious criminals, or of innocent of many a forgotten sufferer mingled with others which persons who had the fate of such, are still preserved, though will continue in remembrance until English history shall at one time, in the course of repairing the rooms, they were perish. There were the pious effusions of the devout Catho- in some danger of being whitewashed. They are preserved at present with becoming respect, and have most of them been lic, poured forth on the eve of his sealing his profession at engraved.—See BAYLEY’S History and Antiquities of the Tower of London. 402 Sir Walter Scott in his place of confinement. Nigel replied hastily, that to behold distress, whether of body or mind, without he wished no attendance, and would rather be left alone; endeavouring to relieve it. but the warder gave him to understand, with a kind of “Cheer up,” he said, “my pretty lad. We are to be com- grumbling civility, that the Lieutenant was the best panions, it seems, for a little time—at least I trust your judge how his prisoners should be accommodated, and confinement will be short, since you are too young to that he would have no trouble with the boy, who was have done aught to deserve long restraint. Come, come— such a slip of a thing as was scarce worth turning a key do not be discouraged. Your hand is cold and trembles? upon.—“There, Giles,” he said, “bring the child in.” the air is warm too—but it may be the damp of this Another warder put the “lad before him” into the darksome room. Place you by the fire.—What! weep- room, and, both withdrawing, bolt crashed and chain ing-ripe, my little man? I pray you, do not be a child. clanged, as they replaced these ponderous obstacles to You have no beard yet, to be dishonoured by your tears, freedom. The boy was clad in a grey suit of the finest but yet you should not cry like a girl. Think you are cloth, laid down with silver lace, with a buff-coloured only shut up for playing truant, and you can pass a day cloak of the same pattern. His cap, which was a Montero without weeping, surely.” of black velvet, was pulled over his brows, and, with the The boy suffered himself to be led and seated by the profusion of his long ringlets, almost concealed his face. fire, but, after retaining for a long time the very posture He stood on the very spot where the warder had quitted which he assumed in sitting down, he suddenly changed his collar, about two steps from the door of the apart- it in order to wring his hands with an air of the bitterest ment, his eyes fixed on the ground, and every joint trem- distress, and then, spreading them before his face, wept bling with confusion and terror. Nigel could well have so plentifully, that the tears found their way in floods dispensed with his society, but it was not in his nature through his slender fingers.

403 The Fortunes of Nigel Nigel was in some degree rendered insensible to his “Tell me who and what you are, my pretty boy,” said own situation, by his feelings for the intense agony by Nigel.—“Consider me, child, as a companion, who wishes to which so young and beautiful a creature seemed to be be kind to you, would you but teach him how he can be so.” utterly overwhelmed; and, sitting down close beside the “Sir—my lord, I mean,” answered the boy, very tim- boy, he applied the most soothing terms which occurred, idly, and in a voice which could scarce be heard even to endeavour to alleviate his distress; and, with an ac- across the brief distance which divided them, “you are tion which the difference of their age rendered natural, very good—and I—am very unhappy—” drew his hand kindly along the long hair of the discon- A second fit of tears interrupted what else he had in- solate child. The lad appeared so shy as even to shrink tended to say, and it required a renewal of Lord from this slight approach to familiarity—yet, when Lord Glenvarloch’s good-natured expostulations and encour- Glenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, agements, to bring him once more to such composure as sat down on the farther side of the fire, he appeared to rendered the lad capable of expressing himself intelligi- be more at his ease, and to hearken with some apparent bly. At length, however, he was able to say—“I am sen- interest to the arguments which from time to time Nigel sible of your goodness, my lord—and grateful for it— used, to induce him to moderate, at least, the violence but I am a poor unhappy creature, and, what is worse, of his grief. As the boy listened, his tears, though they have myself only to thank for my misfortunes.” continued to flow freely, seemed to escape from their “We are seldom absolutely miserable, my young ac- source more easily, his sobs were less convulsive, and quaintance,” said Nigel, “without being ourselves more became gradually changed into low sighs, which suc- or less responsible for it—I may well say so, otherwise I ceeded each other, indicating as much sorrow, perhaps, had not been here to-day—but you are very young, and but less alarm, than his first transports had shown. can have but little to answer for.”

404 Sir Walter Scott “O sir! I wish I could say so—I have been self-willed and showing a countenance in which paleness and blushes and obstinate—and rash and ungovernable—and now— succeeded each other, as fear and shamefacedness alternately now, how dearly do I pay the price of it!” had influence. “I left my father’s house without leave, to see “Pshaw, my boy,” replied Nigel; “this must be some the king hunt in the Park at Greenwich; there came a cry of childish frolic—some breaking out of bounds—some treason, and all the gates were shut—I was frightened, and truant trick—And yet how should any of these have hid myself in a thicket, and I was found by some of the brought you to the Tower?—There is something myste- rangers and examined—and they said I gave no good ac- rious about you, young man, which I must inquire into.” count of myself—and so I was sent hither.” “Indeed, indeed, my lord, there is no harm about me,” “I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being,” said Lord said the boy, more moved it would seem to confession Glenvarloch, rising and walking through the apartment; by the last words, by which he seemed considerably “nothing approaches me but shares my own bad fate! alarmed, than by all the kind expostulations and argu- Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all ments which Nigel had previously used. “I am inno- who are found near me. Yet this boy’s story sounds cent—that is, I have done wrong, but nothing to de- strangely.—You say you were examined, my young serve being in this frightful place.” friend—Let me pray you to say whether you told your “Tell me the truth, then,” said Nigel, in a tone in which name, and your means of gaining admission into the command mingled with encouragement; “you have noth- Park—if so, they surely would not have detained you?” ing to fear from me, and as little to hope, perhaps—yet, “O, my lord,” said the boy, “I took care not to tell placed as I am, I would know with whom I speak.” them the name of the friend that let me in; and as to “With an unhappy—boy, sir—and idle and truantly dis- my father—I would not he knew where I now am for all posed, as your lordship said,” answered the lad, looking up, the wealth in London!”

405 The Fortunes of Nigel “But do you not expect,” said Nigel, “that they will nor restraint. Why should you distrust me? You seem dismiss you till you let them know who and what you friendless, and I am myself so much in the same cir- are?” cumstances, that I cannot but pity your situation when “What good will it do them to keep so useless a crea- I reflect on my own. Be wise; I have spoken kindly to ture as myself?” said the boy; “they must let me go, you—I mean as kindly as I speak.” were it but out of shame.” “O, I doubt it not, I doubt it not, my lord,” said the “Do not trust to that—tell me your name and sta- boy, “and I could tell you all—that is, almost all.” tion—I will communicate them to the Lieutenant—he “Tell me nothing, my young friend, excepting what is a man of quality and honour, and will not only be may assist me in being useful to you,” said Nigel. willing to procure your liberation, but also, I have no “You are generous, my lord,” said the boy; “and I am doubt, will intercede with your father. I am partly an- sure—O sure, I might safely trust to your honour—But swerable for such poor aid as I can afford, to get you out yet—but yet—I am so sore beset—I have been so rash, of this embarrassment, since I occasioned the alarm so unguarded—I can never tell you of my folly. Besides, owing to which you were arrested; so tell me your name, I have already told too much to one whose heart I and your father’s name.” thought I had moved—yet I find myself here.” “My name to you? O never, never!” answered the boy, “To whom did you make this disclosure?” said Nigel. in a tone of deep emotion, the cause of which Nigel could “I dare not tell,” replied the youth. not comprehend. “There is something singular about you, my young “Are you so much afraid of me, young man,” he re- friend,” said Lord Glenvarloch, withdrawing with a plied, “because I am here accused and a prisoner? Con- gentle degree of compulsion the hand with which the sider, a man may be both, and deserve neither suspicion boy had again covered his eyes; “do not pain yourself

406 Sir Walter Scott with thinking on your situation just at present—your situation coolly, and fix on the course which it became pulse is high, and your hand feverish—lay yourself on him as a man of sense and courage to adopt; and yet, in yonder pallet, and try to compose yourself to sleep. It is spite of himself, and notwithstanding the deep interest the readiest and best remedy for the fancies with which of the critical state in which he was placed, it did so you are worrying yourself.” happen that his fellow-prisoner’s situation occupied “I thank you for your considerate kindness, my lord,” more of his thoughts than did his own. There was no said the boy; “with your leave I will remain for a little accounting for this wandering of the imagination, but space quiet in this chair—I am better thus than on the also there was no striving with it. The pleading tones of couch. I can think undisturbedly on what I have done, one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard, still rung and have still to do; and if God sends slumber to a crea- in his ear, though it seemed that sleep had now fettered ture so exhausted, it shall be most welcome.” the tongue of the speaker. He drew near on tiptoe to So saying, the boy drew his hand from Lord Nigel’s, satisfy himself whether it were so. The folds of the cloak and, drawing around him and partly over his face the hid the lower part of his face entirely; but the bonnet, folds of his ample cloak, he resigned himself to sleep or which had fallen a little aside, permitted him to see the meditation, while his companion, notwithstanding the forehead streaked with blue veins, the closed eyes, and exhausting scenes of this and the preceding day, con- the long silken eyelashes. tinued his pensive walk up and down the apartment. “Poor child,” said Nigel to himself, as he looked on Every reader has experienced, that times occur, when him, nestled up as it were in the folds of his mantle, far from being lord of external circumstances, man is “the dew is yet on thy eyelashes, and thou hast fairly unable to rule even the wayward realm of his own wept thyself asleep. Sorrow is a rough nurse to one so thoughts. It was Nigel’s natural wish to consider his own young and delicate as thou art. Peace be to thy slum-

407 The Fortunes of Nigel bers, I will not disturb them. My own misfortunes re- Lord Glenvarloch. “How could I have dreamt of seeing quire my attention, and it is to their contemplation that you in my present close lodgings?” And at the same time, I must resign myself.” with the frankness of old kindness, he walked up to He attempted to do so, but was crossed at every turn Christie and offered his hand; but John started back as by conjectures which intruded themselves as before, and from the look of a basilisk. which all regarded the sleeper rather than himself. He “Keep your courtesies to yourself, my lord,” said he, was angry and vexed, and expostulated with himself gruffly; “I have had as many of them already as may concerning the overweening interest which he took in serve me for my life.” the concerns of one of whom he knew nothing, saving “Why, Master Christie,” said Nigel, “what means this? that the boy was forced into his company, perhaps as a I trust I have not offended you?” spy, by those to whose custody he was committed—but “Ask me no questions, my lord,” said Christie, bluntly. the spell could not be broken, and the thoughts which “I am a man of peace—I came not hither to wrangle he struggled to dismiss, continued to haunt him. with you at this place and season. Just suppose that I Thus passed half an hour, or more; at the conclusion am well informed of all the obligements from your of which, the harsh sound of the revolving bolts was honour’s nobleness, and then acquaint me, in as few again heard, and the voice of the warder announced that words as may be, where is the unhappy woman—What a man desired to speak with Lord Glenvarloch. “A man have you done with her?” to speak with me, under my present circumstances!— “What have I done with her!” said Lord Glenvarloch— Who can it be?” And John Christie, his landlord of Paul’s ”Done with whom? I know not what you are speaking Wharf, resolved his doubts, by entering the apartment. of.” “Welcome—most welcome, mine honest landlord!” said “Oh, yes, my lord,” said Christie; “play surprise as well

408 Sir Walter Scott as you will, you must have some guess that I am speak- Heaven you are as much mistaken in imputing guilt to ing of the poor fool that was my wife, till she became her, as in supposing me her partner in it.” your lordship’s light-o’-love.” “Fie! fie! my lord,” said Christie, “why will you make “Your wife! Has your wife left you? and, if she has, do it so tough? She is but the wife of a clod-pated old chan- you come to ask her of me?” dler, who was idiot enough to marry a wench twenty “Yes, my lord, singular as it may seem,” returned years younger than himself. Your lordship cannot have Christie, in a tone of bitter irony, and with a sort of more glory by it than you have had already; and, as for grin widely discording from the discomposure of his fea- advantage and solace, I take it Dame Nelly is now un- tures, the gleam of his eye, and the froth which stood necessary to your gratification. I should be sorry to in- on his lip, “I do come to make that demand of your terrupt the course of your pleasure; an old wittol should lordship. Doubtless, you are surprised I should take the have more consideration of his condition. But, your pre- trouble; but, I cannot tell, great men and little men think cious lordship being mewed up here among other choice differently. She has lain in my bosom, and drunk of my jewels of the kingdom, Dame Nelly cannot, I take it, be cup; and, such as she is, I cannot forget that—though I admitted to share the hours of dalliance which—” Here will never see her again—she must not starve, my lord, the incensed husband stammered, broke off his tone of or do worse, to gain bread, though I reckon your lord- irony, and proceeded, striking his staff against the ship may think I am robbing the public in trying to ground— “O that these false limbs of yours, which I change her courses.” wish had been hamstrung when they first crossed my “By my faith as a Christian, by my honour as a gentle- honest threshold, were free from the fetters they have man,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “if aught amiss has well deserved! I would give you the odds of your youth, chanced with your wife, I know nothing of it. I trust in and your weapon, and would bequeath my soul to the

409 The Fortunes of Nigel foul fiend if I, with this piece of oak, did not make you John Christie has the means and spirit to do a kindness. such an example to all ungrateful, pick-thank court- When you first darkened my honest doorway, I was as iers, that it should be a proverb to the end of time, how happy as a man need to be, who is no youngster, and John Christie swaddled his wife’s fine leman!” has the rheumatism. Nelly was the kindest and best- “I understand not your insolence,” said Nigel, “but I humoured wench—we might have a word now and then forgive it, because you labour under some strange delu- about a gown or a ribbon, but a kinder soul on the whole, sion. In so far as I can comprehend your vehement and a more careful, considering her years, till you come— charge, it is entirely undeserved on my part. You seem and what is she now!—But I will not be a fool to cry, if to impute to me the seduction of your wife—I trust she I can help it. What she is, is not the question, but where is innocent. For me, at least, she is as innocent as an she is; and that I must learn, sir, of you.” angel in bliss. I never thought of her—never touched “How can you, when I tell you,” replied Nigel, “that I her hand or cheek, save in honourable courtesy.” am as ignorant as yourself, or rather much more so? Till “O, ay—courtesy!—that is the very word. She always this moment, I never heard of any disagreement betwixt praised your lordship’s honourable courtesy. Ye have your dame and you.” cozened me between ye, with your courtesy. My lord— “That is a lie,” said John Christie, bluntly. my lord, you came to us no very wealthy man—you “How, you base villain!” said Lord Glenvarloch—”do know it. It was for no lucre of gain I took you and your you presume on my situation? If it were not that I hold swash-buckler, your Don Diego yonder, under my poor you mad, and perhaps made so by some wrong sustained, roof. I never cared if the little room were let or no; I you should find my being weaponless were no protec- could live without it. If you could not have paid for it, tion, I would beat your brains out against the wall.” you should never have been asked. All the wharf knows “Ay, ay,” answered Christie, “bully as ye list. Ye have

410 Sir Walter Scott been at the ordinaries, and in Alsatia, and learned the lies to be told of you injest. How do I know you are ruffian’s rant, I doubt not. But I repeat, you have spo- speaking truth, now you are serious? You thought it, I ken an untruth, when you said you knew not of my wife’s suppose, a fine thing to wear the reputation of having falsehood; for, when you were twitted with it among your dishonoured an honest family,—who will not think that gay mates, it was a common jest among you, and your you had real grounds for your base bravado to rest upon? lordship took all the credit they would give you for your I will not believe otherwise for one, and therefore, my gallantry and gratitude.” lord, mark what I have to say. You are now yourself in There was a mixture of truth in this part of the charge trouble—As you hope to come through it safely, and which disconcerted Lord Glenvarloch exceedingly; for without loss of life and property, tell me where this un- he could not, as a man of honour, deny that Lord happy woman is. Tell me, if you hope for heaven—tell Dalgarno, and others, had occasionally jested with him me, if you fear hell—tell me, as you would not have the on the subject of Dame Nelly, and that, though he had curse of an utterly ruined woman, and a broken-hearted not played exactly le fanfaron des vices qu’il n’avoit pas, man, attend you through life, and bear witness against he had not at least been sufficiently anxious to clear you at the Great Day, which shall come after death. You himself of the suspicion of such a crime to men who are moved, my lord, I see it. I cannot forget the wrong considered it as a merit. It was therefore with some hesi- you have done me. I cannot even promise to forgive it— tation, and in a sort of qualifying tone, that he admit- but—tell me, and you shall never see me again, or hear ted that some idle jests had passed upon such a supposi- more of my reproaches.” tion, although without the least foundation in truth. “Unfortunate man,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you have John Christie would not listen to his vindication any said more, far more than enough, to move me deeply. longer. “By your own account,” he said, “you permitted Were I at liberty, I would lend you my best aid to search

411 The Fortunes of Nigel out him who has wronged you, the rather that I do sus- the pain which he might sustain from the present accu- pect my having been your lodger has been in some de- sation of John Christie, was so far deserved, from his gree the remote cause of bringing the spoiler into the having suffered himself, out of vanity, or rather an un- sheepfold.” willingness to encounter ridicule, to be supposed capable “I am glad your lordship grants me so much,” said of a base inhospitable crime, merely because fools called John Christie, resuming the tone of embittered irony it an affair of gallantry; and it was no balsam to the with which he had opened the, singular conversation; wound, when he recollected what Richie had told him “I will spare you farther reproach and remonstrance— of his having been ridiculed behind his back by the gal- your mind is made up, and so is mine.—So, ho, warder!” lants of the ordinary, for affecting the reputation of an The warder entered, and John went on,—“I want to get intrigue which he had not in reality spirit enough to out, brother. Look well to your charge—it were better have carried on. His simulation had, in a word, placed that half the wild beasts in their dens yonder were turned him in the unlucky predicament of being rallied as a loose upon Tower Hill, than that this same smooth-faced, braggart amongst the dissipated youths, with whom the civil-spoken gentleman, were again returned to honest reality of the amour would have given him credit; whilst, men’s company!” on the other hand, he was branded as an inhospitable So saying, he hastily left the apartment; and Nigel seducer by the injured husband, who was obstinately had full leisure to lament the waywardness of his fate, persuaded of his guilt. 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

412 Sir Walter Scott did not appear to have stirred. Was he well—was he only feigning sleep? He went close to him to make his obser- CHAPTER XXIX vations, 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, How fares the man on whom good men would look but did not awake. He pulled him harder, and asked him With eyes where scorn and censure combated, if he was sleeping. But that kind Christian love hath taught the lesson— “Do they waken folk in your country to know whether That they who merit most contempt and hate, they are asleep or no?” said the boy, in a peevish tone. Do most deserve our pity.— “No, my young sir,” answered Nigel; “but when they Old Play. 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 IT MIGHT HAVE SEEMED natural that the visit of John boy. Christie should have entirely diverted Nigel’s attention “True,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “but you knew be- from his slumbering companion, and, for a time, such fore you went to sleep how little I could assist you in was the immediate effect of the chain of new ideas which your difficulties, and you seemed disposed, notwith- the incident introduced; yet, soon after the injured man standing, to put some confidence in me.” had departed, Lord Glenvarloch began to think it ex- “If I did, I have changed my mind,” said the lad. traordinary that the boy should have slept so soundly, “And what may have occasioned this change of mind, while they talked loudly in his vicinity. Yet he certainly I trow?” said Lord Glenvarloch. “Some men speak

413 The Fortunes of Nigel through their sleep—perhaps you have the gift of hear- was of a different kind from him, and though I was some- ing in it?” what afraid of him, I thought I would venture some- “No, but the Patriarch Joseph never dreamt truer thing to free so stately a creature; and I pulled out my dreams than I do.” knife, and just as I was beginning to cut the meshes of “Indeed!” said Lord Glenvarloch. “And, pray, what the net, the animal started up in my face in the likeness dream have you had that has deprived me of your good of a tiger, much larger and fiercer than any you may opinion; for that, I think, seems the moral of the mat- have seen in the ward of the wild beasts yonder, and ter?” was just about to tear me limb from limb, when you “You shall judge yourself,” answered the boy. “I awaked me.” dreamed I was in a wild forest, where there was a cry of “Methinks,” said Nigel, “I deserve more thanks than hounds, and winding of horns, exactly as I heard in I have got, for rescuing you from such a danger by wak- Greenwich Park.” ing you. But, my pretty master, methinks all this tale “That was because you were in the Park this morning, of a tiger and a stag has little to do with your change of you simple child,” said Nigel. temper towards me.” “Stay, my lord,” said the youth. “I went on in my “I know not whether it has or no,” said the lad; “but I dream, till, at the top of a broad green alley, I saw a will not tell you who I am.” noble stag which had fallen into the toils; and methought “You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish I knew that he was the very stag which the whole party boy,” said Nigel, turning from him, and resuming his were hunting, and that if the chase came up, the dogs walk through the room; then stopping suddenly, he would tear him to pieces, or the hunters would cut his said—“And yet you shall not escape from me without throat; and I had pity on the gallant stag, and though I knowing that I penetrate your mystery.”

414 Sir Walter Scott “My mystery!” said the youth, at once alarmed and me sensible, that you are no proper subject of importu- irritated—”what mean you, my lord?” nity, far less of ill usage. What circumstances can have “Only that I can read your dream without the assis- forced you into so doubtful a situation, I know not; but tance of a Chaldean interpreter, and my exposition is— I feel assured there is, and can be, nothing in them of that my fair companion does not wear the dress of her premeditated wrong, which should expose you to cold- sex.” blooded insult. From me you have nothing to dread.” “And if I do not, my lord,” said his companion, hast- “I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my ily starting up, and folding her cloak tight around her, lord,” answered the female; “my adventure, though I “my dress, such as it is, covers one who will not disgrace feel it was both desperate and foolish, is not so very fool- it.” ish, nor my safety here so utterly unprotected, as at first “Many would call that speech a fair challenge,” said sight—and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I Lord Glenvarloch, looking on her fixedly; “women do have suffered enough, and more than enough, by the not masquerade in men’s clothes, to make use of men’s degradation of having been seen in this unfeminine at- weapons.” tire, and the comments you must necessarily have made “I have no such purpose,” said the seeming boy; “I on my conduct—but I thank God that I am so far pro- have other means of protection, and powerful—but I tected, that I could not have been subjected to insult would first know what is your purpose.” unavenged.” When this extraordinary explanation had “An honourable and a most respectful one,” said Lord proceeded thus far, the warder appeared, to place be- Glenvarloch; “whatever you are—whatever motive may fore Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present situ- have brought you into this ambiguous situation, I am ation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not sensible—every look, word, and action of yours, makes equal to the cookery of the celebrated Chevalier Beaujeu,

415 The Fortunes of Nigel was much superior in neatness and cleanliness to that on to taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the honours of the limited by the presence of the warder to the business of table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise the table: but Nigel had, long ere the cloth was removed, and assist him in his functions. But Nigel, declaring that formed the resolution, if possible, of making himself he knew the youth’s parents, interfered, and caused his master of this young person’s history, the more espe- companion to eat along with him. She consented with a cially as he now began to think that the tones of her sort of embarrassment, which rendered her pretty fea- voice and her features were not so strange to him as he tures yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a had originally supposed. This, however, was a convic- natural grace that sort of good-breeding which belongs tion which he adopted slowly, and only as it dawned upon to the table; and it seemed to Nigel, whether already him from particular circumstances during the course of prejudiced in her favour by the extraordinary circum- the repast. stances of their meeting, or whether really judging from At length the prison-meal was finished, and Lord what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a Glenvarloch began to think how he might most easily young person comport herself with more decorous pro- enter upon the topic he meditated, when the warder priety, mixed with ingenuous simplicity; while the con- announced a visitor. sciousness of the peculiarity of her situation threw a “Soh!” said Nigel, something displeased, “I find even singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which a prison does not save one from importunate visitations.” could be neither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embar- He prepared to receive his guest, however, while his rassed, but was compounded of, and shaded with, an alarmed companion flew to the large cradle-shaped chair, interchange of all these three characteristics. Wine was which had first served her as a place of refuge, drew her placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed cloak around her, and disposed herself as much as she

416 Sir Walter Scott could to avoid observation. She had scarce made her along with other more substantial articles, a small arrangements for that purpose when the door opened, sample of that good-breeding which the French are so and the worthy citizen, George Heriot, entered the renowned for.” prison-chamber. “It is not kind of you,” said Nigel, “to bestow the first He cast around the apartment his usual sharp, quick use of it on an old and obliged friend.” glance of observation, and, advancing to Nigel, said— Heriot only answered to this observation with a short ”My lord, I wish I could say I was happy to see you.” dry cough, and then proceeded. “The sight of those who are unhappy themselves, Mas- “Hem! hem! I say, ahem! My lord, as my French po- ter Heriot, seldom produces happiness to their friends— liteness may not carry me far, I would willingly know I, however, am glad to see you.” whether I am to speak as a friend, since your lordship is He extended his hand, but Heriot bowed with much pleased to term me such; or whether I am, as befits my formal complaisance, instead of accepting the courtesy, condition, to confine myself to the needful business which in those times, when the distinction of ranks was which must be treated of between us.” much guarded by etiquette and ceremony, was consid- “Speak as a friend by all means, Master Heriot,” said ered as a distinguished favour. Nigel; “I perceive you have adopted some of the numer- “You are displeased with me, Master Heriot,” said ous prejudices against me, if not all of them. Speak out, Lord Glenvarloch, reddening, for he was not deceived and frankly—what I cannot deny I will at least con- by the worthy citizen’s affectation of extreme reverence fess.” and respect. “And I trust, my lord, redress,” said Heriot. “By no means, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but I have “So far as in my power, certainly,” answered Nigel. been in France, and have thought it is well to import, “Ah I my lord,” continued Heriot, “that is a melan-

417 The Fortunes of Nigel choly though a necessary restriction; for how lightly may to begin from my original error, I would be wiser than any one do an hundred times more than the degree of my father.” evil which it may be within his power to repair to the “It was a difficult task, my lord,” replied Heriot; “your sufferers and to society! But we are not alone here,” he father was voiced generally as the wisest and one of the said, stopping, and darting his shrewd eye towards the bravest men of Scotland.” muffled figure of the disguised maiden, whose utmost “He commanded me,” continued Nigel, “to avoid all efforts had not enabled her so to adjust her position as gambling; and I took upon me to modify this injunc- altogether to escape observation. More anxious to pre- tion into regulating my play according to my skill, vent her being discovered than to keep his own affairs means, and the course of my luck.” private, Nigel hastily answered- “Ay, self opinion, acting on a desire of acquisition, my “’Tis a page of mine; you may speak freely before him. lord—you hoped to touch pitch and not to be defiled, He is of France, and knows no English.” “answered Heriot. “Well, my lord, you need not say, for “I am then to speak freely,” said Heriot, after a sec- I have heard with much regret, how far this conduct ond glance at the chair; “perhaps my words may be more diminished your reputation. Your next error I may with- free than welcome.” out scruple remind you of—My lord, my lord, in what- “Go on, sir,” said Nigel, “I have told you I can bear ever degree Lord Dalgarno may have failed towards you, reproof.” the son of his father should have been sacred from your “In one word, then, my lord—why do I find you in violence.” this place, and whelmed with charges which must “You speak in cold blood, Master Heriot, and I was blacken a name rendered famous by ages of virtue?” smarting under a thousand wrongs inflicted on me un- “Simply, then, you find me here,” said Nigel, “because, der the mask of friendship.”

418 Sir Walter Scott “That is, he gave your lordship bad advice, and you,” But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, said Heriot— it was not I—I never heard of her folly until within this “Was fool enough to follow his counsel,” answered hour.” Nigel—“But we will pass this, Master Heriot, if you “Come, my lord,” said Heriot, with some severity, “this please. Old men and young men, men of the sword and sounds too much like affectation. I know there is among men of peaceful occupation, always have thought, al- our modern youth a new creed respecting adultery as ways will think, differently on such subjects.” well as homicide—I would rather hear you speak of a “I grant,” answered Heriot, “the distinction between revision of the Decalogue, with mitigated penalties in the old goldsmith and the young nobleman—still you favour of the privileged orders—I would rather hear you should have had patience for Lord Huntinglen’s sake, do this than deny a fact in which you have been known and prudence for your own. Supposing your quarrel to glory.” just—” “Glory!—I never did, never would have taken honour “I pray you to pass on to some other charge,” said to myself from such a cause,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I Lord Glenvarloch. could not prevent other idle tongues, and idle brains, “I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, from making false inferences.” that your own heart has already accused you bitterly “You would have known well enough how to stop their on the inhospitable wrong which your late landlord has mouths, my lord,” replied Heriot, “had they spoke of sustained at your hand.” you what was unpleasing to your ears, and what the “Had I been guilty of what you allude to,” said Lord truth did not warrant.—Come, my lord, remember your Glenvarloch,—“had a moment of temptation hurried promise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, me away, I had long ere now most bitterly repented it. in some slight sort to redress. I will grant you are

419 The Fortunes of Nigel young—the woman handsome—and, as I myself have “Well, my lord.—In the Sanctuary at Whitefriars—a observed, light-headed enough. Let me know where she place of refuge so unsuitable to a young man of quality is. Her foolish husband has still some compassion for and character—I am told a murder was committed.” her—will save her from infamy—perhaps, in time, re- “And you believe that I did the deed, I suppose?” ceive her back; for we are a good-natured generation we “God forbid, my lord!” said Heriot. “The coroner’s in- traders. Do not, my lord, emulate those who work mis- quest hath sat, and it appeared that your lordship, un- chief merely for the pleasure of doing so—it is the very der your assumed name of Grahame, behaved with the devil’s worst quality.” utmost bravery.” “Your grave remonstrances will drive me mad,” said “No compliment, I pray you,” said Nigel; “I am only Nigel. “There is a show of sense and reason in what you too happy to find, that I did not murder, or am not be- say; and yet, it is positively insisting on my telling the lieved to have murdered, the old man.” retreat of a fugitive of whom I know nothing earthly.” “True, my lord, said Heriot; “but even in this affair “It is well, my lord,” answered Heriot, coldly. “You there lacks explanation. Your lordship embarked this have a right, such as it is, to keep your own secrets; but, morning in a wherry with a female, and, it is said, an since my discourse on these points seems so totally un- immense sum of money, in specie and other valuables— availing, we had better proceed to business. Yet your but the woman has not since been heard of.” father’s image rises before me, and seems to plead that I “I parted with her at Paul’s Wharf,” said Nigel, “where should go on.” she went ashore with her charge. I gave her a letter to “Be it as you will, sir,” said Glenvarloch; “he who that very man, John Christie.” doubts my word shall have no additional security for “Ay, that is the waterman’s story; but John Christie it.” denies that he remembers anything of the matter.”

420 Sir Walter Scott “I am sorry to hear this,” said the young nobleman; “Watermen!” said Heriot; “one of these proves to be “I hope in Heaven she has not been trepanned, for the an idle apprentice, an old acquaintance of mine—the treasure she had with her.” other has escaped; but the fellow who is in custody per- “I hope not, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but men’s sists in saying he was employed by your lordship, and minds are much disturbed about it. Our national char- you only.” acter suffers on all hands. Men remember the fatal case “He lies!” said Lord Glenvarloch, hastily;—“He told of Lord Sanquhar, hanged for the murder of a fencing- me Master Lowestoffe had sent him.—I hope that kind- master; and exclaim, they will not have their wives hearted gentleman is at liberty?” whored, and their property stolen, by the nobility of “He is,” answered Heriot; “and has escaped with a Scotland.” rebuke from the benchers, for interfering in such a mat- “And all this is laid to my door!” said Nigel; “my ex- ter as your lordship’s. The Court desire to keep well with culpation is easy.” the young Templars in these times of commotion, or he “I trust so, my lord,” said Heriot;—“nay, in this par- had not come off so well.” ticular, I do not doubt it.—But why did you leave “That is the only word of comfort I have heard from Whitefriars under such circumstances?” you,” replied Nigel. “But this poor woman,—she and her “Master Reginald Lowestoffe sent a boat for me, with trunk were committed to the charge of two porters.” intimation to provide for my safety.” “So said the pretended waterman; but none of the fel- “I am sorry to say,” replied Heriot, “that he denies all lows who ply at the wharf will acknowledge the em- knowledge of your lordship’s motions, after having dis- ployment.—I see the idea makes you uneasy, my lord; patched a messenger to you with some baggage.” but every effort is made to discover the poor woman’s “The watermen told me they were employed by him.” place of retreat—if, indeed, she yet lives.—And now,

421 The Fortunes of Nigel my lord, my errand is spoken, so far as it relates exclu- “Undeniably correct,” answered Lord Glenvarloch. “If sively to your lordship; what remains, is matter of busi- the sums contained in the warrant cannot be recovered, ness of a more formal kind.” my lands become the property of those who paid off “Let us proceed to it without delay,” said Lord the original holders of the mortgage, and now stand in Glenvarloch. “I would hear of the affairs of any one their right.” rather than of my own.” “Even so, my lord,” said Heriot. “And your lordship’s “You cannot have forgotten, my lord,” said Heriot, unhappy circumstances having, it would seem, alarmed “the transaction which took place some weeks since at these creditors, they are now, I am sorry to say, pressing Lord Huntinglen’s—by which a large sum of money was for one or other of these alternatives—possession of the advanced for the redemption of your lordship’s estate?” land, or payment of their debt.” “I remember it perfectly,” said Nigel; “and your “They have a right to one or other,” answered Lord present austerity cannot make me forget your kindness Glenvarloch; “and as I cannot do the last in my present on the occasion.” condition, I suppose they must enter on possession.” Heriot bowed gravely, and went on.—“That money “Stay, my lord,” replied Heriot; “if you have ceased was advanced under the expectation and hope that it to call me a friend to your person, at least you shall see might be replaced by the contents of a grant to your I am willing to be such to your father’s house, were it lordship, under the royal sign-manual, in payment of but for the sake of your father’s memory. If you will certain monies due by the crown to your father.—I trust trust me with the warrant under the sign-manual, I be- your lordship understood the transaction at the time— lieve circumstances do now so stand at Court, that I may I trust you now understand my resumption of its im- be able to recover the money for you.” port, and hold it to be correct?” “I would do so gladly,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “but

422 Sir Walter Scott the casket which contains it is not in my possession. It “My lord, it was a word spoken rashly,” answered He- was seized when I was arrested at Greenwich.” riot. “God may mend all in his own good time. This, “It will be no longer withheld from you,” said Heriot; however, I will say, that I have sometimes envied my “for, I understand, my Master’s natural good sense, and friends their fair and flourishing families; and yet have I some information which he has procured, I know not seen such changes when death has removed the head, so how, has induced him to contradict the whole charge of many rich men’s sons penniless, the heirs of so many the attempt on his person. It is entirely hushed up; and knights and nobles acreless, that I think mine own es- you will only be proceeded against for your violence on tate and memory, as I shall order it, has a fair chance of Lord Dalgarno, committed within the verge of the Pal- outliving those of greater men, though God has given ace—and that you will find heavy enough to answer.” me no heir of my name. But this is from the purpose.— “I will not shrink under the weight,” said Lord Ho! warder, bring in Lord Glenvarloch’s baggage.” The Glenvarloch. “But that is not the present point.—If I officer obeyed. Seals had been placed upon the trunk had that casket—” and casket, but were now removed, the warder said, in “Your baggage stood in the little ante-room, as I consequence of the subsequent orders from Court, and passed,” said the citizen; “the casket caught my eye. I the whole was placed at the prisoner’s free disposal. think you had it of me. It was my old friend Sir Faith- Desirous to bring this painful visit to a conclusion, ful Frugal’s. Ay; he, too, had a son—” Lord Glenvarloch opened the casket, and looked through Here he stopped short. the papers which it contained, first hastily, and then “A son who, like Lord Glenvarloch’s, did no credit to more slowly and accurately; but it was all in vain. The his father.—Was it not so you would have ended the sen- Sovereign’s signed warrant had disappeared. tence, Master Heriot?” asked the young nobleman. “I thought and expected nothing better,” said George

423 The Fortunes of Nigel Heriot, bitterly. “The beginning of evil is the letting out signed away. Let me know in what obscure corner, and of water. Here is a fair heritage lost, I dare say, on a foul for what petty sum, it lies pledged—something may yet cast at dice, or a conjuring trick at cards!—My lord, be done.” your surprise is well played. I give you full joy of your “Your efforts in my favour are the more generous,” accomplishments. I have seen many as young brawlers said Lord Glenvarloch, “as you offer them to one whom and spendthrifts, but never as young and accomplished you believe you have cause to think hardly of—but they a dissembler.—Nay, man, never bend your angry brows are altogether unavailing. Fortune has taken the field on me. I speak in bitterness of heart, from what I re- against me at every point. Even let her win the battle.” member of your worthy father; and if his son hears of “Zouns!” exclaimed Heriot, impatiently,—“you would his degeneracy from no one else, he shall hear it from make a saint swear! Why, I tell you, if this paper, the the old goldsmith.” loss of which seems to sit so light on you, be not found, This new suspicion drove Nigel to the very extremity farewell to the fair lordship of Glenvarloch—firth and of his patience; yet the motives and zeal of the good old forest—lea and furrow—lake and stream—all that has man, as well as the circumstances of suspicion which been in the house of Olifaunt since the days of William created his displeasure, were so excellent an excuse for the Lion!” it, that they formed an absolute curb on the resentment “Farewell to them, then,” said Nigel,—“and that moan of Lord Glenvarloch, and constrained him, after two or is soon made.” three hasty exclamations, to observe a proud and sullen “‘Sdeath! my lord, you will make more moan for it ere silence. At length, Master Heriot resumed his lecture. you die,” said Heriot, in the same tone of angry impa- “Hark you, my lord,” he said, “it is scarce possible tience. that this most important paper can be absolutely as- “Not I, my old friend,” said Nigel. “If I mourn, Mas-

424 Sir Walter Scott ter Heriot, it will be for having lost the good opinion of for we have elsewhere noticed that he was a severe disci- a worthy man, and lost it, as I must say, most plinarian.—“How comes it, minion, that I find you in undeservedly.” so shameless a dress, and so unworthy a situation? Nay, “Ay, ay, young man,” said Heriot, shaking his head, your modesty is now mistimed—it should have come “make me believe that if you can.—To sum the matter sooner. Speak, or I will—” up,” he said, rising from his seat, and walking towards “Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “whatever that occupied by the disguised female, “for our matters right you may have over this maiden elsewhere, while in are now drawn into small compass, you shall as soon my apartment she is under my protection.” make me believe that this masquerading mummer, on “Your protection, my lord!—a proper protector!—and whom I now lay the hand of paternal authority, is a how long, mistress, have you been under my lord’s pro- French page, who understands no English.” tection? Speak out forsooth!” So saying, he took hold of the supposed page’s cloak, “For the matter of two hours, godfather,” answered and, not without some gentle degree of violence, led into the maiden, with a countenance bent to the ground, and the middle of the apartment the disguised fair one, who covered with blushes, “but it was against my will.” in vain attempted to cover her face, first with her mantle, “Two hours!” repeated Heriot,—“space enough for and afterwards with her hands; both which impediments mischief.—My lord, this is, I suppose, another victim Master Heriot removed something unceremoniously, and offered to your character of gallantry—another adven- gave to view the detected daughter of the old chronolo- ture to be boasted of at Beaujeu’s ordinary? Methinks gist, his own fair god-daughter, Margaret Ramsay. the roof under which you first met this silly maiden “Here is goodly gear!” he said; and, as he spoke, he should have secured her, at least, from such a fate.” could not prevent himself from giving her a slight shake, “On my honour, Master Heriot,” said Lord

425 The Fortunes of Nigel Glenvarloch, “you remind me now, for the first time, of them, and the rest I deeply and devoutly believe with- that I saw this young lady in your family. Her features out one.” are not easily forgotten, and yet I was trying in vain to “And I thank you, maiden,” replied Nigel, “for the good recollect where I had last looked on them. For your sus- opinion you have expressed. I am at that point, it seems, picions, they are as false as they are injurious both to though how I have been driven to it I know not, where her and me. I had but discovered her disguise as you every fair construction of my actions and motives is re- entered. I am satisfied, from her whole behaviour, that fused me. I am the more obliged to her who grants me her presence here in this dress was involuntary; and God that right which the world denies me. For you, lady, were forbid that I have been capable of taking advantage of I at liberty, I have a sword and arm should know how to it to her prejudice.” guard your reputation.” “It is well mouthed, my lord,” said Master Heriot; “but “Upon my word, a perfect Amadis and Oriana!” said a cunning clerk can read the Apocrypha as loud as the George Heriot. “I should soon get my throat cut betwixt Scripture. Frankly, my lord, you are come to that pass, the knight and the princess, I suppose, but that the beef- where your words will not be received without a war- eaters are happily within halloo.—Come, come, Lady rant.” Light-o’-Love—if you mean to make your way with me, “I should not speak, perhaps,” said Margaret, the natu- it must be by plain facts, not by speeches from romaunts ral vivacity of whose temper could never be long sup- and play-books. How, in Heaven’s name, came you here?” pressed by any situation, however disadvantageous, “but “Sir,” answered Margaret, “since I must speak, I went I cannot be silent. Godfather, you do me wrong—and to Greenwich this morning with Monna Paula, to present no less wrong to this young nobleman. You say his words a petition to the king on the part of the Lady want a warrant. I know where to find a warrant for some Hermione.”

426 Sir Walter Scott “Mercy-a-gad!” exclaimed Heriot, “is she in the dance, zen thought worth recollection—it was but a glance, too? Could she not have waited my return to stir in her for he saw how much the least degree of observation affairs? But I suppose the intelligence I sent her had added to Margaret’s distress and confusion. “And tell rendered her restless. Ah! woman, woman—he that goes me, maiden,” continued Master Heriot, for what we have partner with you, had need of a double share of pa- observed was by-play,—“did the Lady Hermione know tience, for you will bring none into the common stock.— of this fair work?” Well, but what on earth had this embassy of Monna “I dared not have told her for the world,” said Marga- Paula’s to do with your absurd disguise? Speak out.” ret—“she thought one of our apprentices went with “Monna Paula was frightened,” answered Margaret, Monna Paula.” “and did not know how to set about the errand, for you It may be here noticed, that the words, “our appren- know she scarce ever goes out of doors—and so—and tices,” seemed to have in them something of a charm to so—I agreed to go with her to give her courage; and, for break the fascination with which Lord Glenvarloch had the dress, I am sure you remember I wore it at a Christ- hitherto listened to the broken, yet interesting details mas mumming, and you thought it not unbeseeming.” of Margaret’s history. “Yes, for a Christmas parlour,” said Heriot, “but not “And wherefore went he not?—he had been a fitter to go a-masking through the country in. I do remember companion for Monna Paula than you, I wot,” said the it, minion, and I knew it even now; that and your little citizen. shoe there, linked with a hint I had in the morning from “He was otherwise employed,” said Margaret, in a a friend, or one who called himself such, led to your voice scarce audible. detection.”—Here Lord Glenvarloch could not help giv- Master George darted a hasty glance at Nigel, and when ing a glance at the pretty foot, which even the staid citi- he saw his features betoken no consciousness, he mut-

427 The Fortunes of Nigel tered to himself,—“It must be better than I feared.— “Well, maiden, I ask not what passed,” said Heriot; And so this cursed Spaniard, with her head full, as they “it becomes not me to pry into my Master’s secrets. Had all have, of disguises, trap-doors, rope-ladders, and masks, you been closeted with his grandfather the Red Tod of was jade and fool enough to take you with her on this Saint Andrews, as Davie Lindsay used to call him, by wild goose errand?—And how sped you, I pray?” my faith, I should have had my own thoughts of the “Just as we reached the gate of the Park,” replied Mar- matter; but our Master, God bless him, is douce and tem- garet, “the cry of treason was raised. I know not what perate, and Solomon in every thing, save in the chapter became of Monna, but I ran till I fell into the arms of a of wives and concubines.” very decent serving-man, called Linklater; and I was “I know not what you mean, sir,” answered Margaret. fain to tell him I was your god-daughter, and so he kept “His Majesty was most kind and compassionate, but the rest of them from me, and got me to speech of his said I must be sent hither, and that the Lieutenant’s Majesty, as I entreated him to do.” lady, the Lady Mansel, would have a charge of me, and “It is the only sign you showed in the whole matter see that I sustained no wrong; and the king promised to that common sense had not utterly deserted your little send me in a tilted barge, and under conduct of a per- skull,” said Heriot. son well known to you; and thus I come to be in the “His Majesty,” continued the damsel, “was so gracious Tower.” as to receive me alone, though the courtiers cried out “But how, or why, in this apartment, nymph?” said against the danger to his person, and would have George Heriot—“Expound that to me, for I think the searched me for arms, God help me, but the king for- riddle needs reading.” bade it. I fancy he had a hint from Linklater how the “I cannot explain it, sir, further, than that the Lady truth stood with me.” Mansel sent me here, in spite of my earnest prayers,

428 Sir Walter Scott tears, and entreaties. I was not afraid of any thing, for I angels themselves should be vouchers. I have marked knew I should be protected. But I could have died then— every look, every gesture; and whilst I can draw breath, could die now—for very shame and confusion!” I shall ever think of her with—” “Well, well, if your tears are genuine,” said Heriot, “Think not at all of her, my lord,” answered George “they may the sooner wash out the memory of your Heriot, interrupting him; “it is, I have a notion, the best fault—Knows your father aught of this escape of favour you can do her;—or think of her as the daughter yours?” of Davy Ramsay, the clockmaker, no proper subject for “I would not for the world he did,” replied she; “he fine speeches, romantic adventures, or high-flown believes me with the Lady Hermione.” Arcadian compliments. I give you god-den, my lord. I “Ay, honest Davy can regulate his horologes better than think not altogether so harshly as my speech may have his family.—Come, damsel, now I will escort you back spoken. If I can help—that is, if I saw my way clearly to the Lady Mansel, and pray her, of her kindness, that through this labyrinth—but it avails not talking now. I when she is again trusted with a goose, she will not give give your lordship god-den.—Here, warder! Permit us it to the fox to keep.—The warders will let us pass to to pass to the Lady Hansel’s apartment.” The warder my lady’s lodgings, I trust.” said he must have orders from the Lieutenant; and as he “Stay but one moment,” said Lord Glenvarloch. retired to procure them, the parties remained standing “Whatever hard opinion you may have formed of me, I near each other, but without speaking, and scarce look- forgive you, for time will show that you do me wrong; ing at each other save by stealth, a situation which, in and you yourself, I think, will be the first to regret the two of the party at least, was sufficiently embarrass- injustice you have done me. But involve not in your sus- ing. The difference of rank, though in that age a consid- picions this young person, for whose purity of thought eration so serious, could not prevent Lord Glenvarloch

429 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 CHAPTER XXX 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 Yet though thou shouldst be dragg’d in scorn object; and when the yeoman returned with permission To yonder ignominious tree, to his guests to withdraw, Nigel’s obeisance to the beau- Thou shall not want one faithful friend tiful daughter of the mechanic was marked with an ex- To share the cruel fates’ decree. pression, which called up in her cheeks as much colour Ballad of Jemmy Dawson. 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, MASTER GEORGE HERIOT and his ward, as she might justly which, dark as it was, had never yet appeared so ob- be termed, for his affection to Margaret imposed on him scure to Nigel, as when the door closed behind her. 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 Mar-

430 Sir Walter Scott garet with like courtesy, and informed Master George “He brought the warrant for discharging Lord that she was now only her guest, and no longer her pris- Glenvarloch of the charge of treason,” said Sir Edward. oner. “And from him,” said Heriot, “I heard much of what “She is at liberty,” she said, “to return to her friends had befallen; for I came from France only late last under your charge—such is his Majesty’s pleasure.” evening, and somewhat unexpectedly.” “I am glad of it, madam,” answered Heriot, “but only As they spoke, Sir Mungo entered the apartment— I could have wished her freedom had taken place before saluted the Lieutenant of the Tower and his lady with her foolish interview with that singular young man; and ceremonious civility—honoured George Heriot with a I marvel your ladyship permitted it.” patronising nod of acknowledgment, and accosted Mar- “My good Master Heriot,” said Sir Edward, “we act garet with—“Hey! my young charge, you have not according to the commands of one better and wiser than doffed your masculine attire yet?” ourselves—our orders from his Majesty must be strictly “She does not mean to lay it aside, Sir Mungo,” said and literally obeyed; and I need not say that the wis- Heriot, speaking loud, “until she has had satisfaction from dom of his Majesty doth more than ensure—” you, for betraying her disguise to me, like a false knight— “I know his Majesty’s wisdom well,” said Heriot; “yet and in very deed, Sir Mungo, I think when you told me she there is an old proverb about fire and flax—well, let it was rambling about in so strange a dress, you might have pass.” said also that she was under Lady Mansel’s protection.” “I see Sir Mungo Malagrowther stalking towards the “That was the king’s secret, Master Heriot,” said Sir door of the lodging,” said the Lady Mansel, “with the Mungo, throwing himself into a chair with an air of gait of a lame crane—it is his second visit this morn- atrabilarious importance; “the other was a well-meaning.” ing hint to yourself, as the girl’s friend.”

431 The Fortunes of Nigel “Yes,” replied Heriot, “it was done like yourself— “And what do you, that are a courtier of forty years’ enough told to make me unhappy about her—not a word standing, think of it all?” said Sir Edward Mansel. which could relieve my uneasiness.” “Nay, nay, do not ask him, Sir Edward,” said the lady, “Sir Mungo will not hear that remark,” said the lady; with an expressive look to her husband. “we must change the subject.—Is there any news from “Sir Mungo is too witty,” added Master Heriot, “to Court, Sir Mungo? you have been to Greenwich?” remember that he who says aught that may be repeated “You might as well ask me, madam,” answered the to his own prejudice, does but load a piece for any of Knight, “whether there is any news from hell.” the company to shoot him dead with, at their pleasure “How, Sir Mungo, how!” said Sir Edward, “measure and convenience.” your words something better—You speak of the Court “What!” said the bold Knight, “you think I am afraid of King James.” of the trepan? Why now, what if I should say that “Sir Edward, if I spoke of the court of the twelve Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,—the duke more Kaisers, I would say it is as confused for the present as sail than ballast,—the Prince more pride than pru- the infernal regions. Courtiers of forty years’ standing, dence,—and that the king—” The Lady Mansel held up and such I may write myself, are as far to seek in the her finger in a warning manner—“that the king is my matter as a minnow in the Maelstrom. Some folk say very good master, who has given me, for forty years and the king has frowned on the Prince—some that the more, dog’s wages, videlicit, bones and beating.—Why Prince has looked grave on the duke—some that Lord now, all this is said, and Archie Armstrong* says worse Glenvarloch will be hanged for high treason—and some than this of the best of them every day.” that there is matter against Lord Dalgarno that may “The more fool he,” said George Heriot; “yet he is not cost him as much as his head’s worth.” so utterly wrong, for folly is his best wisdom. But do not *The celebrated Court jester. 432 Sir Walter Scott you, Sir Mungo, set your wit against a fool’s, though he moned to meet in such hurry,” said Sir Mungo. “Well— be a court fool.” I will, with your permission, go to the poor lad “A fool, said you?” replied Sir Mungo, not having fully Glenvarloch, and bestow some comfort on him.” heard what Master Heriot said, or not choosing to have The Lieutenant seemed to look up, and pause for a it thought so,—“I have been a fool indeed, to hang on moment as if in doubt. at a close-fisted Court here, when men of understand- “The lad will want a pleasant companion, who can ing and men of action have been making fortunes in tell him the nature of the punishment which he is to every other place of Europe. But here a man comes in- suffer, and other matters of concernment. I will not leave differently off unless he gets a great key to turn,” (look- him until I show him how absolutely he hath ruined ing at Sir Edward,) “or can beat tattoo with a hammer himself from feather to spur, how deplorable is his on a pewter plate.—Well, sirs, I must make as much present state, and how small his chance of mending it.” haste back on mine errand as if I were a fee’d messen- “Well, Sir Mungo,” replied the Lieutenant, “if you re- ger.—Sir Edward and my lady, I leave my commenda- ally think all this likely to be very consolatory to the tions with you—and my good-will with you, Master party concerned, I will send a warder to conduct you.” Heriot—and for this breaker of bounds, if you will act “And I,” said George Heriot, “will humbly pray of Lady by my counsel, some maceration by fasting, and a gentle Mansel, that she will lend some of her handmaiden’s ap- use of the rod, is the best cure for her giddy fits.” parel to this giddy-brained girl; for I shall forfeit my repu- “If you propose for Greenwich, Sir Mungo,” said the tation if I walk up Tower Hill with her in that mad guise— Lieutenant, “I can spare you the labour—the king comes and yet the silly lassie looks not so ill in it neither.” immediately to Whitehall.” “I will send my coach with you instantly,” said the “And that must be the reason the council are sum- obliging lady.

433 The Fortunes of Nigel “Faith, madam, and if you will honour us by such affair of her kinsman Lord Glenvarloch, for she was courtesy, I will gladly accept it at your hands,” said the ashamed to acknowledge how much she had been gained citizen, “for business presses hard on me, and the fore- on by the eager importunity of her youthful compan- noon is already lost, to little purpose.” ion. The motive of Margaret’s eagerness was, of course, The coach being ordered accordingly, transported the the safety of Nigel; but we must leave it to time to show worthy citizen and his charge to his mansion in Lombard in what particulars that came to be connected with the Street. There he found his presence was anxiously ex- petition of the Lady Hermione. Meanwhile, we return pected by the Lady Hermione, who had just received an to the visit with which Sir Mungo Malagrowther order to be in readiness to attend upon the Royal Privy favoured the afflicted young nobleman in his place of Council in the course of an hour; and upon whom, in captivity. her inexperience of business, and long retirement from The Knight, after the usual salutations, and having society and the world, the intimation had made as deep prefaced his discourse with a great deal of professed re- an impression as if it had not been the necessary conse- gret for Nigel’s situation, sat down beside him, and com- quence of the petition which she had presented to the posing his grotesque features into the most lugubrious king by Monna Paula. George Heriot gently blamed her despondence, began his raven song as follows:— for taking any steps in an affair so important until his “I bless God, my lord, that I was the person who had return from France, especially as he had requested her the pleasure to bring his Majesty’s mild message to the to remain quiet, in a letter which accompanied the evi- Lieutenant, discharging the higher prosecution against dence he had transmitted to her from Paris. She could ye, for any thing meditated against his Majesty’s sacred only plead in answer the influence which her immedi- person; for, admit you be prosecuted on the lesser of- ately stirring in the matter was likely to have on the fence, or breach of privilege of the Palace and its pre-

434 Sir Walter Scott cincts, usque ad mutilationem, even to dismemberation, especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that as it is most likely you will, yet the loss of a member is matter.* I wish you as well through the next, which is nothing to being hanged and drawn quick, after the fash- altogether unlikely.” ion of a traitor.” “Surely, Sir Mungo,” answered Nigel, “you yourself “I should feel the shame of having deserved such a might say something in my favour concerning the affair punishment,” answered Nigel, “more than the pain of in the Park. None knows better than you that I was at undergoing it.” that moment urged by wrongs of the most heinous na- “Doubtless, my lord, the having, as you say, deserved ture, offered to me by Lord Dalgarno, many of which it, must be an excruciation to your own mind,” replied were reported to me by yourself, much to the inflamma- his tormentor; “a kind of mental and metaphysical tion of my passion.” hanging, drawing, and quartering, which may be in some “Alack-a-day!-Alack-a-day!” replied Sir Mungo, “I re- measure equipollent with the external application of member but too well how much your choler was in- hemp, iron, fire, and the like, to the outer man.” *Wilson informs us that when Colonel Grey, a Scotsman who “I say, Sir Mungo,” repeated Nigel, “and beg you to affected the buff dress even in the time of peace, appeared in that military garb at Court, the king, seeing him with a case understand my words, that I am unconscious of any of pistols at his girdle, which he never greatly liked, told him, error, save that of having arms on my person when I merrily, “he was now so fortified, that, if he were but well chanced to approach that of my Sovereign.” victualled, he would be impregnable.”—WILSON’S Life and Reign of James VI., apud KENNET’S History of England, “Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing,” said vol. ii. p. 389. In 1612, the tenth year of James’s reign, there Sir Mungo. “We have an old proverb,—Confess, and— was a rumour abroad that a shipload of pocket-pistols had so forth. And indeed, as to the weapons, his Majesty been exported from Spain, with a view to a general massacre of the Protestants. Proclamations were of consequence sent has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever, and more forth, prohibiting all persons from carrying pistols under a foot long in the barrel. Ibid. p. 690. 435 The Fortunes of Nigel flamed, in spite of the various remonstrances which I punish myself than baulk you. It is a pretty pageant, in made to you respecting the sacred nature of the place. the main—a very pretty pageant. The fallow came on Alas! alas! you cannot say you leaped into the mire for with such a bold face, it was a pleasure to look on him. want of warning.” He was dressed all in white, to signify harmlessness and “I see, Sir Mungo, you are determined to remember innocence. The thing was done on a scaffold at nothing which can do me service,” said Nigel. Westminster—most likely yours will be at the Charing. “Blithely would I do ye service,” said the Knight; “and There were the Sheriffs and the Marshal’s men, and what the best whilk I can think of is, to tell you the process not—the executioner, with his cleaver and mallet, and of the punishment to the whilk you will be indubitably his man, with a pan of hot charcoal, and the irons for subjected, I having had the good fortune to behold it cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This performed in the Queen’s time, on a chield that had writ- man Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might ten a pasquinado. I was then in my Lord Gray’s train, be worth your lordship’s while to have the loon sent to a who lay leaguer here, and being always covetous of pleas- barber-surgeon’s, to learn some needful scantling of ing and profitable sights, I could not dispense with be- anatomy—it may be for the benefit of yourself and ing present on the occasion.” other unhappy sufferers, and also a kindness to Gregory.” “I should be surprised, indeed,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I will not take the trouble,” said Nigel.—“If the laws “if you had so far put restraint upon your benevolence, will demand my hand, the executioner may get it off as as to stay away from such an exhibition.” he best can. If the king leaves it where it is, it may chance “Hey! was your lordship praying me to be present at to do him better service.” your own execution?” answered the Knight. “Troth, my “Vera noble—vera grand, indeed, my lord,” said Sir lord, it will be a painful sight to a friend, but I will rather Mungo; “it is pleasant to see a brave man suffer. This

436 Sir Walter Scott fallow whom I spoke of—This Tubbs, or Stubbs, or what- been able to forbear some natural feelings of an unpleas- ever the plebeian was called, came forward as bold as an ant nature during this lively detail,—“I have no doubt emperor, and said to the people, ‘Good friends, I come the exhibition will be a very engaging one to you and to leave here the hand of a true Englishman,’ and the other spectators, whatever it may prove to the party clapped it on the dressing-block with as much ease as if principally concerned.” he had laid it on his sweetheart’s shoulder; whereupon “Vera engaging,” answered Sir Mungo, “vera interest- Derrick the hangman, adjusting, d’ye mind me, the edge ing—vera interesting indeed, though not altogether so of his cleaver on the very joint, hit it with the mallet much so as an execution for high treason. I saw Digby, with such force, that the hand flew off as far from the the Winters, Fawkes, and the rest of the gunpowder owner as a gauntlet which the challenger casts down in gang, suffer for that treason, whilk was a vera grand the tilt-yard. Well, sir, Stubbs, or Tubbs, lost no whit of spectacle, as well in regard to their sufferings, as to their countenance, until the fallow clapped the hissing-hot constancy in enduring.” iron on his raw stump. My lord, it fizzed like a rasher of “I am the more obliged to your goodness, Sir Mungo,” bacon, and the fallow set up an elritch screech, which replied Nigel, “that has induced you, although you have made some think his courage was abated; but not a whit, lost the sight, to congratulate me on my escape from for he plucked off his hat with his left hand, and waved the hazard of making the same edifying appearance.” it, crying, ‘God save the Queen, and confound all evil “As you say, my lord,” answered Sir Mungo, “the loss counsellors!’ The people gave him three cheers, which is chiefly in appearance. Nature has been very bounti- he deserved for his stout heart; and, truly, I hope to see ful to us, and has given duplicates of some organs, that your lordship suffer with the same magnanimity.” we may endure the loss of one of them, should some “I thank you, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, who had not such circumstance chance in our pilgrimage. See my poor

437 The Fortunes of Nigel dexter, abridged to one thumb, one finger, and a “Nay, who should I mean, but that travestied lassie stump,—by the blow of my adversary’s weapon, how- whom we dined with when we honoured Heriot the gold- ever, and not by any carnificial knife. Weel, sir, this poor smith? Ye ken best how you have made interest with maimed hand doth me, in some sort, as much service as her, but I saw her on her knees to the king for you. She ever; and, admit yours to be taken off by the wrist, you was committed to my charge, to bring her up hither in have still your left hand for your service, and are better honour and safety. Had I had my own will, I would have off than the little Dutch dwarf here about town, who had her to Bridewell, to flog the wild blood out of her— threads a needle, limns, writes, and tosses a pike, merely a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches, and by means of his feet, without ever a hand to help him.” not so much as married yet!” “Well, Sir Mungo,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “this is all “Hark ye, Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” answered Nigel, no doubt very consolatory; but I hope the king will spare “I would have you talk of that young person with fit- my hand to fight for him in battle, where, notwithstand- ting respect.” ing all your kind encouragement, I could spend my blood “With all the respect that befits your lordship’s par- much more cheerfully than on a scaffold.” amour, and Davy Ramsay’s daughter, I shall certainly “It is even a sad truth,” replied Sir Mungo, “that your speak of her, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, assuming a dry lordship was but too like to have died on a scaffold— tone of irony. not a soul to speak for you but that deluded lassie Maggie Nigel was greatly disposed to have made a serious quar- Ramsay.” rel of it, but with Sir Mungo such an affair would have “Whom mean you?” said Nigel, with more interest been ridiculous; he smothered his resentment, therefore, than he had hitherto shown in the Knight’s communi- and conjured him to tell what he had heard and seen cations. respecting this young person.

438 Sir Walter Scott “Simply, that I was in the ante-room when she had “And on this you have charitably founded the opinion audience, and heard the king say, to my great perplex- to the prejudice of this young lady, which you have now ity, ‘Pulchra sane puella;’ and Maxwell, who hath but thought proper to express?” said Lord Glenvarloch. indifferent Latin ears, thought that his Majesty called “In honest truth, my lord,” replied Sir Mungo, “what on him by his own name of Sawney, and thrust into the opinion would you have me form of a wench who gets into presence, and there I saw our Sovereign James, with his male habiliments, and goes on her knees to the king for a own hand, raising up the lassie, who, as I said hereto- wild young nobleman? I wot not what the fashionable word fore, was travestied in man’s attire. I should have had may be, for the phrase changes, though the custom abides. my own thoughts of it, but our gracious Master is auld, But truly I must needs think this young leddy—if you call and was nae great gillravager amang the queans even in Watchie Ramsay’s daughter a young leddy—demeans her- his youth; and he was comforting her in his own way self more like a leddy of pleasure than a leddy of honour.” and saying,—‘Ye needna greet about it, my bonnie “You do her egregious wrong, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel; woman, Glenvarlochides shall have fair play; and, in- “or rather you have been misled by appearances.” deed, when the hurry was off our spirits, we could not “So will all the world be misled, my lord,” replied the believe that he had any design on our person. And touch- satirist, “unless you were doing that to disabuse them ing his other offences, we will look wisely and closely which your father’s son will hardly judge it fit to do.” into the matter.’ So I got charge to take the young fence- “And what may that be, I pray you?” louper to the Tower here, and deliver her to the charge “E’en marry the lass—make her Leddy Glenvarloch.— of Lady Mansel; and his Majesty charged me to say not Ay, ay, ye may start—but it’s the course you are driving a word to her about your offences, for, said he, the poor on. Rather marry than do worse, if the worst be not thing is breaking her heart for him.” done already.”

439 The Fortunes of Nigel “Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, “I pray you to forbear this unexpected and additional blow. When he had seen the subject, and rather return to that of the mutilation, warrant he could not precisely remember; but was in- upon which it pleased you to enlarge a short while since.” clined to think, it was in the casket when he took out “I have not time at present,” said Sir Mungo, hearing money to pay the miser for his lodgings at Whitefriars. the clock strike four; “but so soon as you shall have re- Since then, the casket had been almost constantly un- ceived sentence, my lord, you may rely on my giving der his own eye, except during the short time he was you the fullest detail of the whole solemnity; and I give separated from his baggage by the arrest in Greenwich you my word, as a knight and a gentleman, that I will Park. It might, indeed, have been taken out at that time, myself attend you on the scaffold, whoever may cast for he had no reason to think either his person or his sour looks on me for doing so. I bear a heart, to stand by property was in the hands of those who wished him well; a friend in the worst of times.” but, on the other hand, the locks of the strong-box had So saying, he wished Lord Glenvarloch farewell; who sustained no violence that he could observe, and, being felt as heartily rejoiced at his departure, though it may of a particular and complicated construction, he thought be a bold word, as any person who had ever undergone they could scarce be opened without an instrument made his society. on purpose, adapted to their peculiarities, and for this But, when left to his own reflections, Nigel could not there had been no time. But, speculate as he would on help feeling solitude nearly as irksome as the company the matter, it was clear that this important document of Sir Mungo Malagrowther. The total wreck of his for- was gone, and probable that it had passed into no tune,—which seemed now to be rendered unavoidable friendly hands. “Let it be so,” said Nigel to himself; “I by the loss of the royal warrant, that had afforded him am scarcely worse off respecting my prospects of for- the means of redeeming his paternal estate,—was an tune, than when I first reached this accursed city. But

440 Sir Walter Scott to be hampered with cruel accusations, and stained with eral ban of humanity. It was no wonder that Nigel, foul suspicions-to be the object of pity of the most de- labouring under the sense of general, though unjust sus- grading kind to yonder honest citizen, and of the ma- picion, should, while pondering on so painful a theme, lignity of that envious and atrabilarious courtier, who recollect that one, at least, had not only believed him can endure the good fortune and good qualities of an- innocent, but hazarded herself, with all her feeble power, other no more than the mole can brook sunshine—this to interpose in his behalf. is indeed a deplorable reflection; and the consequences “Poor girl!” he repeated; “poor, rash, but generous must stick to my future life, and impede whatever my maiden! your fate is that of her in Scottish story, who head, or my hand, if it is left me, might be able to ex- thrust her arm into the staple of the door, to oppose it ecute in my favour.” as a bar against the assassins who threatened the mur- The feeling, that he is the object of general dislike and der of her sovereign. The deed of devotion was useless; dereliction, seems to be one of the most unendurably save to give an immortal name to her by whom it was painful to which a human being can be subjected. The done, and whose blood flows, it is said, in the veins of most atrocious criminals, whose nerves have not shrunk my house.” from perpetrating the most horrid cruelty, endure more I cannot explain to the reader, whether the recollec- from the consciousness that no man will sympathise with tion of this historical deed of devotion, and the lively their sufferings, than from apprehension of the personal effect which the comparison, a little overstrained per- agony of their impending punishment; and are known haps, was likely to produce in favour of Margaret often to attempt to palliate their enormities, and some- Ramsay, was not qualified by the concomitant ideas of times altogether to deny what is established by the ancestry and ancient descent with which that recollec- clearest proof, rather than to leave life under the gen- tion was mingled. But the contending feelings suggested

441 The Fortunes of Nigel a new train of ideas.—“Ancestry,” he thought, “and and noble name, his mind would have rejected, as a sort ancient descent, what are they to me?—My patrimony of impossibility, the idea of elevating to his rank the alienated—my title become a reproach—for what can daughter of a mechanic; but, when degraded from his be so absurd as titled beggary?—my character subjected nobility, and plunged into poverty and difficulties, he to suspicion,—I will not remain in this country; and was ashamed to feel himself not unwilling, that this poor should I, at leaving it, procure the society of one so girl, in the blindness of her affection, should abandon lovely, so brave, and so faithful, who should say that I all the better prospects of her own settled condition, to derogated from the rank which I am virtually renounc- embrace the precarious and doubtful course which he ing?” himself was condemned to. The generosity of Nigel’s There was something romantic and pleasing, as he pur- mind recoiled from the selfishness of the plan of happi- sued this picture of an attached and faithful pair, be- ness which he projected; and he made a strong effort to coming all the world to each other, and stemming the expel from his thoughts for the rest of the evening this tide of fate arm in arm; and to be linked thus with a fascinating female, or, at least, not to permit them to creature so beautiful, and who had taken such devoted dwell upon the perilous circumstance, that she was at and disinterested concern in his fortunes, formed itself present the only creature living who seemed to consider into such a vision as romantic youth loves best to dwell him as an object of kindness. upon. He could not, however, succeed in banishing her from Suddenly his dream was painfully dispelled, by the his slumbers, when, after having spent a weary day, he recollection, that its very basis rested upon the most betook himself to a perturbed couch. The form of Mar- selfish ingratitude on his own part. Lord of his castle garet mingled with the wild mass of dreams which his and his towers, his forests and fields, his fair patrimony late adventures had suggested; and even when, copying

442 Sir Walter Scott 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 CHAPTER XXXI 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 Many, come up, sir, with your gentle blood! the sound of a well-known voice, which had often bro- Here’s a red stream beneath this coarse blue doublet, ken his slumbers about the same hour. 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

443 The Fortunes of Nigel clothes, with as much composure and quiet assiduity as master’s cloak, and refreshing himself with whistling if he had never been out of his service, and grumbling or humming, from interval to interval, some snatch of betwixt whiles to the following purpose:—“Hump—ay, an old melancholy Scottish ballad-tune. Although suf- time cloak and jerkin were through my hands—I ques- ficiently convinced of the identity of the party, Lord tion if horsehair has been passed over them since they Glenvarloch could not help expressing his surprise in the and I last parted. The embroidery finely frayed too— superfluous question—“In the name of Heaven, Richie, and the gold buttons of the cloak—By my conscience, is this you?” and as I am an honest man, there is a round dozen of “And wha else suld it be, my lord?” answered Richie; them gane! This comes of Alsatian frolics—God keep “I dreamna that your lordship’s levee in this place is us with his grace, and not give us over to our own de- like to be attended by ony that are not bounded thereto vices!—I see no sword—but that will be in respect of by duty.” present circumstances.” “I am rather surprised,” answered Nigel, “that it Nigel for some time could not help believing that he should be attended by any one at all—especially by you, was still in a dream, so improbable did it seem that his Richie; for you know that we parted, and I thought you domestic, whom he supposed to be in Scotland, should had reached Scotland long since.” have found him out, and obtained access to him, in his “I crave your lordship’s pardon, but we have not parted present circumstances. Looking through the curtains, yet, nor are soon likely so to do; for there gang twa folk’s however, he became well assured of the fact, when he votes to the unmaking of a bargain, as to the making beheld the stiff and bony length of Richie, with a vis- of ane. Though it was your lordship’s pleasure so to con- age charged with nearly double its ordinary degree of duct yourself that we were like to have parted, yet it importance, employed sedulously in brushing his was not, on reflection, my will to be gone. To be plain, if

444 Sir Walter Scott your lordship does not ken when you have a good ser- whom the relative situation of the parties had invested vant, I ken when I have a kind master; and to say truth, with ten times his ordinary dogmatism; “but as I will you will be easier served now than ever, for there is not manage the matter, your lordship shall be greatly ben- much chance of your getting out of bounds.” efited by my service, and I myself no whit prejudiced.” “I am indeed bound over to good behaviour,” said Lord “I see not how that can be, my friend,” said Lord Glenvarloch, with a smile; “but I hope you will not take Glenvarloch, “since even as to your pecuniary affairs—” advantage of my situation to be too severe on my fol- “Touching my pecuniars, my lord,” replied Richie, “I lies, Richie?” am indifferently weel provided; and, as it chances, my “God forbid, my lord—God forbid!” replied Richie, living here will be no burden to your lordship, or dis- with an expression betwixt a conceited consciousness tress to myself. Only I crave permission to annex cer- of superior wisdom and real feeling—“especially in contain conditions to my servitude with your lordship.” sideration of your lordship’s having a due sense of them. “Annex what you will,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “for I did indeed remonstrate, as was my humble duty, but I you are pretty sure to take your own way, whether you scorn to cast that up to your lordship now—Na, na, I make any conditions or not. Since you will not leave me, am myself an erring creature—very conscious of some which were, I think, your wisest course, you must, and I small weaknesses—there is no perfection in man.” suppose will, serve me only on such terms as you like “But, Richie,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “although I am yourself.” much obliged to you for your proffered service, it can be “All that I ask, my lord,” said Richie, gravely, and with of little use to me here, and may be of prejudice to your- a tone of great moderation, “is to have the uninterrupted self.” command of my own motions, for certain important “Your lordship shall pardon me again,” said Richie, purposes which I have now in hand, always giving your

445 The Fortunes of Nigel lordship the solace of my company and attendance, at summer day, And besides, there may be brave days be- such times as may be at once convenient for me, and hind, for a’ that has come and gane yet; for necessary for your service.” “It’s hame, and it’s hame, and it’s hame we fain would “Of which, I suppose, you constitute yourself sole be, Though the cloud is in the lift, and the wind is on the judge,” replied Nigel, smiling. lea; For the sun through the mirk blinks blithe on mine “Unquestionably, my lord,” answered Richie, gravely; ee, Says,—‘I’ll shine on ye yet in our ain country!” “for your lordship can only know what yourself want; Having sung this stanza in the manner of a ballad- whereas I, who see both sides of the picture, ken both singer, whose voice has been cracked by matching his what is the best for your affairs, and what is the most windpipe against the bugle of the north blast, Richie needful for my own.” Moniplies aided Lord Glenvarloch to rise, attended his “Richie, my good friend,” said Nigel, “I fear this ar- toilet with every possible mark of the most solemn and rangement, which places the master much under the deferential respect, then waited upon him at breakfast, disposal of the servant, would scarce suit us if we were and finally withdrew, pleading that he had business of both at large; but a prisoner as I am, I may be as well at importance, which would detain him for some hours. your disposal as I am at that of so many other persons; Although Lord Glenvarloch necessarily expected to be and so you may come and go as you list, for I suppose occasionally annoyed by the self-conceit and dogmatism you will not take my advice, to return to your own coun- of Richie Moniplies’s character, yet he could not but try, and leave me to my fate.” feel the greatest pleasure from the firm and devoted at- “The deil be in my feet if I do,” said Moniplies,—“I tachment which this faithful follower had displayed in am not the lad to leave your lordship in foul weather, the present instance, and indeed promised himself an when I followed you and fed upon you through the whole alleviation of the ennui of his imprisonment, in having

446 Sir Walter Scott the advantage of his services. It was, therefore, with “Tell him,” said Moniplies, “that it is a dear country- pleasure that he learned from the warder, that his man of his, who seeks to converse with him on matter servant’s attendance would be allowed at all times when of high import.” the general rules of the fortress permitted the entrance “A dear countryman?” said Linklater, when this press- of strangers. ing message was delivered to him. “Well, let him come In the meanwhile, the magnanimous Richie Moniplies in and be d—d, that I should say sae! This now is some had already reached Tower Wharf. Here, after looking red-headed, long-legged, gillie-white-foot frae the West with contempt on several scullers by whom he was plied, Port, that, hearing of my promotion, is come up to be a and whose services he rejected with a wave of his hand, turn-broche, or deputy scullion, through my interest. he called with dignity, “First oars!” and stirred into ac- It is a great hinderance to any man who would rise in tivity several lounging Tritons of the higher order, who the world, to have such friends to hang by his skirts, in had not, on his first appearance, thought it worth while hope of being towed up along with him.—Ha! Richie to accost him with proffers of service. He now took pos- Moniplies, man, is it thou? And what has brought ye session of a wherry, folded his arms within his ample here? If they should ken thee for the loon that scared cloak, and sitting down in the stern with an air of im- the horse the other day!—” portance, commanded them to row to Whitehall Stairs. “No more o’ that, neighbour,” said Richie,—“I am just Having reached the Palace in safety, he demanded to here on the auld errand—I maun speak with the king.” see Master Linklater, the under-clerk of his Majesty’s “The king? Ye are red wud,” said Linklater; then kitchen. The reply was, that he was not to be spoken shouted to his assistant in the kitchen, “Look to the withal, being then employed in cooking a mess of cock- broches, ye knaves—pisces purga—Salsamenta fac a-leekie for the king’s own mouth. macerentur pulchre—I will make you understand Latin,

447 The Fortunes of Nigel ye knaves, as becomes the scullions of King James.” the letter between the gilt bowl and the platter; his sa- Then in a cautious tone, to Richie’s private ear, he con- cred Majesty will see it when he lifts the bowl, for he aye tinued, “Know ye not how ill your master came off the drinks out the broth.” other day?—I can tell you that job made some folk shake “Enough said,” replied Richie, and deposited the pa- for their office.” per accordingly, just before a page entered to carry away “Weel, but, Laurie, ye maun befriend me this time, the mess to his Majesty. and get this wee bit sifflication slipped into his Majesty’s “Aweel, aweel, neighbour,” said Laurence, when the ain most gracious hand. I promise you the contents will mess was taken away, “if ye have done ony thing to bring be most grateful to him.” yoursell to the withy, or the scourging post, it is your “Richie,” answered Linklater, “you have certainly ain wilful deed.” sworn to say your prayers in the porter’s lodge, with “I will blame no other for it,” said Richie; and with your back bare; and twa grooms, with dog-whips, to that undismayed pertinacity of conceit, which made a cry amen to you.” fundamental part of his character, he abode the issue, “Na, na, Laurie, lad,” said Richie, “I ken better what which was not long of arriving. belangs to sifflications than I did yon day; and ye will In a few minutes Maxwell himself arrived in the apart- say that yoursell, if ye will but get that bit note to the ment, and demanded hastily who had placed a writing king’s hand.” on the king’s trencher, Linklater denied all knowledge “I will have neither hand nor foot in the matter,” said of it; but Richie Moniplies, stepping boldly forth, pro- the cautious Clerk of the Kitchen; “but there is his nounced the emphatical confession, “I am the man.” Majesty’s mess of cock-a-leekie just going to be served “Follow me, then,” said Maxwell, after regarding him to him in his closet—I cannot prevent you from putting with a look of great curiosity.

448 Sir Walter Scott They went up a private staircase,—even that private “Have ye gotten them, man? have ye gotten them?” staircase, the privilege of which at Court is accounted a said the king, in a fluttered state, betwixt hope and ea- nearer road to power than the grandes entrees themselves. gerness, and some touch of suspicious fear. “Gie me Arriving in what Richie described as an “ill redd-up” them—gie me them—before ye speak a word, I charge ante-room, the usher made a sign to him to stop, while you, on your allegiance.” he went into the king’s closet. Their conference was Richie took a box from his bosom, and, stooping on short, and as Maxwell opened the door to retire, Richie one knee, presented it to his Majesty, who hastily opened heard the conclusion of it. it, and having ascertained that it contained a certain “Ye are sure he is not dangerous?—I was caught carcanet of rubies, with which the reader was formerly once.—Bide within call, but not nearer the door than made acquainted, he could not resist falling into a sort within three geometrical cubits. If I speak loud, start of rapture, kissing the gems, as if they had been ca- to me like a falcon—If I speak loun, keep your lang pable of feeling, and repeating again and again with lugs out of ear-shot—and now let him come in.” childish delight, “Onyx cum prole, silexque—Onyx cum Richie passed forward at Maxwell’s mute signal, and in a prole! Ah, my bright and bonny sparklers, my heart loups moment found himself in the presence of the king. Most light to see you again.” He then turned to Richie, upon men of Richie’s birth and breeding, and many others, would whose stoical countenance his Majesty’s demeanour had have been abashed at finding themselves alone with their excited something like a grim smile, which James inter- Sovereign. But Richie Moniplies had an opinion of himself rupted his rejoicing to reprehend, saying, “Take heed, too high to be controlled by any such ideas; and having made sir, you are not to laugh at us—we are your anointed his stiff reverence, he arose once more into his perpendicu- Sovereign.” lar height, and stood before James as stiff as a hedge-stake. “God forbid that I should laugh!” said Richie, com-

449 The Fortunes of Nigel posing his countenance into its natural rigidity. “I did “In no sort,” said Richie. “May it please your Maj- but smile, to bring my visage into coincidence and con- esty, I come as Harry Wynd fought, utterly for my own formity with your Majesty’s physiognomy.” hand, and on no man’s errand; as, indeed, I call no one “Ye speak as a dutiful subject, and an honest man,” master, save Him that made me, your most gracious said the king; “but what deil’s your name, man?” Majesty who governs me, and the noble Nigel Olifaunt, “Even Richie Moniplies, the son of auld Mungo Lord of Glenvarloch, who maintained me as lang as he Moniplies, at the West Port of Edinburgh, who had the could maintain himself, poor nobleman!” honour to supply your Majesty’s mother’s royal table, “Glenvarlochides again!” exclaimed the king; “by my as weel as your Majesty’s, with flesh and other vivers, honour, he lies in ambush for us at every corner!—Max- when time was.” well knocks at the door. It is George Heriot come to tell “Aha!” said the king, laughing,—for he possessed, as a us he cannot find these jewels.—Get thee behind the useful attribute of his situation, a tenacious memory, arras, Richie—stand close, man—sneeze not—cough which recollected every one with whom he was brought not—breathe not!—Jingling Geordie is so damnably into casual contact,—“Ye are the self-same traitor who ready with his gold-ends of wisdom, and sae accursedly had weelnigh coupit us endlang on the causey of our backward with his gold-ends of siller, that, by our royal ain courtyard? but we stuck by our mare. Equam me- saul, we are glad to get a hair in his neck.” mento rebus in arduis servare. Weel, be not dismayed, Richie got behind the arras, in obedience to the com- Richie; for, as many men have turned traitors, it is but mands of the good-natured king, while the Monarch, fair that a traitor, now and then, suld prove to be, con- who never allowed his dignity to stand in the way of a tra expectanda, a true man. How cam ye by our jewels, frolic, having adjusted, with his own hand, the tapes- man?—cam ye on the part of George Heriot?” try, so as to complete the ambush, commanded Max-

450 Sir Walter Scott well to tell him what was the matter without. Maxwell’s the thing opignorated, or pledged, or laid in wad. Voetius, reply was so low as to be lost by Richie Moniplies, the Vinnius, Groenwigeneus, Pagenstecherus,—all who have peculiarity of whose situation by no means abated his treated de Contractu Opignerationis, consentiunt in eun- curiosity and desire to gratify it to the uttermost. dem,—gree on the same point. The Roman law, the En- “Let Geordie Heriot come in,” said the king; and, as glish common law, and the municipal law of our ain Richie could observe through a slit in the tapestry, the ancient kingdom of Scotland, though they split in mair honest citizen, if not actually agitated, was at least dis- particulars than I could desire, unite as strictly in this composed. The king, whose talent for wit, or humour, as the three strands of a twisted rope.” was precisely of a kind to be gratified by such a scene as “May it please your Majesty,” replied Heriot, “it re- ensued, received his homage with coldness, and began quires not so many learned authorities to prove to any to talk to him with an air of serious dignity, very differ- honest man, that his interest in a pledge is determined ent from the usual indecorous levity of his behaviour. when the money lent is restored.” “Master Heriot,” he said, “if we aright remember, we “Weel, sir, I proffer restoration of the sum lent, and I opignorated in your hands certain jewels of the Crown, demand to be repossessed of the jewels pledged with for a certain sum of money—Did we, or did we not?” you. I gave ye a hint, brief while since, that this would “My most gracious Sovereign,” said Heriot, “indisput- be essential to my service, for, as approaching events ably your Majesty was pleased to do so.” are like to call us into public, it would seem strange if “The property of which jewels and cimelia remained we did not appear with those ornaments, which are heir- with us,” continued the king, in the same solemn tone, looms of the Crown, and the absence whereof is like to “subject only to your claim of advance thereupon; which place us in contempt and suspicion with our liege sub- advance being repaid, gives us right to repossession of jects.”

451 The Fortunes of Nigel Master George Heriot seemed much moved by this ad- loss of our cimelia by your neglect, besides being ex- dress of his Sovereign, and replied with emotion, “I call posed to the scorn and censure of our lieges, and of the Heaven to witness, that I am totally harmless in this foreign ambassadors?” matter, and that I would willingly lose the sum advanced, “My lord and liege king,” said Heriot, “God knows, if so that I could restore those jewels, the absence of which my bearing blame or shame in this matter would keep it your Majesty so justly laments. Had the jewels remained from your Majesty, it were my duty to endure both, as a with me, the account of them would be easily rendered; servant grateful for many benefits; but when your Maj- but your Majesty will do me the justice to remember, esty considers the violent death of the man himself, the that, by your express order, I transferred them to an- disappearance of his daughter, and of his wealth, I trust other person, who advanced a large sum, just about the you will remember that I warned your Majesty, in time of my departure for Paris. The money was press- humble duty, of the possibility of such casualties, and ingly wanted, and no other means to come by it occurred prayed you not to urge me to deal with him on your to me. I told your Majesty, when I brought the needful behalf.” supply, that the man from whom the monies were ob- “But you brought me nae better means,” said the tained, was of no good repute; and your most princely king— “Geordie, ye brought me nae better means. I was answer was, smelling to the gold—Non olet, it smells not like a deserted man; what could I do but grip to the first of the means that have gotten it.” siller that offered, as a drowning man grasps to the wil- “Weel, man,” said the king, “but what needs a’ this low-wand that comes readiest?—And now, man, what din? If ye gave my jewels in pledge to such a one, suld for have ye not brought back the jewels? they are surely ye not, as a liege subject, have taken care that the re- above ground, if ye wad make strict search.” demption was in our power? And are we to suffer the “All strict search has been made, may it please your

452 Sir Walter Scott Majesty,” replied the citizen; “hue and cry has been sent to Solomon, King of Israel, in all his gifts, except in his out everywhere, and it has been found impossible to re- love to strange women, forby the daughter of Pharaoh.” cover them.” If Heriot was surprised at seeing the jewels so unex- “Difficult, ye mean, Geordie, not impossible,” replied pectedly produced at the moment the king was upbraid- the king; “for that whilk is impossible, is either natu- ing him for the loss of them, this allusion to the reflec- rally so, exempli gratia, to make two into three; or mor- tion which had escaped him while conversing with Lord ally so, as to make what is truth falsehood; but what is Glenvarloch, altogether completed his astonishment; only difficult may come to pass, with assistance of wis- and the king was so delighted with the superiority which dom and patience; as, for example, Jingling Geordie, it gave him at the moment, that he rubbed his hands, look here!” And he displayed the recovered treasure to chuckled, and finally, his sense of dignity giving way to the eyes of the astonished jeweller, exclaiming, with the full feeling of triumph, he threw himself into his great triumph, “What say ye to that, Jingler?—By my easy-chair, and laughed with unconstrained violence till sceptre and crown, the man stares as if he took his na- he lost his breath, and the tears ran plentifully down his tive prince for a warlock! us that are the very malleus cheeks as he strove to recover it. Meanwhile, the royal maleficarum, the contunding and contriturating ham- cachinnation was echoed out by a discordant and por- mer of all witches, sorcerers, magicians, and the like; he tentous laugh from behind the arras, like that of one thinks we are taking a touch of the black art outsells!— who, little accustomed to give way to such emotions, But gang thy way, honest Geordie; thou art a good plain feels himself at some particular impulse unable either man, but nane of the seven sages of Greece; gang thy to control or to modify his obstreperous mirth. Heriot way, and mind the soothfast word which you spoke, small turned his head with new surprise towards the place, time syne, that there is one in this land that comes near from which sounds so unfitting the presence of a mon-

453 The Fortunes of Nigel arch seemed to burst with such emphatic clamour. George Heriot, when his first surprise was over, was The king, too, somewhat sensible of the indecorum, too old a courtier to interrupt the king’s imaginary tri- rose up, wiped his eyes, and calling,—“Todlowrie, come umph, although he darted a look of some displeasure at out o’ your den,” he produced from behind the arras the honest Richie, who still continued on what is usually length of Richie Moniplies, still laughing with as unre- termed the broad grin. He quietly examined the stones, strained mirth as ever did gossip at a country christen- and finding them all perfect, he honestly and sincerely ing. “Whisht, man, whisht, man,” said the king; “ye congratulated his Majesty on the recovery of a treasure needna nicher that gait, like a cusser at a caup o’ corn, which could not have been lost without some dishonour e’en though it was a pleasing jest, and our ain framing. to the crown; and asked to whom he himself was to pay And yet to see Jingling Geordie, that bauds himself so the sums for which they had been pledged, observing, much the wiser than other folk—to see him, ha! ha! ha!— that he had the money by him in readiness. in the vein of Euclio apud Plautum, distressing himself “Ye are in a deevil of a hurry, when there is paying in to recover what was lying at his elbow— the case, Geordie,” said the king.—“What’s a’ the haste, ‘Peril, interii, occidi—quo curram? quo non curram?— man? The jewels were restored by an honest, kindly Tene, tene—quem? quis? nescio—nihil video.” countryman of ours. There he stands, and wha kens if “Ah! Geordie, your een are sharp enough to look after he wants the money on the nail, or if he might not be as gowd and silver, gems, rubies, and the like of that, and weel pleased wi’ a bit rescript on our treasury some six yet ye kenna how to come by them when they are lost.— months hence? Ye ken that our Exchequer is even at a Ay, ay—look at them, man—look at them—they are a’ low ebb just now, and ye cry pay, pay, pay, as if we had right and tight, sound and round, not a doublet crept in all the mines of Ophir.” amongst them.” “Please your Majesty,” said Heriot, “if this man has

454 Sir Walter Scott the real right to these monies, it is doubtless at his will “Tut, tut, man,” said the king, “ye are over scrupu- to grant forbearance, if he will. But when I remember lous. The knave deer-stealers have an apt phrase, Non the guise in which I first saw him, with a tattered cloak est inquirendum unde venit VENISON. He that brings and a broken head, I can hardly conceive it.—Are not the gudes hath surely a right to dispose of the gear.— you Richie Moniplies, with the king’s favour?” Hark ye, friend, speak the truth and shame the deil. “Even sae, Master Heriot—of the ancient and Have ye plenary powers to dispose on the redemption- honourable house of Castle Collop, near to the West Port money as to delay of payments, or the like, ay or no?” of Edinburgh,” answered Richie. “Full power, an it like your gracious Majesty,” an- “Why, please your Majesty, he is a poor serving-man,” swered Richie Moniplies; “and I am maist willing to said Heriot. “This money can never be honestly at his subscrive to whatsoever may in ony wise accommodate disposal.” your Majesty anent the redemption-money, trusting “What for no?” said the king. “Wad ye have naebody your Majesty’s grace will be kind to me in one sma’ spraickle up the brae but yoursell, Geordie? Your ain favour.” cloak was thin enough when ye cam here, though ye “Ey, man,” said the king, “come ye to me there? I have lined it gay and weel. And for serving-men, there thought ye wad e’en be like the rest of them.—One has mony a red-shank cam over the Tweed wi’ his would think our subjects’ lives and goods were all our master’s wallet on his shoulders, that now rustles it wi’ ain, and holden of us at our free will; but when we stand his six followers behind him. There stands the man in need of ony matter of siller from them, which chances himsell; speer at him, Geordie.” more frequently than we would it did, deil a boddle is to “His may not be the best authority in the case,” an- be had, save on the auld terms of giff-gaff. It is just swered the cautious citizen. niffer for niffer.—Aweel, neighbour, what is it that ye

455 The Fortunes of Nigel want—some monopoly, I reckon? Or it may be a grant unpleasant service, we wad have a red iron driven of kirk-lands and teinds, or a knighthood, or the like? through your tongue, in terrorem of others.—Awa with Ye maun be reasonable, unless ye propose to advance him, Geordie,—pay him, plack and bawbee, out of our more money for our present occasions.” monies in your hands, and let them care that come “My liege,” answered Richie Moniplies, “the owner of ahint.” these monies places them at your Majesty’s command, Richie, who had counted with the utmost certainty free of all pledge or usage as long as it is your royal plea- upon the success of this master-stroke of policy, was sure, providing your Majesty will condescend to show like an architect whose whole scaffolding at once gives some favour to the noble Lord Glenvarloch, presently way under him. He caught, however, at what he thought prisoner in your royal Tower of London.” might break his fall. “Not only the sum for which the “How, man—how,—man—how, man!” exclaimed the jewels were pledged,” he said, “but the double of it, if king, reddening and stammering, but with emotions required, should be placed at his Majesty’s command, more noble than those by which he was sometimes agi- and even without hope or condition of repayment, if tated—“What is that you dare to say to us?—Sell our only—” justice!—sell our mercy!—and we a crowned king, sworn But the king did not allow him to complete the sen- to do justice to our subjects in the gate, and responsible tence, crying out with greater vehemence than before, for our stewardship to Him that is over all kings?”— as if he dreaded the stability of his own good resolu- Here he reverently looked up, touched his bonnet, and tions,—“Awa wi’ him—swith awa wi’ him! It is time he continued, with some sharpness,—“We dare not traffic were gane, if he doubles his bode that gate. And, for in such commodities, sir; and, but that ye are a poor your life, letna Steenie, or ony of them, hear a word ignorant creature, that have done us this day some not from his mouth; for wha kens what trouble that might

456 Sir Walter Scott bring me into! Ne inducas in tentationem—Vade retro, “It may be so, Richie,” said the citizen, “and perchance Sathanas!—Amen.” it may not be so neither, for your tales are not all gospel; In obedience to the royal mandate, George Heriot hur- and, therefore, be assured I will see that it is so, ere I ried the abashed petitioner out of the presence and out pay you that large sum of money. I shall give you an of the Palace; and, when they were in the Palace-yard, acknowledgment for it, and I will keep it prestable at a the citizen, remembering with some resentment the airs moment’s warning. But, my good Richard Moniplies, of equality which Richie had assumed towards him in of Castle Collop, near the West Port of Edinburgh, in the commencement of the scene which had just taken the meantime I am bound to return to his Majesty on place, could not forbear to retaliate, by congratulating matters of weight.” So speaking, and mounting the stair him with an ironical smile on his favour at Court, and to re-enter the Palace, he added, by way of summing up his improved grace in presenting a supplication. the whole,—“George Heriot is over old a cock to be “Never fash your beard about that, Master George He- caught with chaff.” riot,” said Richie, totally undismayed; “but tell me when Richie stood petrified when he beheld him re-enter the and where I am to sifflicate you for eight hundred pounds Palace, and found himself, as he supposed, left in the sterling, for which these jewels stood engaged?” lurch.—“Now, plague on ye,” he muttered, “for a cun- “The instant that you bring with you the real owner ning auld skinflint! that, because ye are an honest man of the money,” replied Heriot; “whom it is important yoursell, forsooth, must needs deal with all the world as that I should see on more accounts than one.” if they were knaves. But deil be in me if ye beat me “Then will I back to his Majesty,” said Richie Moniplies, yet!—Gude guide us! yonder comes Laurie Linklater stoutly, “and get either the money or the pledge back next, and he will be on me about the sifflication.—I again. I am fully commissionate to act in that matter.” winna stand him, by Saint Andrew!”

457 The Fortunes of Nigel So saying, and changing the haughty stride with which he had that morning entered the precincts of the Pal- ace, into a skulking shamble, he retreated for his wherry, CHAPTER XXXII which was in attendance, with speed which, to use the approved phrase on such occasions, greatly resembled a flight. 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

458 Sir Walter Scott both patience and fortitude to endure, and therefore ex- king; “The Bible, man,” (touching his cap,) “is indeed horted you to peruse some of the most pithy passages of principium et fons—but it is pity your lordship cannot Seneca, and of Boethius de Consolatione, that the back peruse it in the original. For although we did ourselves may be, as we say, fitted for the burden—This we com- promote that work of translation,—since ye may read, mend to you from our ain experience. at the beginning of every Bible, that when some palpable clouds of darkness were thought like to have over- ‘Non ignara mail, miseris succurrere disco,’ shadowed the land, after the setting of that bright occidental star, Queen Elizabeth; yet our appearance, sayeth Dido, and I might say in my own person, non like that of the sun in his strength, instantly dispelled ignarus; but to change the gender would affect the these surmised mists,—I say, that although, as therein prosody, whereof our southern subjects are tenacious. mentioned, we countenanced the preaching of the gos- So, my Lord of Huntinglen, I trust you have acted by pel, and especially the translation of the Scriptures out our advice, and studied patience before ye need it— of the original sacred tongues; yet nevertheless, we our- venienti occurrite morbo—mix the medicament when the selves confess to have found a comfort in consulting them disease is coming on.” in the original Hebrew, whilk we do not perceive even in “May it please your Majesty,” answered Lord the Latin version of the Septuagint, much less in the Huntinglen, “I am more of an old soldier than a English traduction.” scholar—and if my own rough nature will not bear me “Please your Majesty,” said Lord Huntinglen, “if your out in any calamity, I hope I shall have grace to try a Majesty delays communicating the bad news with which text of Scripture to boot.” your honoured letter threatens me, until I am capable “Ay, man, are you there with your bears?” said the to read Hebrew like your Majesty, I fear I shall die in

459 The Fortunes of Nigel ignorance of the misfortune which hath befallen, or is seemed undeniable. But a father yields not up so easily about to befall, my house.” the cause of his son. “You will learn it but too soon, my lord,” replied the “May it please your Majesty,” he said, “why was this king. “I grieve to say it, but your son Dalgarno, whom I tale not sooner told? This woman hath been here for thought a very saint, as he was so much with Steenie years—wherefore was the claim on my son not made and Baby Charles, hath turned out a very villain.” the instant she touched English ground?” “Villain!” repeated Lord Huntinglen; and though he “Tell him how that came about, Geordie,” said the instantly checked himself, and added, “but it is your king, dressing Heriot. Majesty speaks the word,” the effect of his first tone “I grieve to distress my Lord Huntinglen,” said He- made the king step back as if he had received a blow. He riot; but I must speak the truth. For a long time the also recovered himself again, and said in the pettish way Lady Hermione could not brook the idea of making her which usually indicated his displeasure—“Yes, my lord, situation public; and when her mind became changed in it was we that said it—non surdo canis—we are not that particular, it was necessary to recover the evidence deaf—we pray you not to raise your voice in speech with of the false marriage, and letters and papers connected us—there is the bonny memorial—read, and judge for with it, which, when she came to Paris, and just before yourself.” I saw her, she had deposited with a correspondent of The king then thrust into the old nobleman’s hand a her father in that city. He became afterwards bankrupt, paper, containing the story of the Lady Hermione, with and in consequence of that misfortune the lady’s pa- the evidence by which it was supported, detailed so pers passed into other hands, and it was only a few days briefly and clearly, that the infamy of Lord Dalgarno, since I traced and recovered them. Without these docu- the lover by whom she had been so shamefully deceived, ments of evidence, it would have been imprudent for

460 Sir Walter Scott her to have preferred her complaint, favoured as Lord said the king; “and I believed this lady’s tale the mair Dalgarno is by powerful friends.” readily, my Lord Huntinglen, that she spake nae ill of “Ye are saucy to say sae,” said the king; “I ken what Steenie—and to make a lang tale short, my lord, it is ye mean weel eneugh—ye think Steenie wad hae putten the opinion of our council and ourself, as weel as of Baby the weight of his foot into the scales of justice, and garr’d Charles and Steenie, that your son maun amend his them whomle the bucket—ye forget, Geordie, wha it is wrong by wedding this lady, or undergo such disgrace whose hand uphaulds them. And ye do poor Steenie the and discountenance as we can bestow.” mair wrang, for he confessed it ance before us and our The person to whom he spoke was incapable of an- privy council, that Dalgarno would have put the quean swering him. He stood before the king motionless, and aff on him, the puir simple bairn, making him trow that glaring with eyes of which even the lids seemed immov- she was a light-o’-love; in whilk mind he remained as- able, as if suddenly converted into an ancient statue of sured even when he parted from her, albeit Steenie might the times of chivalry, so instantly had his hard features hae weel thought ane of thae cattle wadna hae resisted and strong limbs been arrested into rigidity by the blow the like of him.” he had received—And in a second afterwards, like the “The Lady Hermione,” said George Heriot, “has al- same statue when the lightning breaks upon it, he sunk ways done the utmost justice to the conduct of the duke, at once to the ground with a heavy groan. The king was who, although strongly possessed with prejudice against in the utmost alarm, called upon Heriot and Maxwell her character, yet scorned to avail himself of her dis- for help, and, presence of mind not being his forte, ran tress, and on the contrary supplied her with the means to and fro in his cabinet, exclaiming—“My ancient and of extricating herself from her difficulties.” beloved servant—who saved our anointed self! vae atque “It was e’en like himsell—blessings on his bonny face!” dolor! My Lord of Huntinglen, look up—look up, man,

461 The Fortunes of Nigel and your son may marry the Queen of Sheba if he will.” nity, he grasped and shook Lord Huntinglen’s hands with By this time Maxwell and Heriot had raised the old the sympathy of an equal and a familiar friend.” nobleman, and placed him on a chair; while the king, “Compone lachrymas,” said the Monarch; “be patient, observing that he began to recover himself, continued man, be patient; the council, and Baby Charles, and his consolations more methodically. Steenie, may a’ gang to the deevil—he shall not marry “Haud up your head—haud up your head, and listen her since it moves you so deeply.” to your ain kind native Prince. If there is shame, man, “He shall marry her, by God!” answered the earl, draw- it comesna empty-handed—there is siller to gild it—a ing himself up, dashing the tear from his eyes, and en- gude tocher, and no that bad a pedigree;—if she has deavouring to recover his composure. “I pray your been a loon, it was your son made her sae, and he can Majesty’s pardon, but he shall marry her, with her make her an honest woman again.” dishonour for her dowry, were she the veriest courtezan These suggestions, however reasonable in the common in all Spain—If he gave his word, he shall make his word case, gave no comfort to Lord Huntinglen, if indeed he good, were it to the meanest creature that haunts the fully comprehended them; but the blubbering of his good- streets—he shall do it, or my own dagger shall take the natured old master, which began to accompany and in- life that I gave him. If he could stoop to use so base a terrupt his royal speech, produced more rapid effect. The fraud, though to deceive infamy, let him wed infamy.” large tear gushed reluctantly from his eye, as he kissed “No, no!” the Monarch continued to insinuate, “things the withered hands, which the king, weeping with less are not so bad as that—Steenie himself never thought dignity and restraint, abandoned to him, first alternately of her being a streetwalker, even when he thought the and then both together, until the feelings of the man get- worst of her.” ting entirely the better of the Sovereign’s sense of dig- “If it can at all console my Lord of Huntinglen,” said

462 Sir Walter Scott the citizen, “I can assure him of this lady’s good birth, could find in my heart speak such harsh words as you and most fair and unspotted fame.” have said of this deil of a Dalgarno of yours.” “I am sorry for it,” said Lord Huntinglen—then in- “May it please your Majesty to permit me to retire,” terrupting himself, he said—“Heaven forgive me for be- said Lord Huntinglen, “and dispose of the case according ungrateful for such comfort!—but I am well-nigh ing to your own royal sense of justice, for I desire no sorry she should be as you represent her, so much better favour for him.” than the villain deserves. To be condemned to wed “Aweel, my lord, so be it; and if your lordship can beauty and innocence and honest birth—” think,” added the Monarch, “of any thing in our power “Ay, and wealth, my lord—wealth,” insinuated the which might comfort you—” king, “is a better sentence than his perfidy has deserved.” “Your Majesty’s gracious sympathy,” said Lord “It is long,” said the embittered father, “since I saw Huntinglen, “has already comforted me as far as earth he was selfish and hardhearted; but to be a perjured can; the rest must be from the King of kings.” liar—I never dreaded that such a blot would have fallen “To Him I commend you, my auld and faithful ser- on my race! I will never look on him again.” vant,” said James with emotion, as the earl withdrew “Hoot ay, my lord, hoot ay,” said the king; “ye maun from his presence. The king remained fixed in thought tak him to task roundly. I grant you should speak more for some time, and then said to Heriot, “Jingling in the vein of Demea than Mitio, vi nempe et via pervulgata Geordie, ye ken all the privy doings of our Court, and patrum; but as for not seeing him again, and he your only have dune so these thirty years, though, like a wise man, son, that is altogether out of reason. I tell ye, man, (but I ye hear, and see, and say nothing. Now, there is a thing would not for a boddle that Baby Charles heard me,) that I fain wad ken, in the way of philosophical inquiry— he might gie the glaiks to half the lasses of Lonnun, ere I Did you ever hear of the umquhile Lady Huntinglen,

463 The Fortunes of Nigel the departed Countess of this noble earl, ganging a wee absolutely free. But the warld grows worse from day to bit gleed in her walk through the world; I mean in the day, Geordie. The juveniles of this age may weel say way of slipping a foot, casting a leglin-girth, or the like, with the poet— ye understand me?”* “On my word as an honest man,” said George Heriot, ‘Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit somewhat surprised at the question, “I never heard her Nos nequiores—’ wronged by the slightest breath of suspicion. She was a worthy lady, very circumspect in her walk, and lived in This Dalgarno does not drink so much, or swear so much, great concord with her husband, save that the good as his father; but he wenches, Geordie, and he breaks Countess was something of a puritan, and kept more his word and oath baith. As to what you say of the leddy, company with ministers than was altogether agreeable and the ministers, we are a’ fallible creatures, Geordie, to Lord Huntinglen, who is, as your Majesty well knows, priests and kings, as weel as others; and wha kens but a man of the old rough world, that will drink and swear.” what that may account for the difference between this “O Geordie!” exclaimed the king, “these are auld-warld Dalgarno and his father? The earl is the vera soul of frailties, of whilk we dare not pronounce even ourselves honour, and cares nae mair for warld’s gear than a noble *A leglin-girth is the lowest hoop upon a leglin, or milk-pail. hound for the quest of a foulmart; but as for his son, he Allan Ramsay applies the phrase in the same metaphorical was like to brazen us a’ out—ourselves, Steenie, Baby sense. Charles, and our council—till he heard of the tocher, “Or bairns can read, they first maun spell, and then, by my kingly crown, he lap like a cock at a I learn’d this frae my mammy, grossart! These are discrepancies betwixt parent and son And cast a leglin-girth mysell, Lang ere I married Tammy.” not to be accounted for naturally, according to Baptista Christ’s Kirk On The Green. 464 Sir Walter Scott Porta, Michael Scott de secretis, and others.—Ah, Jin- the guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing on the gling Geordie, if your clouting the caldron, and jingling turpitude of incontinence!” on pots, pans, and veshels of all manner of metal, hadna “I am afraid,” said George Heriot, more hastily than jingled a’ your grammar out of your head, I could have prudently, “I might have thought of the old proverb of touched on that matter to you at mair length.” Satan reproving sin.” Heriot was too plain-spoken to express much concern “Deil hae our saul, neighbour,” said the king, redden- for the loss of his grammar learning on this occasion; ing, “but ye are not blate! I gie ye license to speak freely, but after modestly hinting that he had seen many men and, by our saul, ye do not let the privilege become lost who could not fill their father’s bonnet, though no one non utendo—it will suffer no negative prescription in your had been suspected of wearing their father’s nightcap, hands. Is it fit, think ye, that Baby Charles should let his he inquired “whether Lord Dalgarno had consented to thoughts be publicly seen?—No—no—princes’ thoughts do the Lady Hermione justice.” are arcana imperii—Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare. “Troth, man, I have small doubt that he will,” quoth Every liege subject is bound to speak the whole truth to the king; “I gave him the schedule of her worldly sub- the king, but there is nae reciprocity of obligation—and stance, which you delivered to us in the council, and we for Steenie having been whiles a dike-louper at a time, is allowed him half-an-hour to chew the cud upon that. It it for you, who are his goldsmith, and to whom, I doubt, is rare reading for bringing him to reason. I left Baby he awes an uncomatable sum, to cast that up to him?” Charles and Steenie laying his duty before him; and if Heriot did not feel himself called on to play the part he can resist doing what they desire him—why, I wish of Zeno and sacrifice himself for upholding the cause he would teach me the gate of it. O Geordie, Jingling of moral truth; he did not desert it, however, by dis- Geordie, it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down avowing his words, but simply expressed sorrow for hav-

465 The Fortunes of Nigel ing offended his Majesty, with which the placable king with your Majesty’s demands impossible?” was sufficiently satisfied. “Banishment frae our Court, my lord,” said the king; “And now, Geordie, man,” quoth he, “we will to this “frae our Court and our countenance.” culprit, and hear what he has to say for himself, for I “Unhappy exile that I may be!” said Lord Dalgarno, will see the job cleared this blessed day. Ye maun come in a tone of subdued irony—“I will at least carry your wi’ me, for your evidence may be wanted.” Majesty’s picture with me, for I shall never see such The king led the way, accordingly, into a larger apart- another king.” ment, where the Prince, the Duke of Buckingham, and “And banishment, my lord,” said the Prince, sternly, one or two privy counsellors were seated at a table, be- “from these our dominions.” fore which stood Lord Dalgarno, in an attitude of as “That must be by form of law, please your Royal High- much elegant ease and indifference as could be expressed, ness,” said Dalgarno, with an affectation of deep re- considering the stiff dress and manners of the times. spect; “and I have not heard that there is a statute, com- All rose and bowed reverently, while the king, to use a pelling us, under such penalty, to marry every woman north country word, expressive of his mode of locomo- we may play the fool with. Perhaps his Grace of tion, toddled to his chair or throne, making a sign to Buckingham can tell me?” Heriot to stand behind him. “You are a villain, Dalgarno,” said the haughty and “We hope,” said his Majesty, “that Lord Dalgarno vehement favourite. stands prepared to do justice to this unfortunate lady, “Fie, my lord, fie!—to a prisoner, and in presence of and to his own character and honour?” your royal and paternal gossip!” said Lord Dalgarno. “May I humbly inquire the penalty,” said Lord “But I will cut this deliberation short. I have looked Dalgarno, “in case I should unhappily find compliance over this schedule of the goods and effects of Erminia

466 Sir Walter Scott Pauletti, daughter of the late noble—yes, he is called proxaneta, which the vulgar translate blackfoot, of such the noble, or I read wrong, Giovanni Pauletti, of the eminent dignity,” said Dalgarno, scarce concealing a Houee of Sansovino, in Genoa, and of the no less noble sneer. “And my father hath consented? He was wont to Lady Maud Olifaunt, of the House of Glenvarloch— say, ere we left Scotland, that the blood of Huntinglen Well, I declare that I was pre-contracted in Spain to and of Glenvarloch would not mingle, were they poured this noble lady, and there has passed betwixt us some into the same basin. Perhaps he has a mind to try the certain proelibatio matrimonii; and now, what more does experiment?” this grave assembly require of me?” “My lord,” said James, “we will not be longer trifled “That you should repair the gross and infamous wrong with—Will you instantly, and sine mora, take this lady you have done the lady, by marrying her within this to your wife, in our chapel?” hour,” said the Prince. “Statim atque instanter,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “for “O, may it please your Royal Highness,” answered I perceive by doing so, I shall obtain power to render Dalgarno, “I have a trifling relationship with an old Earl, great services to the commonwealth—I shall have ac- who calls himself my father, who may claim some vote quired wealth to supply the wants of your Majesty, and in the matter. Alas! every son is not blessed with an obe- a fair wife to be at the command of his Grace of dient parent!” He hazarded a slight glance towards the Buckingham.” throne, to give meaning to his last words. The Duke rose, passed to the end of the table where “We have spoken ourselves with Lord Huntinglen,” Lord Dalgarno was standing, and whispered in his ear, said the king, “and are authorised to consent in his “You have placed a fair sister at my command ere now.” name.” This taunt cut deep through Lord Dalgarno’s assumed “I could never have expected this intervention of a composure. He started as if an adder had stung him,

467 The Fortunes of Nigel but instantly composed himself, and, fixing on the by rising, and moved towards the door, followed by the Duke’s still smiling countenance an eye which spoke un- train. Lord Dalgarno attended, speaking to none, and utterable hatred, he pointed the forefinger of his left spoken to by no one, yet seeming as easy and unembar- hand to the hilt of his sword, but in a manner which rassed in his gait and manner as if in reality a happy could scarce be observed by any one save Buckingham. bridegroom. The Duke gave him another smile of bitter scorn, and They reached the Chapel by a private entrance, which returned to his seat, in obedience to the commands of communicated from the royal apartment. The Bishop the king, who continued calling out, “Sit down, Steenie, of Winchester, in his pontifical dress, stood beside the sit down, I command ye—we will hae nae harnsbreaking altar; on the other side, supported by Monna Paula, the here.” colourless, faded, half-lifeless form of the Lady “Your Majesty needs not fear my patience,” said Lord Hermione, or Erminia Pauletti. Lord Dalgarno bowed Dalgarno; “and that I may keep it the better, I will not profoundly to her, and the Prince, observing the horror utter another word in this presence, save those enjoined with which she regarded him, walked up, and said to to me in that happy portion of the Prayer-Book, which her, with much dignity,—“Madam, ere you put your- begins with Dearly Beloved, and ends with amazement.” self under the authority of this man, let me inform you, “You are a hardened villain, Dalgarno,” said the king; he hath in the fullest degree vindicated your honour, so “and were I the lass, by my father’s saul, I would rather far as concerns your former intercourse. It is for you to brook the stain of having been your concubine, than consider whether you will put your fortune and happi- run the risk of becoming your wife. But she shall be ness into the hands of one, who has shown himself un- under our special protection.—Come, my lords, we will worthy of all trust.” ourselves see this blithesome bridal.” He gave the signal The lady, with much difficulty, found words to make

468 Sir Walter Scott reply. “I owe to his Majesty’s goodness,” she said, “the stretched himself as if examining the power of his limbs, care of providing me some reservation out of my own but elegantly, and without any forcible change of atti- fortune, for my decent sustenance. The rest cannot be tude. “I could caper yet,” he said “though I am in fet- better disposed than in buying back the fair fame of ters—but they are of gold, and lightly worn.—Well, I which I am deprived, and the liberty of ending my life see all eyes look cold on me, and it is time I should within peace and seclusion.” draw. The sun shines elsewhere than in England! But “The contract has been drawn up,” said the king, “un- first I must ask how this fair Lady Dalgarno is to be der our own eye, specially discharging the potestas bestowed. Methinks it is but decent I should know. Is maritalis, and agreeing they shall live separate. So buckle she to be sent to the harem of my Lord Duke? Or is this them, my Lord Bishop, as fast as you can, that they worthy citizen, as before—” may sunder again the sooner.” “Hold thy base ribald tongue!” said his father, Lord The Bishop accordingly opened his book and com- Huntinglen, who had kept in the background during menced the marriage ceremony, under circumstances so the ceremony, and now stepping suddenly forward, novel and so inauspicious. The responses of the bride caught the lady by the arm, and confronted her unwor- were only expressed by inclinations of the head and thy husband.—“The Lady Dalgarno,” he continued, body; while those of the bridegroom were spoken boldly “shall remain as a widow in my house. A widow I es- and distinctly, with a tone resembling levity, if not scorn. teem her, as much as if the grave had closed over her When it was concluded, Lord Dalgarno advanced as if dishonoured husband.” to salute the bride, but seeing that she drew back in fear Lord Dalgarno exhibited momentary symptoms of ex- and abhorrence, he contented himself with making her treme confusion, and said, in a submissive tone, “If you, a low bow. He then drew up his form to its height, and my lord, can wish me dead, I cannot, though your heir,

469 The Fortunes of Nigel return the compliment. Few of the first-born of Israel,” had little charms for me, save that I see here an entry he added, recovering himself from the single touch of which gives me the power of vengeance over the family emotion he had displayed, “can say so much with truth. of Glenvarloch; and learn from it that yonder pale bride, But I will convince you ere I go, that I am a true de- when she put the wedding-torch into my hand, gave me scendant of a house famed for its memory of injuries.” the power of burning her mother’s house to ashes!” “I marvel your Majesty will listen to him longer,” said “How is that?” said the king. “What is he speaking Prince Charles. “Methinks we have heard enough of his about, Jingling Geordie?” daring insolence.” “This friendly citizen, my liege,” said Lord Dalgarno, But James, who took the interest of a true gossip in “hath expended a sum belonging to my lady, and now, I such a scene as was now passing, could not bear to cut thank heaven, to me, in acquiring a certain mortgage, the controversy short, but imposed silence on his son, or wanset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, which, if it with “Whisht, Baby Charles—there is a good bairn, be not redeemed before to-morrow at noon, will put me whisht!—I want to hear what the frontless loon can say.” in possession of the fair demesnes of those who once “Only, sir,” said Dalgarno, “that but for one single line called themselves our house’s rivals.” in this schedule, all else that it contains could not have “Can this be true?” said the king. bribed me to take that woman’s hand into mine.” “It is even but too true, please your Majesty,” answered “That line maun have been the SUMMA TOTALIS,” the citizen. “The Lady Hermione having advanced the said the king. money for the original creditor, I was obliged, in honour “Not so, sire,” replied Dalgarno. “The sum total might and honesty, to take the rights to her; and doubtless, indeed have been an object for consideration even to a they pass to her husband.” Scottish king, at no very distant period; but it would have “But the warrant, man,” said the king—“the warrant

470 Sir Walter Scott on our Exchequer—Couldna that supply the lad wi’ the pay the redemption-money to my scrivener, with whom means of redemption?” the deeds lie, the better for Lord Glenvarloch; if not, I “Unhappily, my liege, he has lost it, or disposed of will go forward on the next day, and travel with all dis- it—It is not to be found. He is the most unlucky youth!” patch to the north, to take possession.” “This is a proper spot of work!” said the king, begin- “Take a father’s malison with you, unhappy wretch!” ning to amble about and play with the points of his said Lord Huntinglen. doublet and hose, in expression of dismay. “We cannot “And a king’s, who is pater patriae,” said James. aid him without paying our debts twice over, and we “I trust to bear both lightly,” said Lord Dalgarno; and have, in the present state of our Exchequer, scarce the bowing around him, he withdrew; while all present, op- means of paying them once.” pressed, and, as it were, overawed, by his determined “You have told me news,” said Lord Dalgarno, “but I effrontery, found they could draw breath more freely, will take no advantage.” when he at length relieved them of his society. Lord “Do not,” said his father, “be a bold villain, since thou Huntinglen, applying himself to comfort his new daugh- must be one, and seek revenge with arms, and not with ter-in-law, withdrew with her also; and the king, with the usurer’s weapons.” his privy-council, whom he had not dismissed, again re- “Pardon me, my lord,” said Lord Dalgarno. “Pen and turned to his council-chamber, though the hour was ink are now my surest means of vengeance; and more unusually late. Heriot’s attendance was still com- land is won by the lawyer with the ram-skin, than by manded, but for what reason was not explained to him. 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

471 The Fortunes of Nigel “I doubt not, my lords,” said the Monarch, “that some of you may be thinking the hour of refection is past, CHAPTER XXXIII 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 —I’ll play the eavesdropper. pray your wisdom to consider the case of this unhappy Richard III., Act V., Scene 3. 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 JAMES HAD NO SOONER resumed his seat at the council- inquiry,” said the Duke; “it is plain this Dalgarno hath board than he began to hitch in his chair, cough, use his proved one of the most insolent villains on earth, and it handkerchief, and make other intimations that he medi- must therefore be clear, that if Lord Glenvarloch had tated a long speech. The council composed themselves run him through the body, there would but have been to the beseeming degree of attention. Charles, as strict out of the world a knave who had lived in it too long. I in his notions of decorum, as his father was indifferent think Lord Glenvarloch hath had much wrong; and I to it, fixed himself in an attitude of rigid and respectful regret that, by the persuasions of this false fellow, I have attention, while the haughty favourite, conscious of his myself had some hand in it.” power over both father and son, stretched himself more “Ye speak like a child, Steenie—I mean my Lord of easily on his seat, and, in assuming an appearance of Buckingham,” answered the king, “and as one that does listening, seemed to pay a debt to ceremonial rather than not understand the logic of the schools; for an action may to duty. be inconsequential or even meritorious, quoad hominem,

472 Sir Walter Scott that is, as touching him upon whom it is acted; and yet are respected even in the most barbarous nations, as most criminal, quoad locum, or considering the place wherein being one step only beneath their divinities. But your it is done; as a man may lawfully dance Chrighty Beardie Majesty’s will can control the severity of this and every or any other dance in a tavern, but not inter parietes ecclesiae. other law, and it is in your power, on consideration of So that, though it may have been a good deed to have his case, to grant the rash young man a free pardon.” sticked Lord Dalgarno, being such as he has shown him- “Rem acu tetigisti, Carole, mi puerule,” answered the self, anywhere else, yet it fell under the plain statute, when king; “and know, my lords, that we have, by a shrewd violence was offered within the verge of the Court. For, let device and gift of our own, already sounded the very me tell you, my lords, the statute against striking would depth of this Lord Glenvarloch’s disposition. I trow there be of no small use in our Court, if it could be eluded by be among you some that remember my handling in the justifying the person stricken to be a knave. It is much to curious case of my Lady Lake, and how I trimmed them be lamented that I ken nae Court in Christendom where about the story of hearkening behind the arras. Now knaves are not to be found; and if men are to break the this put me to cogitation, and I remembered me of hav- peace under pretence of beating them, why, it will rain ing read that Dionysius, King of Syracuse, whom his- Jeddart staves* in our very ante-chamber.” torians call Tyrannos, which signifieth not in the Greek “What your Majesty says,” replied Prince Charles, “is tongue, as in ours, a truculent usurper, but a royal king marked with your usual wisdom—the precincts of pal- who governs, it may be, something more strictly than aces must be sacred as well as the persons of kings, which we and other lawful monarchs, whom the ancients termed Basileis—Now this Dionysius of Syracuse caused *The old-fashioned weapon called the Jeddart staff was a cunning workmen to build for himself a lugg—D’ye ken species of battle-axe. Of a very great tempest, it is said, in the south of Scotland, that it rains Jeddart staffs, as in En- what that is, my Lord Bishop?” gland the common people talk of its raining cats and dogs. 473 The Fortunes of Nigel “A cathedral, I presume to guess,” answered the “Weel, my lords, ye ken the fray at the hunting this Bishop. morning—I shall not get out of the trembling exies until “What the deil, man—I crave your lordship’s pardon I have a sound night’s sleep—just after that, they bring for swearing—but it was no cathedral—only a lurking- ye in a pretty page that had been found in the Park. We place called the king’s lugg, or ear, where he could sit were warned against examining him ourselves by the undescried, and hear the converse of his prisoners. Now, anxious care of those around us; nevertheless, holding sirs, in imitation of this Dionysius, whom I took for my our life ever at the service of these kingdoms, we com- pattern, the rather that he was a great linguist and gram- manded all to avoid the room, the rather that we sus- marian, and taught a school with good applause after his pected this boy to be a girl. What think ye, my lords?— abdication, (either he or his successor of the same name, few of you would have thought I had a hawk’s eye for it matters not whilk)—I have caused them to make a lugg sic gear; but we thank God, that though we are old, we up at the state-prison of the Tower yonder, more like a know so much of such toys as may beseem a man of pulpit than a cathedral, my Lord Bishop—and commu- decent gravity. Weel, my lords, we questioned this nicating with the arras behind the Lieutenant’s cham- maiden in male attire ourselves, and I profess it was a ber, where we may sit and privily hear the discourse of very pretty interrogatory, and well followed. For, though such prisoners as are pent up there for state-offences, and she at first professed that she assumed this disguise in so creep into the very secrets of our enemies.” order to countenance the woman who should present us The Prince cast a glance towards the Duke, expres- with the Lady Hermione’s petition, for whom she pro- sive of great vexation and disgust. Buckingham fessed entire affection; yet when we, suspecting anguis shrugged his shoulders, but the motion was so slight as in herba, did put her to the very question, she was com- to be almost imperceptible. pelled to own a virtuous attachment for Glenvarlochides,

474 Sir Walter Scott in such a pretty passion of shame and fear, that we had might be a Father of the Church in comparison of you, much ado to keep our own eyes from keeping company man.—And then, to try his patience yet farther, we with hers in weeping. Also, she laid before us the false loosed on him a courtier and a citizen, that is Sir Mungo practices of this Dalgarno towards Glenvarlochides, in- Malagrowther and our servant George Heriot here, wha veigling him into houses of ill resort, and giving him dang the poor lad about, and didna greatly spare our evil counsel under pretext of sincere friendship, whereby royal selves.—You mind, Geordie, what you said about the inexperienced lad was led to do what was prejudi- the wives and concubines? but I forgie ye, man—nae cial to himself, and offensive to us. But, however pret- need of kneeling, I forgie ye—the readier, that it regards tily she told her tale, we determined not altogether to a certain particular, whilk, as it added not much to trust to her narration, but rather to try the experiment Solomon’s credit, the lack of it cannot be said to im- whilk we had devised for such occasions. And having pinge on ours. Aweel, my lords, for all temptation of ourselves speedily passed from Greenwich to the Tower, sore distress and evil ensample, this poor lad never loosed we constituted ourselves eavesdropper, as it is called, to his tongue on us to say one unbecoming word—which observe what should pass between Glenvarlochides and inclines us the rather, acting always by your wise ad- his page, whom we caused to be admitted to his apart- vice, to treat this affair of the Park as a thing done in ment, well judging that if they were of counsel together the heat of blood, and under strong provocation, and to deceive us, it could not be but something of it would therefore to confer our free pardon on Lord Glenvarloch.” spunk out.—And what think ye we saw, my lords?— “I am happy your gracious Majesty,” said the Duke Naething for you to sniggle and laugh at, Steenie—for I of Buckingham, “has arrived at that conclusion, though question if you could have played the temperate and I could never have guessed at the road by which you Christian-like part of this poor lad Glenvarloch. He attained it.”

475 The Fortunes of Nigel “I trust,” said Prince Charles, “that it is not a path approached that term.—Baby Charles and Steenie, you which your Majesty will think it consistent with your will remain till our couchee.—My Lord Bishop, you will high dignity to tread frequently.” be pleased to stay to bless our meat.—Geordie Heriot, a “Never while I live again, Baby Charles, that I give word with you apart.” you my royal word on. They say that hearkeners hear ill His Majesty then drew the citizen into a corner, while tales of themselves—by my saul, my very ears are tin- the counsellors, those excepted who had been commanded gling wi’ that auld sorrow Sir Mungo’s sarcasms. He to remain, made their obeisance, and withdrew. “Geordie,” called us close-fisted, Steenie—I am sure you can con- said the king, “my good and trusty servant”—Here he tradict that. But it is mere envy in the auld mutilated busied his fingers much with the points and ribbons of sinner, because he himself has neither a noble to hold in his dress,—“Ye see that we have granted, from our own his loof, nor fingers to close on it if he had.” Here the natural sense of right and justice, that which yon long- king lost recollection of Sir Mungo’s irreverence in chuck- backed fallow, Moniplies I think they ca’ him, proffered ling over his own wit, and only farther alluded to it by to purchase from us with a mighty bribe; whilk we re- saying—“We must give the old maunderer bos in fused, as being a crowned king, who wad neither sell our linguam—something to stop his mouth, or he will rail justice nor our mercy for pecuniar consideration. Now, at us from Dan to Beersheba.—And now, my lords, let what think ye should be the upshot of this?” our warrant of mercy to Lord Glenvarloch be presently “My Lord Glenvarloch’s freedom, and his restoration expedited, and he put to his freedom; and as his estate to your Majesty’s favour,” said Heriot. is likely to go so sleaveless a gate, we will consider what “I ken that,” said the king, peevishly. “Ye are very means of favour we can show him.—My lords, I wish dull to-day. I mean, what do you think this fallow you an appetite to an early supper—for our labours have Moniplies should think about the matter?”

476 Sir Walter Scott “Surely that your Majesty is a most good and gra- never to indulge any kingly or noble sentiment, without cious sovereign,” answered Heriot. its being sullied by some afterthought of interested self- “We had need to be gude and gracious baith,” said the ishness!” king, still more pettishly, “that have idiots about us that The king troubled himself not about what he thought, cannot understand what we mint at, unless we speak it but taking him by the collar, said,—“Ye ken my mean- out in braid Lowlands. See this chield Moniplies, sir, and ing now, Jingler—awa wi’ ye. You are a wise man— tell him what we have done for Lord Glenvarloch, in whom manage it your ain gate—but forget not our present he takes such part, out of our own gracious motion, straits.” The citizen made his obeisance, and withdrew. though we refused to do it on ony proffer of private ad- “And now, bairns,” said the king, “what do you look vantage. Now, you may put it till him, as if of your own upon each other for—and what have you got to ask of mind, whether it will be a gracious or a dutiful part in your dear dad and gossip?” him, to press us for present payment of the two or three “Only,” said the Prince, “that it would please your hundred miserable pounds for whilk we were obliged to Majesty to command the lurking-place at the prison to opignorate our jewels? Indeed, mony men may think ye be presently built up—the groans of a captive should wad do the part of a good citizen, if you took it on your- not be brought in evidence against him.” self to refuse him payment, seeing he hath had what he “What! build up my lugg, Baby Charles? And yet, bet- professed to esteem full satisfaction, and considering, ter deaf than hear ill tales of oneself. So let them build moreover, that it is evident he hath no pressing need of it up, hard and fast, without delay, the rather that my the money, whereof we have much necessity.” back is sair with sitting in it for a whole hour.—And George Heriot sighed internally. “O my Master,” now let us see what the cooks have been doing for us, thought he—“my dear Master, is it then fated you are bonny bairns.”

477 The Fortunes of Nigel and although the wearer retains his puritanical humility and politeness to clients of consequence, he can now CHAPTER XXXIV 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 To this brave man the knight repairs these alterations, nor was the party himself as yet en- For counsel in his law affairs; tirely accustomed to them, but the change was becom- And found him mounted in his pew. ing less embarrassing to him with every day’s practice. With books and money placed for show, Among other acquisitions of wealth, you may see one Like nest-eggs to make clients lay, of Davy Ramsay’s best timepieces on the table, and his And for his false opinion pay. eye is frequently observing its revolutions, while a boy, Hudibras. 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. OUR READERS MAY recollect a certain smooth-tongued, He took from a strong-box a bundle of parchments, and lank-haired, buckram-suited, Scottish scrivener, who, in read passages of them with great attention; then began the earlier part of this history, appeared in the charac- to soliloquize—“There is no outlet which law can sug- ter of a protege of George Heriot. It is to his house we gest—no back-door of evasion—none—if the lands of are about to remove, but times have changed with him. Glenvarloch are not redeemed before it rings noon, Lord The petty booth hath become a chamber of impor- Dalgarno has them a cheap pennyworth. Strange, that tance—the buckram suit is changed into black velvet; he should have been at last able to set his patron at de-

478 Sir Walter Scott fiance, and achieve for himself the fair estate, with the He spoke the last words aloud, and close by the door prospect of which he so long flattered the powerful of the apartment, which was suddenly opened by Richie Buckingham.—Might not Andrew Skurliewhitter nick Moniplies, followed by two gentlemen, and attended by him as neatly? He hath been my patron—true—not two porters bearing money-bags. “If ye can face the more than Buckingham was his; and he can be so no devil, Maister Skurliewhitter,” said Richie, “ye will be more, for he departs presently for Scotland. I am glad the less likely to turn your back on a sack or twa o’ siller, of it—I hate him, and I fear him. He knows too many which I have ta’en the freedom to bring you. Sathanas of my secrets—I know too many of his. But, no—no— and Mammon are near akin.” The porters, at the same no—I need never attempt it, there are no means of over- time, ranged their load on the floor. reaching him.—Well, Willie, what o’clock?” “I—I,”—stammered the surprised scrivener—“I can- “Ele’en hours just chappit, sir.” not guess what you mean, sir.” “Go to your desk without, child,” said the scrivener. “Only that I have brought you the redemption-money on “What to do next—I shall lose the old Earl’s fair busi- the part of Lord Glenvarloch, in discharge of a certain mort- ness, and, what is worse, his son’s foul practice. Old gage over his family inheritance. And here, in good time, comes Heriot looks too close into business to permit me more Master Reginald Lowestoffe, and another honourable gentle- than the paltry and ordinary dues. The Whitefriars busi- man of the Temple, to be witnesses to the transaction.” ness was profitable, but it has become unsafe ever since— “I—I incline to think,” said the scrivener, “that the pah!—what brought that in my head just now? I can term is expired.” hardly hold my pen—if men should see me in this way!— “You will pardon us, Master Scrivener,” said Willie,” (calling aloud to the boy,) “a cup of distilled Lowestoffe. “You will not baffle us—it wants three-quar- waters—Soh!—now I could face the devil.” ters of noon by every clock in the city.”

479 The Fortunes of Nigel “I must have time, gentlemen,” said Andrew, “to ex- than any lord in Britain—I have learned so much at the amine the gold by tale and weight.” Temple, if I have learned nothing else. And see that you “Do so at your leisure, Master Scrivener,” replied trifle not with it, lest it make your long ears an inch Lowestoffe again. “We have already seen the contents shorter, Master Skurliewhitter.” of each sack told and weighed, and we have put our “Nay, gentlemen, if you threaten me,” said the scriv- seals on them. There they stand in a row, twenty in num- ener, “I cannot resist compulsion.” ber, each containing three hundred yellow-hammers— “No threats—no threats at all, my little Andrew,” said we are witnesses to the lawful tender.” Lowestoffe; “a little friendly advice only—forget not, “Gentlemen,” said the scrivener, “this security now honest Andrew, I have seen you in Alsatia.” belongs to a mighty lord. I pray you, abate your haste, Without answering a single word, the scrivener sat and let me send for Lord Dalgarno,—or rather I will down, and drew in proper form a full receipt for the run for him myself.” money proffered. So saying, he took up his hat; but Lowestoffe called “I take it on your report, Master Lowestoffe,” he said; out,—“Friend Moniplies, keep the door fast, an thou “I hope you will remember I have insisted neither upon be’st a man! he seeks but to put off the time.—In plain weight nor tale—I have been civil—if there is deficiency terms, Andrew, you may send for the devil, if you will, I shall come to loss.” who is the mightiest lord of my acquaintance, but from “Fillip his nose with a gold-piece, Richie,” quoth the hence you stir not till you have answered our proposi- Templar. “Take up the papers, and now wend we mer- tion, by rejecting or accepting the redemption-money rily to dine thou wot’st where.” fairly tendered—there it lies—take it, or leave it, as you “If I might choose,” said Richie, “it should not be at will. I have skill enough to know that the law is mightier yonder roguish ordinary; but as it is your pleasure,

480 Sir Walter Scott gentlemen, the treat shall be given wheresoever you will “Whomsoever goeth before me, my lord,” answered have it.” Moniplies. “At the ordinary,” said the one Templar. “No sauciness, you knave—I desire to know if you “At Beaujeu’s,” said the other; “it is the only house in still serve Nigel Olifaunt?” said Dalgarno. London for neat wines, nimble drawers, choice dishes, “I am friend to the noble Lord Glenvarloch,” answered and—” Moniplies, with dignity. “And high charges,” quoth Richie Moniplies. “But, as “True,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “that noble lord has sunk I said before, gentlemen, ye have a right to command to seek friends among lackeys—Nevertheless,—hark thee me in this thing, having so frankly rendered me your hither,—nevertheless, if he be of the same mind as when we service in this small matter of business, without other last met, thou mayst show him, that, on to-morrow, at four stipulation than that of a slight banquet.” afternoon, I shall pass northward by Enfield Chase—I will The latter part of this discourse passed in the street, be slenderly attended, as I design to send my train through where, immediately afterwards, they met Lord Barnet. It is my purpose to ride an easy pace through the Dalgarno. He appeared in haste, touched his hat slightly forest, and to linger a while by Camlet Moat—he knows the to Master Lowestoffe, who returned his reverence with place; and, if he be aught but an Alsatian bully, will think it the same negligence, and walked slowly on with his com- fitter for some purposes than the Park. He is, I understand, panion, while Lord Dalgarno stopped Richie Moniplies at liberty, or shortly to be so. If he fail me at the place nomi- with a commanding sign, which the instinct of educa- nated, he must seek me in Scotland, where he will find me tion compelled Moniplies, though indignant, to obey. possessed of his father’s estate and lands.” “Whom do you now follow, sirrah?” demanded the “Humph!” muttered Richie; “there go twa words to noble. that bargain.”

481 The Fortunes of Nigel He even meditated a joke on the means which he was penetrating glance, that Skurliewhitter was disconcerted conscious he possessed of baffling Lord Dalgarno’s ex- and alarmed at his approach. pectations; but there was something of keen and dan- “How now, man,” he said; “what! hast thou not a word gerous excitement in the eyes of the young nobleman, of oily compliment to me on my happy marriage?—not which prompted his discretion for once to rule his vit, a word of most philosophical consolation on my dis- and he only answered— grace at Court?—Or has my mien, as a wittol and dis- “God grant your lordship may well brook your new carded favourite, the properties of the Gorgon’s head, conquest—when you get it. I shall do your errand to the turbatae Palladis arma, as Majesty might say?” my lord—whilk is to say,” he added internally, “he shall “My lord, I am glad—my lord, I am sorry,”—answered never hear a word of it from Richie. I am not the lad to the trembling scrivener, who, aware of the vivacity of put him in such hazard.” Lord Dalgarno’s temper, dreaded the consequence of Lord Dalgarno looked at him sharply for a moment, the communication he had to make to him. as if to penetrate the meaning of the dry ironical tone, “Glad and sorry!” answered Lord Dalgarno. “That is which, in spite of Richie’s awe, mingled with his an- blowing hot and cold, with a witness. Hark ye, you pic- swer, and then waved his hand, in signal he should pass ture of petty-larceny personified—if you are sorry I am on. He himself walked slowly till the trio were out of a cuckold, remember I am only mine own, you knave— sight, then turned back with hasty steps to the door of there is too little blood in her cheeks to have sent her the scrivener, which he had passed in his progress, astray elsewhere. Well, I will bear mine antler’d honours knocked, and was admitted. as I may—gold shall gild them; and for my disgrace, Lord Dalgarno found the man of law with the money- revenge shall sweeten it. Ay, revenge—and there strikes bags still standing before him; and it escaped not his the happy hour!”

482 Sir Walter Scott The hour of noon was accordingly heard to peal from “Not the redemption-money of the Glenvarloch es- Saint Dunstan’s. “Well banged, brave hammers!” said tate!” said Dalgarno. “Dare not say it is, or I will, upon Lord Dalgarno, in triumph.—“The estate and lands of the spot, divorce your pettifogging soul from your car- Glenvarloch are crushed beneath these clanging blows. rion carcass!” So saying, he seized the scrivener by the If my steel to-morrow prove but as true as your iron collar, and shook him so vehemently, that he tore it from maces to-day, the poor landless lord will little miss what the cassock. your peal hath cut him out from.—The papers—the “My lord, I must call for help,” said the trembling cai- papers, thou varlet! I am to-morrow Northward, ho! At tiff, who felt at that moment all the bitterness of the four, afternoon, I am bound to be at Camlet Moat, in mortal agony—“It was the law’s act, not mine. What the Enfield Chase. To-night most of my retinue set for- could I do?” ward. The papers!—Come, dispatch.” “Dost ask?—why, thou snivelling dribblet of damna- “My lord, the—the papers of the Glenvarloch mort- tion, were all thy oaths, tricks, and lies spent? or do you gage—I—I have them not.” hold yourself too good to utter them in my service? Thou “Have them not!” echoed Lord Dalgarno,—“Hast shouldst have lied, cozened, out-sworn truth itself, rather thou sent them to my lodgings, thou varlet? Did I not than stood betwixt me and my revenge! But mark me,” say I was coming hither?—What mean you by pointing he continued; “I know more of your pranks than would to that money? What villainy have you done for it? It is hang thee. A line from me to the Attorney-General, and too large to be come honestly by.” thou art sped.” “Your lordship knows best,” answered the scrivener, “What would you have me to do, my lord?” said the in great perturbation. “The gold is your own. It is—it scrivener. “All that art and law can accomplish, I will is—” try.”

483 The Fortunes of Nigel “Ah, are you converted? do so, or pity of your life!” So saying, Lord Dalgarno left the scrivener’s habita- said the lord; “and remember I never fail my word.— tion. Then keep that accursed gold,” he continued. “Or, stay, Skurliewhitter, having dispatched his boy to get por- I will not trust you—send me this gold home presently ters of trust for transporting the money, remained alone to my lodging. I will still forward to Scotland, and it and in dismay, meditating by what means he could shake shall go hard but that I hold out Glenvarloch Castle himself free of the vindictive and ferocious nobleman, against the owner, by means of the ammunition he has who possessed at once a dangerous knowledge of his himself furnished. Thou art ready to serve me?” The character, and the power of exposing him, where expo- scrivener professed the most implicit obedience. sure would be ruin. He had indeed acquiesced in the plan, “Then remember, the hour was past ere payment was rapidly sketched, for obtaining possession of the ran- tendered—and see thou hast witnesses of trusty memory somed estate, but his experience foresaw that this would to prove that point.” be impossible; while, on the other hand, he could not “Tush, my lord, I will do more,” said Andrew, reviving—“I anticipate the various consequences of Lord Dalgarno’s will prove that Lord Glenvarloch’s friends threatened, swag- resentment, without fears, from which his sordid soul gered, and drew swords on me.—Did your lordship think I recoiled. To be in the power, and subject both to the was ungrateful enough to have suffered them to prejudice humours and the extortions of a spendthrift young lord, your lordship, save that they had bare swords at my throat?” just when his industry had shaped out the means of “Enough said,” replied Dalgarno; “you are perfect— fortune,—it was the most cruel trick which fate could mind that you continue so, as you would avoid my fury. have played the incipient usurer. I leave my page below—get porters, and let them follow While the scrivener was in this fit of anxious antici- me instantly with the gold.” pation, one knocked at the door of the apartment; and,

484 Sir Walter Scott being desired to enter, appeared in the coarse riding-cloak “Not yet down to the country,” said the scrivener, “af- of uncut Wiltshire cloth, fastened by a broad leather ter every warning? Do not think your grazier’s cloak belt and brass buckle, which was then generally worn will bear you out, captain—no, nor your scraps of stage- by graziers and countrymen. Skurliewhitter, believing plays.” he saw in his visitor a country client who might prove “Why, what would you have me to do?” said the cap- profitable, had opened his mouth to request him to be tain—“Would you have me starve? If I am to fly, you seated, when the stranger, throwing back his frieze hood must eke my wings with a few feathers. You can spare which he had drawn over his face, showed the scrivener them, I think.” features well imprinted in his recollection, but which he “You had means already—you have had ten pieces— never saw without a disposition to swoon. What is become of them?” “Is it you?” he said, faintly, as the stranger replaced “Gone,” answered Captain Colepepper—“Gone, no the hood which concealed his features. matter where—I had a mind to bite, and I was bitten, “Who else should it be?” said his visitor. 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 “Thou son of parchment, got betwixt the inkhorn baby.” And the stuff’d process-bag—that mayest call “And you have lost all, then?—Well, take this and be The pen thy father, and the ink thy mother, gone,” said the scrivener. The wax thy brother, and the sand thy sister “What, two poor smelts! Marry, plague of your And the good pillory thy cousin allied— bounty!—But remember, you are as deep in as I.” Rise, and do reverence unto me, thy better!” “Not so, by Heaven!” answered the scrivener; “I only thought of easing the old man of some papers and a

485 The Fortunes of Nigel trifle of his gold, and you took his life.” “I swear to you that these bags of money are not at “Were he living,” answered Colepepper, “he would my disposal.” rather have lost it than his money.—But that is not the “Not honestly, perhaps,” said the captain, “but that question, Master Skurliewhitter—you undid the private makes little difference betwixt us.” bolts of the window when you visited him about some “I swear to you,” continued the scrivener “they are in affairs on the day ere he died—so satisfy yourself, that, no way at my disposal—they have been delivered to me if I am taken, I will not swing alone. Pity Jack by tale—I am to pay them over to Lord Dalgarno, whose Hempsfield is dead, it spoils the old catch, boy waits for them, and I could not skelder one piece out of them, without risk of hue and cry.” ‘And three merry men, and three merry men, “Can you not put off the delivery?” said the bravo, And three merry men are we, his huge hand still fumbling with one of the bags, as if As ever did sing three parts in a string, his fingers longed to close on it. All under the triple tree.’” “Impossible,” said the scrivener, “he sets forward to Scotland to-morrow.” “For God’s sake, speak lower,” said the scrivener; “is “Ay!” said the bully, after a moment’s thought—“Trav- this a place or time to make your midnight catches els he the north road with such a charge?” heard?—But how much will serve your turn? I tell you “He is well accompanied,” added the scrivener; “but I am but ill provided.” yet—” “You tell me a lie, then,” said the bully—“a most pal- “But yet—but what?” said the bravo. pable and gross lie.—How much, d’ye say, will serve my “Nay, I meant nothing,” said the scrivener. turn? Why, one of these bags will do for the present.” “Thou didst—thou hadst the wind of some good

486 Sir Walter Scott thing,” replied Colepepper; “I saw thee pause like a set- I will be revenged, too, for I owe him a grudge for an old ting dog. Thou wilt say as little, and make as sure a score at the ordinary. Let me see—Black Feltham, and sign, as a well-bred spaniel.” Dick Shakebag—we shall want a fourth—I love to make “All I meant to say, captain, was, that his servants go sure, and the booty will stand parting, besides what I by Barnet, and he himself, with his page, pass through can bucket them out of. Well, scrivener, lend me two Enfield Chase; and he spoke to me yesterday of riding a pieces.—Bravely done—nobly imparted! Give ye good- soft pace.” den.” And wrapping his disguise closer around him, away “Aha!—Comest thou to me there, my boy?” he went. “And of resting”—continued the scrivener,—”resting When he had left the room, the scrivener wrung his a space at Camlet Moat.” hands, and exclaimed, “More blood—more blood! I “Why, this is better than cock-fighting!” said the cap- thought to have had done with it, but this time there tain. was no fault with me—none—and then I shall have all “I see not how it can advantage you, captain,” said the advantage. If this ruffian falls, there is truce with the scrivener. “But, however, they cannot ride fast, for his tugs at my purse-strings; and if Lord Dalgarno dies— his page rides the sumpter-horse, which carries all that as is most likely, for though as much afraid of cold steel weight,” pointing to the money on the table. “Lord as a debtor of a dun, this fellow is a deadly shot from Dalgarno looks sharp to the world’s gear.” behind a bush,—then am I in a thousand ways safe— “That horse will be obliged to those who may ease him safe—safe.” of his burden,” said the bravo; “and egad, he may be We willingly drop the curtain over him and his reflec- met with.—He hath still that page—that same Lutin— tions. that goblin? Well, the boy hath set game for me ere now.

487 The Fortunes of Nigel the ordinary, a point to which his companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be easily be- CHAPTER XXXV lieved 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 We are not worst at once—the course of evil of easing him of a few pieces, of which he appeared to Begins so slowly, and from such slight source, have acquired considerable command. But not even a An infant’s hand might stem its breach with clay; succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy— little brilliant atoms circulated like motes in the sun’s Ay, and religion too—shall strive in vain rays, had the least effect on Richie’s sense of decorum. To turn the headlong torrent. He retained the gravity of a judge, even while he drank Old Play. 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 THE TEMPLARS had been regaled by our friend Richie innovation on their heads, Master Lowestoffe, tired, Moniplies in a private chamber at Beaujeu’s, where he perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to be- might be considered as good company; for he had ex- come yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical changed his serving-man’s cloak and jerkin for a grave than even in the earlier part of the entertainment, pro- yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, posed to his friend to break up their debauch and join but such as might have befitted an older man than him- the gamesters. self. He had positively declined presenting himself at The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie dis-

488 Sir Walter Scott charged the reckoning of the party, with a generous re- Lowestoffe, “until I have lost all my money,” showing, muneration to the attendants, which was received with at the same time, a purse indifferently well provided, cap and knee, and many assurances of—“Kindly wel- “and then the lecture is likely to have some weight.” come, gentlemen.” “And keep my share of it, Richie,” said the other “I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen,” said Templar, showing an almost empty purse, in his turn, Richie to his companions,—“and I would you had “till this be full again, and then I will promise to hear cracked another quart ere you went, or stayed to take you with some patience.” some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I “Ay, ay, gallants,” said Richie, “the full and the empty thank you, however, for having graced my poor colla- gang a’ ae gate, and that is a grey one—but the time tion thus far; and I commend you to fortune, in your will come.” own courses, for the ordinary neither was, is, nor shall “Nay, it is come already,” said Lowestoffe; “they have be, an element of mine.” set out the hazard table. Since you will peremptorily “Fare thee well, then,” said Lowestoffe, “most sapi- not go with us, why, farewell, Richie.” ent and sententious Master Moniplies. May you soon “And farewell, gentlemen,” said Richie, and left the have another mortgage to redeem, and may I be there house, into which they had returned. to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heart- Moniplies was not many steps from the door, when a ily as you have done this day.” person, whom, lost in his reflections on gaming, ordi- “Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so— naries, and the manners of the age, he had not observed, but, if you would but hear me speak a few words of and who had been as negligent on his part, ran full admonition respecting this wicked ordinary—” against him; and, when Richie desired to know whether “Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie,” said he meant “ony incivility,” replied by a curse on Scot-

489 The Fortunes of Nigel land, and all that belonged to it. A less round reflection “Beshrew my fingers, then, if they did so,” replied on his country would, at any time, have provoked Richie, the stranger. “I would your whole country lay there, but more especially when he had a double quart of Ca- along with you; and Heaven’s curse blight the hand that nary and better in his pate. He was about to give a very helped to raise them!—Why do you stop my way?” he rough answer, and to second his word by action, when a added, fiercely. closer view of his antagonist changed his purpose. “Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin,” said Richie. “You are the vera lad in the warld,” said Richie, “Nay, never start about it, man—you see you are known. “whom I most wished to meet.” Alack-a-day! that an honest man’s son should live to “And you,” answered the stranger, “or any of your beg- start at hearing himself called by his own name!” Jenkin garly countrymen, are the last sight I should ever wish struck his brow violently with his clenched fist. to see. You Scots are ever fair and false, and an honest “Come, come,” said Richie, “this passion availeth man cannot thrive within eyeshot of you.” nothing. Tell me what gate go you?” “As to our poverty, friend,” replied Richie, “that is as “To the devil!” answered Jin Vin. Heaven pleases; but touching our falset, I’ll prove to “That is a black gate, if you speak according to the you that a Scotsman bears as leal and true a heart to his letter,” answered Richie; “but if metaphorically, there friend as ever beat in English doublet.” are worse places in this great city than the Devil Tav- “I care not whether he does or not,” said the gallant. ern; and I care not if I go thither with you, and bestow “Let me go—why keep you hold of my cloak? Let me a pottle of burnt sack on you—it will correct the crudi- go, or I will thrust you into the kennel.” ties of my stomach, and form a gentle preparative for “I believe I could forgie ye, for you did me a good turn the leg of a cold pullet.” once, in plucking me out of it,” said the Scot. “I pray you, in good fashion, to let me go,” said Jenkin.

490 Sir Walter Scott “You may mean me kindly, and I wish you to have no lord, in which there is no more truth than in the leasings wrong at my hand; but I am in the humour to be dan- of Mahound. The warst they can say of him is, that he gerous to myself, or any one.” is not always so amenable to good advice as I would “I will abide the risk,” said the Scot, “if you will but pray him, you, and every young man to be. Come wi’ come with me; and here is a place convenient, a howff me—just come ye wi’ me; and, if a little spell of siller nearer than the Devil, whilk is but an ill-omened drouthy and a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your name for a tavern. This other of the Saint Andrew is a occasions, all I can say is, you have had the luck to meet quiet place, where I have ta’en my whetter now and then, one capable of giving you both, and maist willing to when I lodged in the neighbourhood of the Temple with bestow them.” Lord Glenvarloch.—What the deil’s the matter wi’ the The pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullen- man, garr’d him gie sic a spang as that, and almaist ness of Vincent, who was indeed in a state of agitation brought himself and me on the causeway?” and incapacity to think for himself, which led him to “Do not name that false Scot’s name to me,” said Jin yield the more readily to the suggestions of another. He Vin, “if you would not have me go mad!—I was happy suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern before I saw him—he has been the cause of all the ill which Richie recommended, and where they soon found that has befallen me—he has made a knave and a mad- themselves seated in a snug niche, with a reeking pottle man of me!” of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar betwixt them. Pipes “If you are a knave,” said Richie, “you have met an and tobacco were also provided, but were only used by officer—if you are daft, you have met a keeper; but a Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding gentle officer and a kind keeper. Look you, my gude considerably to the gravity and importance of his man- friend, there has been twenty things said about this same ner, and affording, as it were, a bland and pleasant ac-

491 The Fortunes of Nigel companiment to the words of wisdom which flowed from “No one has any thing to do with my affairs,” said the his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank poor lad; and folding his arms on the table, he laid his them in silence, Richie repeated the question, whither head upon them, with the sullen dejection of the over- his guest was going when they met so fortunately. burdened lama, when it throws itself down to die in des- “I told you,” said Jenkin, “I was going to destruction— peration. I mean to the gaming-house. I am resolved to hazard Richard Moniplies, like most folk who have a good these two or three pieces, to get as much as will pay for opinion of themselves, was fond of the task of consola- a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship lies at tion, which at once displayed his superiority, (for the Gravesend, bound for America—and so Eastward, ho!— consoler is necessarily, for the time at least, superior to I met one devil in the way already, who would have the afflicted person,) and indulged his love of talking. tempted me from my purpose, but I spurned him from He inflicted on the poor penitenta harangue of pitiless me—you may be another for what I know.—What de- length, stuffed full of the usual topics of the mutability gree of damnation do you propose for me,” he added of human affairs—the eminent advantages of patience wildly, “and what is the price of it?” under affliction—the folly of grieving for what hath no “I would have you to know,” answered Richie, “that I remedy—the necessity of taking more care for the fu- deal in no such commodities, whether as buyer or seller. ture, and some gentle rebukes on account of the past, But if you will tell me honestly the cause of your dis- which acid he threw in to assist in subduing the patient’s tress, I will do what is in my power to help you out of obstinacy, as Hannibal used vinegar in cutting his way it,—not being, however, prodigal of promises, until I through rocks. It was not in human nature to endure know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice this flood of commonplace eloquence in silence; and Jin when he has observed the diagnostics.” Vin, whether desirous of stopping the flow of words—

492 Sir Walter Scott crammed thus into his ear, “against the stomach of his believe the great Prester John would marry the daugh- sense,” or whether confiding in Richie’s protestations ter of a Jew packman.” of friendship, which the wretched, says Fielding, are ever “Hark ye, brother,” said Jin Vin, “I will allow no one so ready to believe, or whether merely to give his sor- to speak disregardfully of the city, for all I am in rows vent in words, raised his head, and turning his red trouble.” and swollen eyes to Richie— “I crave your pardon, man—I meant no offence,” said “Cocksbones, man, only hold thy tongue, and thou Richie; “but as to the marriage, it is a thing simply im- shall know all about it,—and then all I ask of thee is to possible.” shake hands and part.—This Margaret Ramsay,—you “It is a thing that will take place, though, for the Duke have seen her, man?” and the Prince, and all of them, have a finger in it; and “Once,” said Richie, “once, at Master George Heriot’s especially the old fool of a king, that makes her out to in Lombard Street—I was in the room when they dined.” be some great woman in her own country, as all the Scots “Ay, you helped to shift their trenchers, I remember,” pretend to be, you know.” said Jin Vin. “Well, that same pretty girl—and I will “Master Vincent, but that you are under affliction,” uphold her the prettiest betwixt Paul’s and the Bar— said the consoler, offended on his part, “I would hear no she is to be wedded to your Lord Glenvarloch, with a national reflections.” pestilence on him!” The afflicted youth apologised in his turns, but as- “That is impossible,” said Richie; “it is raving non- serted, “it was true that the king said Peg-a-Ramsay sense, man—they make April gouks of you cockneys was some far-off sort of noblewoman; and that he had every month in the year—The Lord Glenvarloch marry taken a great interest in the match, and had run about the daughter of a Lonnon mechanic! I would as soon like an old gander, cackling about Peggie ever since he

493 The Fortunes of Nigel had seen her in hose and doublet—and no wonder,” are perilous to speak on, I say once more, what is your added poor Vin, with a deep sigh. concern in all this matter?” “This may be all true,” said Richie, “though it sounds “What is it?” said Jenkin; “why, have I not fixed on strange in my ears; but, man, you should not speak evil Peg-a-Ramsay to be my true love, from the day I came of dignities—Curse not the king, Jenkin; not even in to her old father’s shop? and have I not carried her thy bed-chamber—stone walls have ears—no one has a pattens and her chopines for three years, and borne her right to know better than I.” prayer-book to church, and brushed the cushion for her “I do not curse the foolish old man,” said Jenkin; “but to kneel down upon, and did she ever say me nay?” I would have them carry things a peg lower.—If they “I see no cause she had,” said Richie, “if the like of were to see on a plain field thirty thousand such pikes such small services were all that ye proffered. Ah, man! as I have seen in the artillery gardens, it would not be there are few—very few, either of fools or of wise men, their long-haired courtiers would help them, I trow.”* ken how to guide a woman.” “Hout tout, man,” said Richie, “mind where the “Why, did I not serve her at the risk of my freedom, Stewarts come frae, and never think they would want and very nigh at the risk of my neck? Did she not—no, spears or claymores either; but leaving sic matters, whilk it was not her neither, but that accursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me—persuade me like a fool to *Clarendon remarks, that the importance of the military turn myself into a waterman to help my lord, and a exercise of the citizens was severely felt by the cavaliers during the civil war, notwithstanding the ridicule that had been plague to him, down to Scotland? and instead of going showered upon it by the dramatic poets of the day. Nothing peaceably down to the ship at Gravesend, did not he less than habitual practice could, at the battle of Newbury rant and bully, and show his pistols, and make me land and elsewhere, have enabled the Londoners to keep their ranks as pikemen, in spite of the repeated charge of the fiery Prince him at Greenwich, where he played some swaggering Rupert and his gallant cavaliers. 494 Sir Walter Scott pranks, that helped both him and me into the Tower?” sweetly and so coldly at the same time, I wished myself “Aha!” said Richie, throwing more than his usual wis- in the deepest dungeon of the Tower—I wish they had dom into his looks, “so you were the green-jacketed racked me to death before I heard this Scottishman was waterman that rowed Lord Glenvarloch down the river?” to chouse me out of my sweetheart!” “The more fool I, that did not souse him in the “But are ye sure ye have lost her?” said Richie; “it Thames,” said Jenkin; “and I was the lad who would sounds strange in my ears that my Lord Glenvarloch not confess one word of who and what I was, though should marry the daughter of a dealer,—though there they threatened to make me hug the Duke of Exeter’s are uncouth marriages made in London, I’ll allow that.” daughter.”* “Why, I tell you this lord was no sooner clear of the “Wha is she, man?” said Richie; “she must be an ill- Tower, than he and Master George Heriot comes to make fashioned piece, if you’re so much afraid of her, and she proposals for her, with the king’s assent, and what not; come of such high kin.” and fine fair-day prospects of Court favour for this lord, “I mean the rack—the rack, man,” said Jenkin. for he hath not an acre of land.” “Where were you bred that never heard of the Duke of “Well, and what said the auld watch-maker?” said Exeter’s daughter? But all the dukes and duchesses in Richie; “was he not, as might weel beseem him, ready England could have got nothing out of me—so the truth to loop out of his skin-case for very joy?” came out some other way, and I was set free.—Home I “He multiplied six figures progressively, and reported ran, thinking myself one of the cleverest and happiest the product—then gave his consent.” fellows in the ward. And she—she—she wanted to pay “And what did you do?” me with money for all my true service! and she spoke so “I rushed into the streets,” said the poor lad, “with a *A particular species of rack, used at the Tower of London, burning heart and a blood-shot eye—and where did I first was so called. 495 The Fortunes of Nigel find myself, but with that beldam, Mother Suddlechop— Suddlechop, for she spoke of my meeting him at Enfield and what did she propose to me, but to take the road?” Chase, with some other good fellows, to do a robbery on “Take the road, man? in what sense?” said Richie. one that goes northward with a store of treasure.” “Even as a clerk to Saint Nicholas—as a highwayman, “And you did not agree to this fine project?” said like Poins and Peto, and the good fellows in the play— Moniplies. and who think you was to be my captain?—for she had “I cursed her for a hag, and came away about my busi- the whole out ere I could speak to her—I fancy she took ness,” answered Jenkin. silence for consent, and thought me damned too unut- “Ay, and what said she to that, man? That would terably to have one thought left that savoured of re- startle her,” said Richie. demption—who was to be my captain, but the knave “Not a whit. She laughed, and said she was in jest,” that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you waited answered Jenkin; “but I know the she-devil’s jest from on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully her earnest too well to be taken in that way. But she about town here, whom they call Colepepper.” knows I would never betray her.’ “Colepepper—umph—I know somewhat of that “Betray her! No,” replied Richie; “but are ye in any smaik,” said Richie; “ken ye by ony chance where he shape bound to this birkie Peppercull, or Colepepper, or may be heard of, Master Jenkin?—ye wad do me a sin- whatever they call him, that ye suld let him do a rob- cere service to tell me.” bery on the honest gentleman that is travelling to the “Why, he lives something obscurely,” answered the ap- north, and may be a kindly Scot, for what we know?” prentice, “on account of suspicion of some villainy—I “Ay—going home with a load of English money,” said believe that horrid murder in Whitefriars, or some such Jenkin. “But be he who he will, they may rob the whole matter. But I might have heard all about him from Dame world an they list, for I am robbed and ruined.”

496 Sir Walter Scott Richie filled his friend’s cup up to the brim, and insisted But courage, man; you have served me heretofore, and that he should drink what he called “clean caup out.” “This I will serve you now. If you will but bring me to speech love,” he said, “is but a bairnly matter for a brisk young of this same captain, it will be the best day’s work you fellow like yourself, Master Jenkin. And if ye must needs ever did.” have a whimsy, though I think it would be safer to venture “I guess where you are, Master Richard—you would on a staid womanly body, why, here be as bonny lasses in save your countryman’s long purse,” said Jenkin. “I London as this Peg-a-Ramsay. You need not sigh sae deeply, cannot see how that should advantage me, but I reck for it is very true—there is as good fish in the sea as ever not if I should bear a hand. I hate that braggart, that came out of it. Now wherefore should you, who are as brisk bloody-minded, cowardly bully. If you can get me and trig a young fellow of your inches as the sun needs to mounted I care not if I show you where the dame told shine on—wherefore need you sit moping this way, and me I should meet him—but you must stand to the risk, not try some bold way to better your fortune?” for though he is a coward himself, I know he will have “I tell you, Master Moniplies,” said Jenkin, “I am as more than one stout fellow with him.” poor as any Scot among you—I have broke my inden- “We’ll have a warrant, man,” said Richie, “and the ture, and I think of running my country.” hue and cry, to boot.” “A-well-a-day!” said Richie; “but that maunna be, man— “We will have no such thing,” said Jenkin, “if I am to I ken weel, by sad experience, that poortith takes away go with you. I am not the lad to betray any one to the pith, and the man sits full still that has a rent in his breeks.* harmanbeck. You must do it by manhood if I am to go *This elegant speech was made by the Earl of Douglas, called with you. I am sworn to cutter’s law, and will sell no Tineman after being wounded and made prisoner at the battle man’s blood.” of Shrewsbury, where “His well labouring sword “Aweel,” said Richie, “a wilful man must have his way; Had three times slain the semblance of the king,” 497 The Fortunes of Nigel ye must think that I was born and bred where cracked days aulder. Never smile and shake your head, but mind crowns were plentier than whole ones. Besides, I have what I tell you—and bide here in the meanwhile, till I two noble friends here, Master Lowestoffe of the Temple, go to seek these gallants. I warrant you, cart-ropes would and his cousin Master Ringwood, that will blithely be not hold them back from such a ploy as I shall propose of so gallant a party.” to them.” “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

498 Sir Walter Scott riod, with more than the usual quantity of bugles, flounces, and trimmings, and holding her fan of ostrich CHAPTER XXXVI 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 The thieves have bound the true men— her companion, who sometimes heard her prattle with- Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go out seeming to attend to it, and at other times inter- merrily to London. rupted his train of graver reflections, to reply to her. Henry IV., Part I. “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? THE SUN WA S HIGH upon the glades of Enfield Chase, and Why would you not let me bring my waiting-gentle- the deer, with which it then abounded, were seen sport- woman to follow us, and hold my things? But see, I will ing in picturesque groups among the ancient oaks of put my fan in my girdle, soh!—and now that I have a the forest, when a cavalier and a lady, on foot, although hand to hold you with, you shall not run away from in riding apparel, sauntered slowly up one of the long me.” alleys which were cut through the park for the conve- “Come on, then,” answered the gallant, “and let us nience of the hunters. Their only attendant was a page, walk apace, since you would not be persuaded to stay who, riding a Spanish jennet, which seemed to bear a with your gentlewoman, as you call her, and with the heavy cloak-bag, followed them at a respectful distance. rest of the baggage.—You may perhaps see that, though, The female, attired in all the fantastic finery of the pe- you will not like to see.”

499 The Fortunes of Nigel She took hold of his arm accordingly; but as he contin- “They send them to the city, Nell, where wise men ued to walk at the same pace, she shortly let go her hold, make venison pasties of their flesh, and wear their horns exclaiming that he had hurt her hand. The cavalier for trophies,” answered Lord Dalgarno, whom our reader stopped, and looked at the pretty hand and arm which has already recognised. she showed him, with exclamations against his cruelty. “Nay, now you laugh at me, my lord,” answered his “I dare say,” she said, baring her wrist and a part of her companion; “but I know all about venison, whatever arm, “it is all black and blue to the very elbow.” you may think. I always tasted it once a year when we “I dare say you are a silly little fool,” said the cavalier, dined with Mr. Deputy,” she continued, sadly, as a sense carelessly kissing the aggrieved arm; “it is only a pretty of her degradation stole across a mind bewildered with incarnate which sets off the blue veins.” vanity and folly, “though he would not speak to me now, “Nay, my lord, now it is you are silly,” answered the if we met together in the narrowest lane in the Ward!” dame; “but I am glad I can make you speak and laugh “I warrant he would not,” said Lord Dalgarno, “be- on any terms this morning. I am sure, if I did insist on cause thou, Nell, wouldst dash him with a single look; following you into the forest, it was all for the sake of for I trust thou hast more spirit than to throw away diverting you. I am better company than your page, I words on such a fellow as he?” trow.—And now, tell me, these pretty things with horns, “Who, I!” said Dame Nelly. “Nay, I scorn the proud be they not deer?” princox too much for that. Do you know, he made all “Even such they be, Nelly,” answered her neglectful the folk in the Ward stand cap in hand to him, my poor attendant. old John Christie and all?” Here her recollection began “And what can the great folk do with so many of them, to overflow at her eyes. forsooth?” “A plague on your whimpering,” said Dalgarno, some-

500 Sir Walter Scott what harshly,—“Nay, never look pale for the matter, “It is but trying, my sweet lady,” said Lord Dalgarno. “Men Nell. I am not angry with you, you simple fool. But what say England and Scotland are in the same island, so one would you have me think, when you are eternally look- would hope there may be some road betwixt them by land.” ing back upon your dungeon yonder by the river, which “I shall never be able to ride so far,” said the lady. smelt of pitch and old cheese worse than a Welshman “We will have your saddle stuffed softer,” said the lord. does of onions, and all this when I am taking you down “I tell you that you shall mew your city slough, and to a castle as fine as is in Fairy Land!” change from the caterpillar of a paltry lane into the “Shall we be there to-night, my lord?” said Nelly, dry- butterfly of a prince’s garden. You shall have as many ing her tears. tires as there are hours in the day—as many “To-night, Nelly?—no, nor this night fortnight.” handmaidens as there are days in the week—as many “Now, the Lord be with us, and keep us!—But shall menials as there are weeks in the year—and you shall we not go by sea, my lord?—I thought everybody came ride a hunting and hawking with a lord, instead of wait- from Scotland by sea. I am sure Lord Glenvarloch and ing upon an old ship-chandler, who could do nothing Richie Moniplies came up by sea.” but hawk and spit” “There is a wide difference between coming up and “Ay, but will you make me your lady?” said Dame Nelly. going down, Nelly,” answered Lord Dalgarno. “Ay, surely—what else?” replied the lord—“My lady- “And so there is, for certain,” said his simple compan- love.” ion. “But yet I think I heard people speaking of going “Ay, but I mean your lady-wife,” said Nelly. down to Scotland by sea, as well as coming up. Are you “Truly, Nell, in that I cannot promise to oblige you. A well avised of the way?—Do you think it possible we lady-wife,” continued Dalgarno, “is a very different can go by land, my sweet lord?” thing from a lady-love.”

501 The Fortunes of Nigel “I heard from Mrs. Suddlechop, whom you lodged me try by the gentle hand of the ordinary course of law, with since I left poor old John Christie, that Lord whereas in England it can only be burst by an act of Glenvarloch is to marry David Ramsay the clockmaker’s Parliament. Well, Nelly, we will look into that matter; daughter?” and whether we get married again or no, we will at least “There is much betwixt the cup and the lip, Nelly. I do our best to get unmarried.” wear something about me may break the bans of that “Shall we indeed, my honey-sweet lord? and then I hopeful alliance, before the day is much older,” answered will think less about John Christie, for he will marry Lord Dalgarno. again, I warrant you, for he is well to pass; and I would “Well, but my father was as good a man as old Davy be glad to think he had somebody to take care of him, Ramsay, and as well to pass in the world, my lord; and, as I used to do, poor loving old man! He was a kind therefore, why should you not marry me? You have done man, though he was a score of years older than I; and I me harm enough, I trow—wherefore should you not do hope and pray he will never let a young lord cross his me this justice?” honest threshold again!” “For two good reasons, Nelly. Fate put a husband on Here the dame was once more much inclined to give you, and the king passed a wife upon me,” answered way to a passion of tears; but Lord Dalgarno conjured Lord Dalgarno. down the emotion, by saying with some asperity—“I “Ay, my lord,” said Nelly, “but they remain in England, am weary of these April passions, my pretty mistress, and we go to Scotland.” and I think you will do well to preserve your tears for “Thy argument is better than thou art aware of,” said some more pressing occasion. Who knows what turn of Lord Dalgarno. “I have heard Scottish lawyers say the fortune may in a few minutes call for more of them than matrimonial tie may be unclasped in our happy coun- you can render?”

502 Sir Walter Scott “Goodness, my lord! what mean you by such expres- woodland prospect led the eye at various points through sions? John Christie (the kind heart!) used to keep no broad and seemingly interminable alleys, which, meet- secrets from me, and I hope your lordship will not hide ing at this point as at a common centre, diverged from your counsel from me?” each other as they receded, and had, therefore, been se- “Sit down beside me on this bank,” said the noble- lected by Lord Dalgarno as the rendezvous for the com- man; “I am bound to remain here for a short space, and bat, which, through the medium of Richie Moniplies, if you can be but silent, I should like to spend a part of he had offered to his injured friend, Lord Glenvarloch. it in considering how far I can, on the present occasion, “He will surely come?” he said to himself; “cowardice follow the respectable example which you recommend was not wont to be his fault—at least he was bold enough to me.” in the Park.—Perhaps yonder churl may not have car- The place at which he stopped was at that time little ried my message? But no—he is a sturdy knave—one more than a mound, partly surrounded by a ditch, from of those would prize their master’s honour above their which it derived the name of Camlet Moat. A few hewn life.—Look to the palfrey, Lutin, and see thou let him stones there were, which had escaped the fate of many not loose, and cast thy falcon glance down every avenue others that had been used in building different lodges in to mark if any one comes.—Buckingham has under- the forest for the royal keepers. These vestiges, just suf- gone my challenge, but the proud minion pleads the ficient to show that “herein former times the hand of king’s paltry commands for refusing to answer me. If I man had been,” marked the ruins of the abode of a once can baffle this Glenvarloch, or slay him—If I can spoil illustrious but long-forgotten family, the Mandevilles, him of his honour or his life, I shall go down to Scot- Earls of Essex, to whom Enfield Chase and the exten- land with credit sufficient to gild over past mischances. sive domains adjacent had belonged in elder days. A wild I know my dear countrymen—they never quarrel with

503 The Fortunes of Nigel any one who brings them home either gold or martial ish powers, nay, by the Father of Evil himself, who, af- glory, much more if he has both gold and laurels.” ter conveying his victim into some desert remote from As he thus reflected, and called to mind the disgrace human kind, exchanged the pleasing shape in which he which he had suffered, as well as the causes he imagined gained her affections, for all his natural horrors. She for hating Lord Glenvarloch, his countenance altered chased this wild idea away as it crowded itself upon her under the influence of his contending emotions, to the weak and bewildered imagination; yet she might have terror of Nelly, who, sitting unnoticed at his feet, and lived to see it realised allegorically, if not literally, but looking anxiously in his face, beheld the cheek kindle, for the accident which presently followed. the mouth become compressed, the eye dilated, and the The page, whose eyes were remarkably acute, at length whole countenance express the desperate and deadly called out to his master, pointing with his finger at the resolution of one who awaits an instant and decisive same time down one of the alleys, that horsemen were encounter with a mortal enemy. The loneliness of the advancing in that direction. Lord Dalgarno started up, place, the scenery so different from that to which alone and shading his eyes with his hand, gazed eagerly down she had been accustomed, the dark and sombre air which the alley; when, at the same instant, he received a shot, crept so suddenly over the countenance of her seducer, which, grazing his hand, passed right through his brain, his command imposing silence upon her, and the appar- and laid him a lifeless corpse at the feet, or rather across ent strangeness of his conduct in idling away so much the lap, of the unfortunate victim of his profligacy. The time without any obvious cause, when a journey of such countenance, whose varied expression she had been length lay before them, brought strange thoughts into watching for the last five minutes, was convulsed for an her weak brain. She had read of women, seduced from instant, and then stiffened into rigidity for ever. Three their matrimonial duties by sorcerers allied to the hell- ruffians rushed from the brake from which the shot had

504 Sir Walter Scott been fired, ere the smoke was dispersed. One, with many that Lowestoffe could not forbear asking if he was hurt. imprecations seized on the page; another on the female, In answer, he said he was an unhappy man in pursuit of upon whose cries he strove by the most violent threats his wife, who had been carried off by a villain; and as he to impose silence; whilst the third began to undo the raised his countenance, the eyes of Richie, to his great burden from the page’s horse. But an instant rescue pre- astonishment, encountered the visage of John Christie. vented their availing themselves of the advantage they “For the Almighty’s sake, help me, Master Moniplies!” had obtained. he said; “I have learned my wife is but a short mile be- It may easily be supposed that Richie Moniplies, hav- fore, with that black villain Lord Dalgarno.” ing secured the assistance of the two Templars, ready “Have him forward by all means,” said Lowestoffe; enough to join in any thing which promised a fray, with “a second Orpheus seeking his Eurydice!—Have him for- Jin Vin to act as their guide, had set off, gallantly ward—we will save Lord Dalgarno’s purse, and ease him mounted and well armed, under the belief that they of his mistress—Have him with us, were it but for the would reach Camlet Moat before the robbers, and ap- variety of the adventure. I owe his lordship a grudge prehend them in the fact. They had not calculated that, for rooking me. We have ten minutes good.” according to the custom of robbers in other countries, But it is dangerous to calculate closely in matters of but contrary to that of the English highwayman of life and death. In all probability the minute or two which those days, they meant to ensure robbery by previous was lost in mounting John Christie behind one of their murder. An accident also happened to delay them a little party, might have saved Lord Dalgarno from his fate. while on the road. In riding through one of the glades Thus his criminal amour became the indirect cause of of the forest, they found a man dismounted and sitting his losing his life; and thus “our pleasant vices are made under a tree, groaning with such bitterness of spirit, the whips to scourge us.”

505 The Fortunes of Nigel The riders arrived on the field at full gallop the mo- “I know not why you should upbraid me with my up- ment after the shot was fired; and Richie, who had his bringing, Master Lowestoffe,” answered Richie, with own reasons for attaching himself to Colepepper, who great composure; “but I can tell you, the shambles is was bustling to untie the portmanteau from the page’s not a bad place for training one to this work.” saddle, pushed against him with such violence as to over- The other Templar now shouted loudly to them,—“If throw him, his own horse at the same time stumbling ye be men, come hither—here lies Lord Dalgarno, mur- and dismounting his rider, who was none of the first dered!” equestrians. The undaunted Richie immediately arose, Lowestoffe and Richie ran to the spot, and the page however, and grappled with the ruffian with such good- took the opportunity, finding himself now neglected on will, that, though a strong fellow, and though a coward all hands, to ride off in a different direction; and nei- now rendered desperate, Moniplies got him under, ther he, nor the considerable sum with which his horse wrenched a long knife from his hand, dealt him a des- was burdened, were ever heard of from that moment. perate stab with his own weapon, and leaped on his feet; The third ruffian had not waited the attack of the and, as the wounded man struggled to follow his ex- Templar and Jin Vin, the latter of whom had put down ample, he struck him upon the head with the butt-end old Christie from behind him that he might ride the of a musketoon, which last blow proved fatal. lighter; and the whole five now stood gazing with hor- “Bravo, Richie!” cried Lowestoffe, who had himself ror on the bloody corpse of the young nobleman, and engaged at sword-point with one of the ruffians, and the wild sorrow of the female, who tore her hair and soon put him to flight,—“Bravo! why, man, there lies shrieked in the most disconsolate manner, until her Sin, struck down like an ox, and Iniquity’s throat cut agony was at once checked, or rather received a new di- like a calf.” rection, by the sudden and unexpected appearance of

506 Sir Walter Scott her husband, who, fixing on her a cold and severe look, How often have I told thee, when thou wert at the gay- said, in a tone suited to his manner—“Ay, woman! thou est and the lightest, that pride goeth before destruction, takest on sadly for the loss of thy paramour.”—Then, and a haughty spirit before a fall? Vanity brought folly, looking on the bloody corpse of him from whom he had and folly brought sin, and sin hath brought death, his received so deep an injury, he repeated the solemn words original companion. Thou must needs leave duty, and of Scripture,—“‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and decency, and domestic love, to revel it gaily with the I will repay it.’—I, whom thou hast injured, will be first wild and with the wicked; and there thou liest like a to render thee the decent offices due to the dead.” crushed worm, writhing beside the lifeless body of thy So saying, he covered the dead body with his cloak, paramour. Thou hast done me much wrong— and then looking on it for a moment, seemed to reflect dishonoured me among friends—driven credit from my on what he had next to perform. As the eye of the in- house, and peace from my fireside—But thou wert my jured man slowly passed from the body of the seducer first and only love, and I will not see thee an utter cast- to the partner and victim of his crime, who had sunk away, if it lies with me to prevent it.—Gentlemen, I ren- down to his feet, which she clasped without venturing der ye such thanks as a broken-hearted man can give.— to look up, his features, naturally coarse and saturnine, Richard, commend me to your honourable master. I assumed a dignity of expression which overawed the added gall to the bitterness of his affliction, but I was young Templars, and repulsed the officious forwardness deluded.—Rise up, woman, and follow me.” of Richie Moniplies, who was at first eager to have thrust He raised her up by the arm, while, with streaming in his advice and opinion. “Kneel not to me, woman,” eyes, and bitter sobs, she endeavoured to express her he said, “but kneel to the God thou hast offended, more penitence. She kept her hands spread over her face, yet than thou couldst offend such another worm as thyself. suffered him to lead her away; and it was only as they

507 The Fortunes of Nigel turned around a brake which concealed the scene they after Lutin, but in vain. To their custody the Templars had left, that she turned back, and casting one wild and surrendered the dead bodies, and after going through hurried glance towards the corpse of Dalgarno, uttered some formal investigation, they returned, with Richard a shriek, and clinging to her husband’s arm, exclaimed and Vincent, to London, where they received great ap- wildly,—“Save me—save me! They have murdered him!” plause for their gallantry.—Vincent’s errors were easily Lowestoffe was much moved by what he had wit- expiated, in consideration of his having been the means nessed; but he was ashamed, as a town-gallant, of his of breaking up this band of villains; and there is some own unfashionable emotion, and did a force to his feel- reason to think, that what would have diminished the ings when he exclaimed,—“Ay, let them go—the kind- credit of the action in other instances, rather added to hearted, believing, forgiving husband—the liberal, ac- it in the actual circumstances, namely, that they came commodating spouse. O what a generous creature is your too late to save Lord Dalgarno. true London husband!—Horns hath he, but, tame as a George Heriot, who suspected how matters stood with fatted ox, he goreth not. I should like to see her when Vincent, requested and obtained permission from his she hath exchanged her mask and riding-beaver for her master to send the poor young fellow on an important peaked hat and muffler. We will visit them at Paul’s piece of business to Paris. We are unable to trace his Wharf, coz—it will be a convenient acquaintance.” fate farther, but believe it was prosperous, and that he “You had better think of catching the gipsy thief, entered into an advantageous partnership with his fel- Lutin,” said Richie Moniplies; “for, by my faith, he is low-apprentice, upon old Davy Ramsay retiring from off with his master’s baggage and the siller.” business, in consequence of his daughter’s marriage. A keeper, with his assistants, and several other per- That eminent antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, is possessed of sons, had now come to the spot, and made hue and cry an antique watch, with a silver dial-plate, the mainspring

508 Sir Walter Scott being a piece of catgut instead of a chain, which bears But the scrivener, having taken fright at the late the names of Vincent and Tunstall, Memory-Monitors. events, had left the city and absconded, so that it was Master Lowestoffe failed not to vindicate his charac- impossible to discover into whose hands the papers had ter as a man of gaiety, by inquiring after John Christie now passed. Richard Moniplies was silent, for his own and Dame Nelly; but greatly to his surprise, (indeed to reasons; the Templars, who had witnessed the transac- his loss, for he had wagered ten pieces that he would tion, kept the secret at his request, and it was univer- domesticate himself in the family,) he found the good- sally believed that the scrivener had carried off the writ- will, as it was called, of the shop, was sold, the stock ings along with him. We may here observe, that fears auctioned, and the late proprietor and his wife gone, no similar to those of Skurliewhitter freed London for ever one knew whither. The prevailing belief was, that they from the presence of Dame Suddlechop, who ended her had emigrated to one of the new settlements in America. career in the Rasp-haus, (viz. Bridewell,) of Amsterdam. Lady Dalgarno received the news of her unworthy The stout old Lord Huntinglen, with a haughty car- husband’s death with a variety of emotions, among riage and unmoistened eye, accompanied the funeral pro- which, horror that he should have been cut off in the cession of his only son to its last abode; and perhaps the middle career of his profligacy, was the most prominent. single tear which fell at length upon the coffin, was given The incident greatly deepened her melancholy, and in- less to the fate of the individual, than to the extinction jured her health, already shaken by previous circum- of the last male of his ancient race. stances. 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.

509 The Fortunes of Nigel carded, for the same reason, I suppose, that public marriages are no longer fashionable, and that, instead of CHAPTER XXXVII 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. Jacques. There is, suie, another flood toward, and these I am not ungrateful for a change which saves an author couples are coming to the ark!—Here comes a pair of the trouble of attempting in vain to give a new colour very strange beasts.—As You Like It. to the commonplace description of such matters; but, notwithstanding, I find myself forced upon it in the present instance, as circumstances sometimes compel a THE FASHION OF SUCH narratives as the present, changes stranger to make use of an old road which has been for like other earthly things. Time was that the tale-teller some time shut up. The experienced reader may have was obliged to wind up his story by a circumstantial already remarked, that the last chapter was employed description of the wedding, bedding, and throwing the in sweeping out of the way all the unnecessary and less stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so interesting characters, that I might clear the floor for a many circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at blithe bridal. length happily conducted his hero and heroine. Not a In truth, it would be unpardonable to pass over slightly circumstance was then omitted, from the manly ardour what so deeply interested our principal personage, King of the bridegroom, and the modest blushes of the bride, James. That learned and good-humoured monarch made to the parson’s new surplice, and the silk tabinet mantua no great figure in the politics of Europe; but then, to of the bridesmaid. But such descriptions are now dis- make amends, he was prodigiously busy, when he could

510 Sir Walter Scott find a fair opportunity of intermeddling with the pri- terly for the bride’s lack of pedigree, the monarch cut vate affairs of his loving subjects, and the approaching him short with, “Ye may save your grief for your ain marriage of Lord Glenvarloch was matter of great in- next occasions, Sir Mungo; for, by our royal saul, we terest to him. He had been much struck (that is, for will uphauld her father, Davy Ramsay, to be a gentle- him, who was not very accessible to such emotions) with man of nine descents, whase great gudesire came of the the beauty and embarrassment of the pretty Peg-a- auld martial stock of the House of Dalwolsey, than Ramsay, as he called her, when he first saw her, and he whom better men never did, and better never will, draw glorified himself greatly on the acuteness which he had sword for king and country. Heard ye never of Sir Will- displayed in detecting her disguise, and in carrying iam Ramsay of Dalwolsey, man, of whom John Fordoun through the whole inquiry which took place in conse- saith,—‘He was bellicosissimus, nobilissimus?’—His quence of it. castle stands to witness for itsell, not three miles from He laboured for several weeks, while the courtship was Dalkeith, man, and within a mile of Bannockrig. Davy in progress, with his own royal eyes, so as wellnigh to Ramsay came of that auld and honoured stock, and I wear out, he declared, a pair of her father’s best bar- trust he hath not derogated from his ancestors by his nacles, in searching through old books and documents, present craft. They all wrought wi’ steel, man; only the for the purpose of establishing the bride’s pretensions auld knights drilled holes wi’ their swords in their en- to a noble, though remote descent, and thereby remove emies’ corslets, and he saws nicks in his brass wheels. the only objection which envy might conceive against And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes to the blind the match. In his own opinion, at least, he was eminently as to slash them out of the head of those that see, and successful; for, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther one day, to show us how to value our time as it passes, as to fling in the presence-chamber, took upon him to grieve bit- it away in drinking, brawling, spear-splintering, and

511 The Fortunes of Nigel such-like unchristian doings. And you maun understand, able to devise how Eternity is to be represented.” that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal “I would make him twice as muckle as Time,”* said art, which approacheth almost to the act of creating a Archie Armstrong, the Court fool, who chanced to be living being, seeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius present when the king stated this dilemma. “Peace, saith of the sphere of Archimedes, the Syracusan— man—ye shall be whippet,” said the king, in return for this hint; “and you, my liege subjects of England, may “Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris, weel take a hint from what we have said, and not be in Et vivum certis motibus urget opus.’” such a hurry to laugh at our Scottish pedigrees, though they be somewhat long derived, and difficult to be de- “Your Majesty had best give auld Davy a coat-of-arms, duced. Ye see that a man of right gentle blood may, for as well as a pedigree,” said Sir Mungo. a season, lay by his gentry, and yet ken whare to find it, “It’s done, or ye bade, Sir Mungo,” said the king; “and when he has occasion for it. It would be as unseemly for I trust we, who are the fountain of all earthly honour, a packman, or pedlar, as ye call a travelling merchant, are free to spirit a few drops of it on one so near our whilk is a trade to which our native subjects of Scot- person, without offence to the Knight of Castle Girnigo. land are specially addicted, to be blazing his genealogy We have already spoken with the learned men of the in the faces of those to whom he sells a bawbee’s worth Herald’s College, and we propose to grant him an aug- of ribbon, as it would be to him to have a beaver on his mented coat-of-arms, being his paternal coat, charged head, and a rapier by his side, when the pack was on his with the crown-wheel of a watch in chief, for a differ- shoulders. Na, na—he hings his sword on the cleek, lays ence; and we purpose to add Time and Eternity, for sup- *Chaucer says, there is nothing new but what it has been old. porters, as soon as the Garter King-at-Arms shall be The reader has here the original of an anecdote which has since been fathered on a Scottish Chief of our own time. 512 Sir Walter Scott his beaver on the shelf, puts his pedigree into his pocket, is honour to be won abroad the Lord Dalwolsey is sel- and gangs as doucely and cannily about his peddling dom to be found at home. Sic fuit, est, et erit.—Jingling craft as if his blood was nae better than ditch-water; Geordie, as ye stand to the cost of the marriage feast, but let our pedlar be transformed, as I have kend it hap- we look for good cheer.” pen mair than ance, into a bein thriving merchant, then Heriot bowed, as in duty bound. In fact, the king, who ye shall have a transformation, my lords. was a great politician about trifles, had manoeuvred greatly on this occasion, and had contrived to get the ‘In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas—’ Prince and Buckingham dispatched on an expedition to Newmarket, in order that he might find an opportu- Out he pulls his pedigree, on he buckles his sword, gives nity in their absence of indulging himself in his own his beaver a brush, and cocks it in the face of all cre- gossiping, coshering habits, which were distasteful to ation. We mention these things at the mair length, be- Charles, whose temper inclined to formality, and with cause we would have you all to know, that it is not with- which even the favourite, of late, had not thought it out due consideration of the circumstances of all par- worth while to seem to sympathise. When the levee was ties, that we design, in a small and private way, to honour dismissed, Sir Mungo Malagrowther seized upon the with our own royal presence the marriage of Lord worthy citizen in the court-yard of the Palace, and de- Glenvarloch with Margaret Ramsay, daughter and heir- tained him, in spite of all his efforts, for the purpose of ess of David Ramsay, our horologer, and a cadet only subjecting him to the following scrutiny:— thrice removed from the ancient house of Dalwolsey. We “This is a sair job on you, Master George—the king are grieved we cannot have the presence of the noble must have had little consideration—this will cost you a Chief of that House at the ceremony; but where there bonny penny, this wedding dinner?”

513 The Fortunes of Nigel “It will not break me, Sir Mungo,” answered Heriot; shield—I have heard that estate was no great things.” “the king hath a right to see the table which his bounty “It is as good as some posts at Court, Sir Mungo, which hath supplied for years, well covered for a single day.” are coveted by persons of high quality,” replied George “Vera true, vera true—we’ll have a’ to pay, I doubt, Heriot. less or mair—a sort of penny-wedding it will prove, “Court favour, said ye? Court favour, Master Heriot?” where all men contribute to the young folk’s mainte- replied Sir Mungo, choosing then to use his malady of nance, that they may not have just four bare legs in a misapprehension; “Moonshine in water, poor thing, if bed together. What do you propose to give, Master that is all she is to be tochered with—I am truly solici- George?—we begin with the city when money is in ques- tous about them.” tion.”* “I will let you into a secret,” said the citizen, “which “Only a trifle, Sir Mungo—I give my god-daughter will relieve your tender anxiety. The dowager Lady the marriage ring; it is a curious jewel—I bought it in Dalgarno gives a competent fortune to the bride, and Italy; it belonged to Cosmo de Medici. The bride will settles the rest of her estate upon her nephew the bride- not need my help—she has an estate which belonged to groom.” her maternal grandfather.” “Ay, say ye sae?” said Sir Mungo, “just to show her “The auld soap-boiler,” said Sir Mungo; “it will need regard to her husband that is in the tomb—lucky that some of his suds to scour the blot out of the Glenvarloch her nephew did not send him there; it was a strange story *The penny-wedding of the Scots, now disused even among that death of poor Lord Dalgarno—some folk think the the lowest ranks, was a peculiar species of merry-making, at poor gentleman had much wrong. Little good comes of which, if the wedded pair were popular, the guests who con- marrying the daughter of the house you are at feud with; vened, contributed considerable sums under pretence of paying for the bridal festivity, but in reality to set the married indeed, it was less poor Dalgarno’s fault, than theirs that folk afloat in the world. 514 Sir Walter Scott forced the match on him; but I am glad the young folk the instant month?” said Sir Mungo, holloing after the are to have something to live on, come how it like, citizen; “I will be with you in the hour of cause.” whether by charity or inheritance. But if the Lady “The king invites the guests,” said George Heriot, Dalgarno were to sell all she has, even to her very wylie- without turning back. coat, she canna gie them back the fair Castle of “The base-born, ill-bred mechanic!” soliloquised Sir Glenvarloch—that is lost and gane—lost and gane.” Mungo, “if it were not the odd score of pounds he lent “It is but too true,” said George Heriot; “we cannot me last week, I would teach him how to bear himself to discover what has become of the villain Andrew a man of quality! But I will be at the bridal banquet in Skurliewhitter, or what Lord Dalgarno has done with spite of him.” the mortgage.” Sir Mungo contrived to get invited, or commanded, to “Assigned it away to some one, that his wife might attend on the bridal accordingly, at which there were not get it after he was gane; it would have disturbed but few persons present; for James, on such occasions, him in his grave, to think Glenvarloch should get that preferred a snug privacy, which gave him liberty to lay land back again,” said Sir Mungo; “depend on it, he will aside the encumbrance, as he felt it to be, of his regal have ta’en sure measures to keep that noble lordship dignity. The company was very small, and indeed there out of her grips or her nevoy’s either.” were at least two persons absent whose presence might “Indeed it is but too probable, Sir Mungo,” said Mas- have been expected. The first of these was the Lady ter Heriot; “but as I am obliged to go and look after Dalgarno, the state of whose health, as well as the re- many things in consequence of this ceremony, I must cent death of her husband, precluded her attendance leave you to comfort yourself with the reflection.” on the ceremony. The other absentee was Richie “The bride-day, you say, is to be on the thirtieth of Moniplies, whose conduct for some time past had been

515 The Fortunes of Nigel extremely mysterious. Regulating his attendance on “if you mean to discharge yourself of my service, Richie, Lord Glenvarloch entirely according to his own will and I suppose you intend to enter my wife’s?” pleasure, he had, ever since the rencounter in Enfield “I wish her good ladyship that shall soon be, and your Chase, appeared regularly at his bedside in the morn- good lordship, the blessings of as good a servant as my- ing, to assist him to dress, and at his wardrobe in the self, in heaven’s good time,” said Richie; “but fate hath evening. The rest of the day he disposed of at his own so ordained it, that I can henceforth only be your ser- pleasure, without control from his lord, who had now a vant in the way of friendly courtesy.” complete establishment of attendants. Yet he was some- “Well, Richie,” said the young lord, “if you are tired what curious to know how the fellow disposed of so much of service, we will seek some better provision for you; of his time; but on this subject Richie showed no desire but you will wait on me to the church, and partake of to be communicative. the bridal dinner?” On the morning of the bridal-day, Richie was particu- “Under favour, my lord,” answered Richie; “I must larly attentive in doing all a valet-de-chambre could, so remind you of our covenant, having presently some as to set off to advantage the very handsome figure of pressing business of mine own, whilk will detain me his master; and when he had arranged his dress to the during the ceremony; but I will not fail to prie Master utmost exactness, and put to his long curled locks what George’s good cheer, in respect he has made very costly he called “the finishing touch of the redding-kaim,” he fare, whilk it would be unthankful not to partake of.” gravely kneeled down, kissed his hand, and bade him “Do as you list,” answered Lord Glenvarloch; and hav- farewell, saying that he humbly craved leave to discharge ing bestowed a passing thought on the whimsical and himself of his lordship’s service. pragmatical disposition of his follower, he dismissed the “Why, what humour is this?” said Lord Glenvarloch; subject for others better suited to the day.

516 Sir Walter Scott The reader must fancy the scattered flowers which plauded by shouts of his own mirth, in order to encour- strewed the path of the happy couple to church—the age that of the company. Whilst his Majesty was in the loud music which accompanied the procession—the midst of this gay humour, and a call to the banquet was marriage service performed by a bishop—the king, who anxiously expected, a servant whispered Master Heriot met them at Saint Paul’s, giving away the bride,—to forth of the apartment. When he re-entered, he walked the great relief of her father, who had thus time, during up to the king, and, in his turn whispered something, at the ceremony, to calculate the just quotient to be laid which James started. on the pinion of report in a timepiece which he was then “He is not wanting his siller?” said the king, shortly putting together. and sharply. When the ceremony was finished, the company were “By no means, my liege,” answered Heriot. “It is a transported in the royal carriages to George Heriot’s, subject he states himself as quite indifferent about, so where a splendid collation was provided for the mar- long as it can pleasure your Majesty.” riage-guests in the Foljambe apartments. The king no “Body of us, man!” said the king, “it is the speech of sooner found himself in this snug retreat, than, casting a true man and a loving subject, and we will grace him from him his sword and belt with such haste as if they accordingly—what though he be but a carle—a burnt his fingers, and flinging his plumed hat on the twopenny cat may look at a king. Swith, man! have table, as who should say, Lie there, authority! he swal- him—pundite fores.—Moniplies?—They should have lowed a hearty cup of wine to the happiness of the mar- called the chield Monypennies, though I sall warrant ried couple, and began to amble about the room, you English think we have not such a name in Scot- mumping, laughing, and cracking jests, neither the wit- land.” tiest nor the most delicate, but accompanied and ap- “It is an ancient and honourable stock, the

517 The Fortunes of Nigel Monypennies,” said Sir Mungo Malagrowther; “the only “May I sifflicate your Majesty to be gracious unto loss is, there are sae few of the name.” her?” said Richie; “being that she is, in respect of this “The family seems to increase among your country- morning’s wark, my ain wedded wife, Mrs. Martha men, Sir Mungo,” said Master Lowestoffe, whom Lord Moniplies by name.” Glenvarloch had invited to be present, “since his “Saul of our body, man! but she looks wondrous grim,” Majesty’s happy accession brought so many of you answered King James. “Art thou sure she has not been here.” in her time maid of honour to Queen Mary, our kins- “Right, sir—right,” said Sir Mungo, nodding and look- woman, of redhot memory?” ing at George Heriot; “there have some of ourselves been “I am sure, an it like your Majesty, that she has the better of that great blessing to the English nation.” brought me fifty thousand pounds of good siller, and As he spoke, the door flew open, and in entered, to the better; and that has enabled me to pleasure your Maj- astonishment of Lord Glenvarloch, his late serving-man esty, and other folk.” Richie Moniplies, now sumptuously, nay, gorgeously, “Ye need have said naething about that, man,” said attired in a superb brocaded suit, and leading in his hand the king; “we ken our obligations in that sma’ matter, the tall, thin, withered, somewhat distorted form of and we are glad this rudas spouse of thine hath bestowed Martha Trapbois, arrayed in a complete dress of black her treasure on ane wha kens to put it to the profit of velvet, which suited so strangely with the pallid and se- his king and country.—But how the deil did ye come by vere melancholy of her countenance, that the king him- her, man?” self exclaimed, in some perturbation, “What the deil “In the auld Scottish fashion, my liege. She is the cap- has the fallow brought us here? Body of our regal selves! tive of my bow and my spear,” answered Moniplies. it is a corpse that has run off with the mort-cloth!” “There was a convention that she should wed me when

518 Sir Walter Scott I avenged her father’s death—so I slew, and took pos- “I witnessed the redemption of the mortgage,” said session.” Lowestoffe; “but I little dreamt by whom it had been “It is the daughter of Old Trapbois, who has been redeemed.” missed so long,” said Lowestoffe.—“Where the devil “No need ye should,” said Richie; “there would have could you mew her up so closely, friend Richie?” been small wisdom in crying roast-meat.” “Master Richard, if it be your will,” answered Richie; “Peace,” said his bride, “once more.—This paper,” she “or Master Richard Moniplies, if you like it better. For continued, delivering another to Lord Glenvarloch, “is mewing of her up, I found her a shelter, in all honour also your property—take it, but spare me the question and safety, under the roof of an honest countryman of how it came into my custody.” my own—and for secrecy, it was a point of prudence, The king had bustled forward beside Lord Glenvarloch, when wantons like you were abroad, Master Lowestoffe.” and fixing an eager eye on the writing, exclaimed— There was a laugh at Richie’s magnanimous reply, on ”Body of ourselves, it is our royal sign-manual for the the part of every one but his bride, who made to him a money which was so long out of sight!—How came you signal of impatience, and said, with her usual brevity by it, Mistress Bride?” and sternness,—“Peace—peace, I pray you, peace. Let “It is a secret,” said Martha, dryly. us do that which we came for.” So saying, she took out a “A secret which my tongue shall never utter,” said bundle of parchments, and delivering them to Lord Richie, resolutely,—“unless the king commands me on Glenvarloch, she said aloud,—“I take this royal pres- my allegiance.” ence, and all here, to witness, that I restore the ran- “I do—I do command you,” said James, trembling somed lordship of Glenvarloch to the right owner, as and stammering with the impatient curiosity of a gos- free as ever it was held by any of his ancestors.” sip; while Sir Mungo, with more malicious anxiety to

519 The Fortunes of Nigel get at the bottom of the mystery, stooped his long thin at the bottom of this conspiracy, God forgive it to him form forward like a bent fishing-rod, raised his thin grey at this moment, for he is now where the crime must be locks from his ear, and curved his hand behind it to col- answered!” lect every vibration of the expected intelligence. Martha “Amen!” said Lord Glenvarloch, and it was echoed by in the meantime frowned most ominously on Richie, who all present. went on undauntedly to inform the king, “that his de- “For my father,” continued she, with her stern fea- ceased father-in-law, a good careful man in the main, tures twitched by an involuntary and convulsive move- had a’ touch of worldly wisdom about him, that at times ment, “his guilt and folly cost him his life; and my be- marred the uprightness of his walk; he liked to dabble lief is constant, that the wretch, who counselled him among his neighbour’s gear, and some of it would at that morning to purloin the paper, left open the win- times stick to his fingers in the handling.” dow for the entrance of the murderers.” “For shame, man, for shame!” said Martha; “since the Every body was silent for an instant; the king was infamy of the deed must be told, be it at least briefly.— first to speak, commanding search instantly to be made Yes, my lord,” she added, addressing Glenvarloch, “the for the guilty scrivener. “I, lictor,” he concluded, “colliga piece of gold was not the sole bait which brought the manus—caput obnubito-infelici suspendite arbori.” miserable old man to your chamber that dreadful Lowestoffe answered with due respect, that the scriv- night—his object, and he accomplished it, was to pur- ener had absconded at the time of Lord Dalgarno’s loin this paper. The wretched scrivener was with him murder, and had not been heard of since. that morning, and, I doubt not, urged the doting old “Let him be sought for,” said the king. “And now let man to this villainy, to offer another bar to the ransom us change the discourse—these stories make one’s very of your estate. If there was a yet more powerful agent blood grew, and are altogether unfit for bridal festivity.

520 Sir Walter Scott Hymen, O Hymenee!” added he, snapping his fingers, “But, Richie,” said Sir Mungo, “it seems to me that “Lord Glenvarloch, what say you to Mistress Moniplies, this bride of yours is like to be master and mair in the this bonny bride, that has brought you back your father’s conjugal state.” estate on your bridal day?” “If she abides by words, Sir Mungo,” answered Richie, “Let him say nothing, my liege,” said Martha; “that “I thank heaven I can be as deaf as any one; and if she will best suit his feelings and mine.” comes to dunts, I have twa hands to paik her with.” “There is redemption-money, at the least, to be re- “Weel said, Richie, again,” said the king; “you have paid,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “in that I cannot remain gotten it on baith haffits, Sir Mungo.—Troth, Mistress debtor.” Bride, for a fule, your gudeman has a pretty turn of “We will speak of it hereafter,” said Martha; “my wit.” debtor you cannot be.” And she shut her mouth as if “There are fools, sire,” replied she, “who have wit, and determined to say nothing more on the subject. fools who have courage—aye, and fools who have learn- Sir Mungo, however, resolved not to part with the ing, and are great fools notwithstanding.—I chose this topic, and availing himself of the freedom of the mo- man because he was my protector when I was desolate, ment, said to Richie—“A queer story that of your fa- and neither for his wit nor his wisdom. He is truly hon- ther-in-law, honest man; methinks your bride thanked est, and has a heart and hand that make amends for you little for ripping it up.” some folly. Since I was condemned to seek a protector “I make it a rule, Sir Mungo,” replied Richie, “always through the world, which is to me a wilderness, I may to speak any evil I know about my family myself, hav- thank God that I have come by no worse.” ing observed, that if I do not, it is sure to be told by “And that is sae sensibly said,” replied the king, “that, ither folks.” by my saul, I’ll try whether I canna make him better.

521 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 fash- NOTES ion, 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 Note I. p. 32.—DAVID RAMSAY lay it on Richie’s shoulder, but nearly stuck it into his eye. Richie, starting back, attempted to rise, but was David Ramsay, watchmaker and horologer to James I., held down by Lowestoffe, while Sir Mungo, guiding the was a real person, though the author has taken the lib- royal weapon, the honour-bestowing blow was given and erty of pressing him into the service of fiction. Although received: “Surge, carnifex—Rise up, Sir Richard his profession led him to cultivate the exact sciences, Moniplies, of Castle-Collop!—And, my lords and lieges, like many at this period he mingled them with pursuits let us all to our dinner, for the cock-a-leekie is cooling.” which were mystical and fantastic. The truth was, that the boundaries between truth and falsehood in math- ematics, 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

522 Sir Walter Scott was crowned in the Pope’s chair at Rome. Such wagers round about the cloisters. Upon the west end of the clois- were common in that day, as may be seen by looking at ters the rods turned one over another, an argument that Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour. the treasure was there. The labourers digged at least six David Ramsay was also an actor in another singular feet deep, and then we met with a coffin; but which, in scene, in which the notorious astrologer Lilly was a per- regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which we af- former, and had no small expectation on the occasion, terwards much repented. since he brought with him a half-quartern sack to put “From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, the treasure in. where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we “David Ramsay, his Majesty’s clock-maker, had been began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a informed that there was a great quantity of treasure wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey. He ac- the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would quaints Dean Withnam therewith, who was also then not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one Bishop of Lincoln. The Dean gave him liberty to search were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, after it, with this proviso, that if any was discovered, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to his church should have a share of it. Davy Ramsay finds think or do, until I gave directions and command to dis- out one John Scott, who pretended the use of the miss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, Mosaical rods, to assist him herein.* I was desired to and each man returned unto his lodging late, about join with him, unto which I consented. One winter’s twelve o’clock at night. I could never since be induced night, Davy Ramsay, with several gentlemen, myself, to join with any such like actions. and Scott, entered the cloisters. We played the hazel rods “The true miscarriage of the business was by reason *The same now called, I believe, the Divining Rod, and ap- of so many people being present at the operation; for plied to the discovery of water not obvious to the eye. 523 The Fortunes of Nigel there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I be- for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue.” From lieve most part of the abbey church would have been these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under strong confidence and knowledge of what they are do- the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had ing, are best for the work.”—LILLY’S Life and Times, advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity p. 46. of being himself a cheat. 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 tem- pests 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

524 Sir Walter Scott tion of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the Note II.—GEORGE HERIOT favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of This excellent person was but little known by his ac- his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter tions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was af- the striking phrase of Scripture, “that being dead he terwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account yet speaketh.” We have already mentioned, in the In- to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly troduction, the splendid charity of which he was the £40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by and meagre. marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dy- Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in ing in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty- Edinburgh, descended from a family of some conse- first year. After a life spent in honourable and success- quence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confi- ful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which dence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representa- city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th Feb- tive in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies ruary, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of represented in the prime of life, is thus described: “His 17th December, 1596. fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm George Heriot, the son, pursued his father’s occupa- calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower

525 The Fortunes of Nigel part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genu- “Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HE- ine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fit- RIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori ted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omni- a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a dispo- bus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu sition to enjoy it.”—Historical and Descriptive Account instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS of Heriot’s Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Messrs James and John Johnstone. Edinburgh, 1827. Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was “Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis interred in Saint Gregory’s Church, from the register of 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. kindest manner, sent me the following extract:—“Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 2Oth Hic Alicia Primrosa April, 1612.” Saint Gregory’s, before the Great Fire of Jacet crudo abruta fato, London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of Intempestivas the towers of old Saint Paul’s, and occupied the space Ut rosa pressa manus. of ground now filled by Queen Anne’s statue. In the Nondum bisdenos south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a Annorum impleverat orbes, handsome monument, bearing the following inscrip- Pulchra, pudica, tion:— Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam

526 Sir Walter Scott Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Note III.—PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS Non sublata tamen COMING TO ENGLAND Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than Quae fuit antea soli.” in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at out of Scotland, “but,” says Osborne, “which, through a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still cross- husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. ing the Tweed.” Yet it is certain, from the number of The epitaph occurs in Strype’s edition of Stewe’s Sur- proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scot- vey of London, Book iii., page 228. land, and bearing marks of the King’s own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopu- larity 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,

527 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 NOTE IV.—KING JAMES brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted The dress of this monarch, together with his personal suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:— proclamations says, many of them under pretence of “He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through requiring payment of “auld debts due to them by the [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat King,” which, it is observed with great naivete, “is, of enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Maj- thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he esty.” The expressions in the text are selected from these was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years curious proclamations. 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

528 Sir Walter Scott make thus bold with God.”—DALZELL’S Sketches of Scottish History , p. 86. NOTE V.—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 gentle-

529 The Fortunes of Nigel man had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pat- always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who tern as had not been seen in society for the better part had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks of a century. The young men who were present amused in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he sud- nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for denly singled out one of the party:—“Auld d’ye think amusement as a monkey in a china shop. 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 dis- tinctions of Meum and Tuum, addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to as- certain 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 ascrib- ing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been

530 Sir Walter Scott dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who ac- Note VI.—MRS. ANNE TURNER counted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, “heard a crack from the scaffold, Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupa- which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among tion of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milli- the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fear- ner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of ing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents not his own scholars.” Compare this curious passage in lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some works are published in the Secret History of King James. 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

531 The Fortunes of Nigel

Note VII.—LORD HUNTINGLEN Note VIII.—BUCKINGHAM

The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and iras- of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to cible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, op- younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was strug- posed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of gling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On that, upon the annual return of the day, the King’s de- this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, “the liverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, ‘Who made you The time was the fifth of August, “upon which,” pro- Lord Keeper, Coventry?’ He replied, ‘The King.’ ceeds the satirical historian, “Sir John Ramsay, for his Buckingham replied, ‘It’s false; ’twas I did make you, good service in that preservation, was the principal and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would unmake you.’ Coventry thus answered him, ‘Did I con- ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his ceive that I held my place by your favour, I would pres- asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action ently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King.” Majesty.’ Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, ‘You shall not keep it long;’ and surely,

532 Sir Walter Scott had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word.”—WELDON’S Court of King James and Charles. Note IX.—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

533 The Fortunes of Nigel of knighthood were frequently made knights. Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by And all the blazon of a gentleman? the splendour of his address and appearance, was ex- Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, pected to make up in show for the absence of a whole To move his body gracefully, to speak band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have The language pure, or to turn his mind Sir John’s authority when he cashiers part of his train. Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? “Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, HOST. Ay, that was when the nursery’s self was noble, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page.” And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus rep- And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, robated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to And greatness worship; every house became Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he An academy, and those parts would, with his own hands hang him, sooner We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. “Than damn him to this desperate course of life. LOVEL. Why do you say so, LOVEL. Call you that desperate, which, by a line Or think so enviously? do they not still Of institution, from our ancestors Learn us the Centaur’s skill, the art of Thrace, Hath been derived down to us, and received To ride? or Pollux’ mystery, to fence? In a succession, for the noblest way The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring

534 Sir Walter Scott In armour; to be active for the wars; He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, To study figures, numbers and proportions, A year the earlier come to read a lecture May yield them great in counsels and the art; Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering’s To make their English sweet upon their tongue? And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle.” As reverend Chaucer says. The New Inn, Act I. 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,

535 The Fortunes of Nigel

Note X.—LORD HENRY HOWARD Note XI.—SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS

Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disor- Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and derly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and begin- learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, A ning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the hon- Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies. est citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he the following: “The 24 of November [1567], at two af- says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and ternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted infesti met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their regibus, as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there he became James’s most ardent partisan, and conducted were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol.” These with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspon- skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell’s dence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. play of The Scowrers, an old rake thus boasts of his early Upon James’s accession, he was created Earl of exploits:—“I knew the Hectors, and before them the Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Muns, and the Tityretu’s; they were brave fellows in- Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry deed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calum- Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life niators that ever lived. twice, my dear Sir Willie.” But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of he-

536 Sir Walter Scott reditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII.—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.

537 The Fortunes of Nigel Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo’s nest, Note XIII.—CUCKOO’S NEST The City’”

The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended cap- The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by tain and the citizen of London, is taken from a bur- a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. lesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a “‘Of London city I am free, piece of low humour, which had at the time very con- And there I first my wife did see, siderable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into And for that very cause,’ said he, a dispute amongst themselves “which calling was of ‘I love it. most repute,” and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence And he that calls it cuckoo’s nest, with much arrogance. Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,— “‘Wer’t not for us, thou swad,’ quoth he, ‘I’ll prove it! ‘Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee For though I am a man of trade, ’Tis pity; And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, For such as you esteem us least, In battle.

538 Sir Walter Scott

And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Note XIV.—BURBAGE Whatever this low country squire May prattle.’” Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the sub- seems to have been early almost identified with his project of the poem. The whole may be found in the second totype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that edition of Dryden’s Miscellany, 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. 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;

539 The Fortunes of Nigel But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, Note XV.—MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE And call’d, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried.” This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief RICHARD CORBET’S Poems, Edition 1815, p. 193. 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.

540 Sir Walter Scott 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 Note XVI.—KING JAMES’S HUNTING BOTTLE on.” The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., “The and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sports- not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong men, which is labelled, “King James’s Hunting Bottle,” Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunt- with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have ing with these wines; and to that purpose, he was at- exaggerated the King’s taste for the bottle. Welldon says tended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could James was not intemperate in his drinking; “However, be, always at hand to fill the King’s cup in hunting when in his old age, Buckingham’s jovial suppers, when he he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunt- had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes over- ing with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, taken, which he would the next day remember, and re- he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a pent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, some other cause, the King became so lazy and so un- that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have wieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above

541 The Fortunes of Nigel one or two.”—Secret History of King James, vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII.—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

542 Sir Walter Scott Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, show- In Letitia Aikin’s Memoirs of the Reign of King James, ing that the author must have taken the anecdote from will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the pic- favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some ture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King’s black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, eyes. He tells him to wear a bushy ruff, well starched; Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the and after various other directions as to his dress, he con- picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or cross- cludes, ‘but above all things fail not to praise the roan bow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems jennet whereon the King doth daily ride.’ In this pic- somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his ser- ture King James is represented on the identical roan jen- vant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. net. In the background of the picture are seen two or Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery three suspicious-looking figures, as if watching the suc- of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town- cess of some plot. These may have been put in by the officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, painter, to flatter the King, by making it be supposed granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dress- that he had actually escaped, or successfully combated, ing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke some serious plot. The King is attended by a numerous of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence band of courtiers and attendants, all of whom seem of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference moving forward to arrest the defaulter. The painting of that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head this picture is extremely good, but the drawing is very is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. Gothic, and there is no attempt at the keeping of per-

543 The Fortunes of Nigel spective. The picture is very dark and obscure, which considerably adds to the interest of the scene.” Note XVIII.—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.”

544 Sir Walter Scott

Note XIX.—TRAITOR’S GATE Note XX.—PUNISHMENT OF STUBBS BY MUTILA- TION Traitor’s Gate, which opens from the Tower of London to the Thames, was, as its name implies, that by which This execution, which so captivated the imagination of persons accused of state offences were conveyed to their Sir Mungo Malagrowther, was really a striking one. The prison. When the tide is making, and the ancient gate is criminal, a furious and bigoted Puritan, had published beheld from within the buildings, it used to be a most a book in very violent terms against the match of Eliza- striking part of the old fortress; but it is now much in- beth with the Duke of Alencon, which he termed an jured in appearance, being half built up with masonry union of a daughter of God with a son of antichrist. to support a steam-engine, or something of that sort. 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,

545 The Fortunes of Nigel 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 Note XXI.—RlCHIE MONIPLIES BEHIND THE AR- present, that Stubbs, when his right hand was cut off, RAS plucked off his hat with the left, and said, with a loud voice, ‘God save the Queen!’ The multitude standing The practical jest of Richie Moniplies going behind the about was deeply silent, either out of horror of this new arras to get an opportunity of teasing Heriot, was a and unwonted kind of punishment, or out of commis- pleasantry such as James might be supposed to approve eration towards the man, as being of an honest and un- of. It was customary for those who knew his humour to blamable repute, or else out of hatred to the marriage, contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The cel- which most men presaged would be the overthrow of ebrated Archie Armstrong, and another jester called religion.”—CAMDBN’S Annals for the Year 1581. 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 ventrilo- quism. 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

546 Sir Walter Scott knew him, and is this:—It hath been (saith he) credibly and him; and still listening to the King’s discourse, the reported, that there was a man in the court of King voice came again, ‘Sir John, Sir John; come away and James his days, that could act this imposture so lively, drink off your sack.’ At that Sir John began to swell that he could call the King by name, and cause the King with anger, and looked into the next room to see who it to look round about him, wondering who it was that was that dared to call him so importunately, and could called him, whereas he that called him stood before him not find out who it was, and having chid with whomso- in his presence, with his face towards him. But after ever he found, he returned again to the King. The King this imposture was known, the King, in his merriment, had no sooner begun to speak as formerly, but the voice would sometimes take occasionally this impostor to came again, ‘Sir John, come away, your sack stayeth for make sport upon some of his courtiers, as, for in- you.’ At that Sir John began to stamp with madness, stance:— and looked out and returned several times to the King, “There was a knight belonging to the court, whom but could not be quiet in his discourse with the King, the King caused to come before him in his private room, because of the voice that so often troubled him, till the (where no man was but the King, and this knight and king had sported enough.”—WEBSTER on Witchcraft, the impostor,) and feigned some occasion of serious dis- p. 124. course 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

547 The Fortunes of Nigel in which Lady Exeter was made to acknowledge such a purpose. The account given of the occasion of obtain- Note XXII.—LADY LAKE. ing this letter, was, that it had been written by the Count- ess at Wimbledon, in presence of Lady Lake and her Whether out of a meddling propensity common to all daughter, Lady Ross, being designed to procure their who have a gossiping disposition, or from the love of forgiveness for her mischievous intention. The King re- justice, which ought to make part of a prince’s charac- mained still unsatisfied, the writing, in his opinion, bear- ter, James was very fond of enquiring personally into ing some marks of forgery. Lady Lake and her daughter the causes celebres which occurred during his reign. In then alleged, that, besides their own attestation, and the imposture of the Boy of Bilson, who pretended to that of a confidential domestic, named Diego, in whose be possessed, and of one Richard Haydock, a poor presence Lady Exeter had written the confession, their scholar, who pretended to preach during his sleep, the story might also be supported by the oath of their wait- King, to use the historian Wilson’s expression, took de- ing-maid, who had been placed behind the hangings at light in sounding with the line of his understanding, the the time the letter was written, and heard the Countess depths of these brutish impositions, and in doing so, of Exeter read over the confession after she had signed showed the acuteness with which he was endowed by it. Determined to be at the bottom of this accusation, Nature. Lady Lake’s story consisted in a clamorous com- James, while hunting one day near Wimbledon, the scene plaint against the Countess of Exeter, whom she accused of the alleged confession, suddenly left his sport, and, of a purpose to put to death Lady Lake herself, and her galloping hastily to Wimbledon, in order to examine daughter, Lady Ross, the wife of the Countess’s own personally the room, discovered, from the size of the son-in-law, Lord Ross; and a forged letter was produced, apartment, that the alleged conversation could not have

548 Sir Walter Scott taken place in the manner sworn to; and that the tapes- A,’ all. try of the chamber, which had remained in the same ABYE, suffer for. state for thirty years, was too short by two feet, and, ACCIDENS, grammar. therefore, could not have concealed any one behind it. AIGRE, sour, ill-natured. This matter was accounted an exclusive discovery of AIN GATE, own way. the King by his own spirit of shrewd investigation. The A’ LEEVING, all living. parties were punished in the Star Chamber by fine and AMBLE, a peculiar gait of a horse, in which both legs imprisonment. on one side are moved forward at the same time. ANCE, once. ANENT, concerning. ANGEL, an ancient English gold coin, worth about 10s., and bearing the figure of an angel. ARRAS, tapestry. AUGHT, owe. AULD, old. AULD REEKIE, Edinburgh, in allusion to its smoke. AVISEMENT, counsel. AW, all.

BANGED, sprang, bounded. BARNACLES, spectacles.

549 The Fortunes of Nigel BARNS-BREAKING, idle frolics. BLITHE, BLYTHE, glad. BAWBEE, halfpenny. BLUE-COATS, lackeys. BAXTER, baker. BODDLE, a copper coin, value the sixth part of an BEAR-BANNOCKS, barley cakes. English penny. BECKING, curtseying. BODE, bid, offer. AWMOUS, alms, a gift. BECKS, nods. BOOKIE, book. BEECHEN BICKERS, dishes of beechwood. BRAE, hill, hill-side. BELDAM, ugly old woman. BRAVE PIECE, fine thing. BELIVE, by-and-by, presently. BRAW, fine, handsome. BENEVOLENCES, taxes illegally exacted by the kings BREAKING, kneading. of England. BREEKS, breeches, trousers. BIDE, keep, remain. BROCHES, kitchen spits. BIELDY BIT, sheltered spot. BROSE, pottage of mean and water. BIGGING, building. BROWNIE, domestic goblin. BILBOE, sword, rapier. BUNEMOST, uppermost. BILLIES, brothers. BUCKET, cheat. BIRKIE, lively young fellow. BURROWS-TOWN, borough-town. BLACK-JACK, leathern drinking-cup. BUSS, kiss. BLADES, dashing fellows, rakes. BLATE, modest, bashful. CALF-WARD, place where calves are kept in the field. BLETHERING, foolish, silly. CALLAN, CALLANT, lad.

550 Sir Walter Scott CANNILY, cautiously, skilfully. CHIELD, fellow. CANNY, quiet. CHOPINES, high shoes or clogs. CANTLE, crown of the head. CHUCKS, chuck-stones, as played by children. CARCANET, necklace. CHUFFS, clowns, simpletons. CARLE, fellow. CLAITHING, clothing. CARLE-HEMPIE, the strongest stalk of hemp. CARNIFEX, executioner. CLAPPED LOOFS, crossed palms. CAUFF, chaff. CLATTER-TRAPS, rattle-traps. CAULDRIFE, chilly. CLAUGHT, snatched. CA’T, call it. CLAVERING, idle talking. CAUP, cup. CLEEK, hook. CAUSEY, pavement. CLEW, clue. CERTIE, faith, in truth. CLOOT, hoof. CHALMER, chamber. CLOUR, blow. CHANGE-HOUSE, roadside inn where horses are CLOUTING, mending. changed on a journey. COCK-A-LEEKIE, COCK-A-LEEKY, leek soup in CHALK, slash. which a cock has been boiled. CHAPPIT, struck. COIF, linen covering for the head. CHEEK-BY-JOWL, CHEEK-BY-CHOWL, side by side. COMPLOTS, plots, intrigues. CHEERY, dagger. COMPT, list, account, particulars. CHENZIE-MAIL, chain-mail. COMPTING-ROOM, counting-house.

551 The Fortunes of Nigel COSHERING, being familiar and intimate. DONNERIT, stupefied. COUP, barter. DOOMS, very, absolutely. COUP THE CRANS, go to wreck and ruin. DOUCE, quiet, respectable, sober. COUPIT, tumbled. DOVER, neither asleep nor awake. CRAIG, rock; also neck. DOWCOT, dove-cote. CRAP, creep. DRAB, illicit sexual intercourse. CRAW’D SAE CROUSE, crowed so proudly. DRAFF, drains given to cows; also the wash given to pigs. CULLY, one easily deceived, a dupe. DRAFF-POKE, bag of grains. CURN, grain. DREDGING-BOX, a box with holes for sprinkling flour CUSSER, stallion. in cookery. CUTTY-QUEAN, a loose woman. DROUTHY, thirsty. DUD, rag. DAFT, silly, mad. DUKE OF EXETER’S DAUGHTER, a species of rack DAIKERING, jogging or toiling along. in the Tower of London. DANG, driven, knocked. DULE-WEEDS, mourning. DEIL, devil. DUMMALAFONG, a common prey to all comers. DEUTEROSCOPY, a meaning beyond the original sense. DUNTS, blows. DIDNA, did not. DIKE-LOUPER, a debauchee. EARD, earth. DIRDUM, uproar, tumult. EEN, eyes. DIRKED, stabbed with a dirk. ELRITCH, hideous.

552 Sir Walter Scott ENOW, just now. FRESCO, half-naked. ENSAMPLE, example. FULE, fool. EVITED, avoided. FULHAM, loaded dice. EXIES, hysterics. GAGE, pledge, trust. FALCHION, a short broadsword with a slightly curved GANG A’ AE GATE, go all one way. point. GAR, make, force. FALSET, falsehood. GARR’D, made, compelled. FAUSE, false. GATE, way, road; also kind of. FASH, trouble. GEAR, property. FASHIOUS, troublesome, annoying. GIFF-GAFF, give and take, tit for tat. FENCE-LOUPER, rakish fellow. GIE THE GLAIKS, to befool, deceive. FEBRIFUGE, a medicine to subdue a fever. GILLIE-WHITE-FOOT, running footman. FIDUCIARY, trustee. GILLRAVAGER, plunderer. FLATCAPS, citizens, civilians. GIRNED, grinned. FLEECHING, flattering. GLAIKS, deception. FOOD FOR FAGGOTS, martyrs for their religious opinions. GLEED, awry, all wrong. FOOT-CLOTH, horse-cloth reaching almost to the ground. GOUD-COUK, fool. FOUARTS, house-leeks. GRAFFS, graves. FOULWART, pole-cat. GRAMERCY, great thanks. FRAE, from. GRANDAM, old woman, grandmother.

553 The Fortunes of Nigel GRAT, cried. HECK AND MANGER, in comfortable quarters. GREEN GEESE, parrots. HEUGHS, glens. GREET, cry. HIRDIE-GIRDIE, topsy-turvy. GREW, shudder. HIRPLING, limping, walking lame. GRIPS, handshakings, greetings. HIRSEL, flock. GROSART, GROSSART, goose-berry. HORSE-GRAITH, harness. GULL, one easily befooled. HOUGHS, hollows. GULLEY, large knife. HOWFF, rendezvous, place of resort. GUTTERBLOOD, one meanly bred. GYNOCRACY, petticoat government. ILK ANE, each one. ILL, bad. HAET, thing. ILL REDD-UP, very untidy. HAFFITS, sides of the head. ILL-WILLY, ill-natured. HAFT, handle. INGINE, ingenuity. HAIRBOURED, resided, sojourned. INGOTS, masses of unwrought metal. HAMESUCKEN, assaulting a man on his own premises. INGRATE, an ungrateful person. HANKED, coiled. IRON CARLES, iron figures of men. HARLE, drag, trail. HARMAN BECK, constable. JAW, wave. HEART-SCALD, disgust. JEDDART-STAFF, a species of battle-axe peculiar to HEAD-TIRE, head-dress. Jedburgh.

554 Sir Walter Scott JENNET, a small Spanish horse. LEGLIN-GIRTH, the lowest hoop on a leglin, or milk- JINGLE, dance. pail. JOUP, dip, stoop down. LICK, a beating. LIEFEST, most beloved. KEMPING, strife. LIFT, steal. KENNING, knowledge. LIGHT O’ LOVE, mistress, wanton woman. KIMMER, gossip, neighbour. LINKBOYS, juvenile torch-bearers. KIRK, church. LIST, like. KITTLE, ticklish, difficult, precarious. LITHER, soft. KYTHED, seemed, appeared. LOOF, palm of the hand. LOON, LOUN, rascal. LAIGH, low. LOUPING, leaping. LAIR, learning. LUG, LUGG, ear. LAMB’S-WOOL, a beverage made of the pulp of LUVE, love. roasted apples. LANDLOUPER, adventurer, runagate. MAIR THAN ANCE, more than once. LANG SYNE, long ago. MARLE, wonder, marvel. LATTEN, plated iron or brass. MAGGOT, whim, fancy. LAVROCK, lark. MELL, intermeddle. LEASING-MAKING, uttering treasonable language. MENSEFUL, modest, mannerly. LEASINGS, falsehoods, treason. MERK, a Scottish coin, value 13s 4d.

555 The Fortunes of Nigel MESS-BOOK, mass-book, Catholic prayer-book. OR, before. MICKLE, MUCKLE, much, great, large. OTHER GATE, other kind of. MINT, attempt. OWER SICKER, too careful. MIRK, dark. MISLEARD, unmannerly. PAIK, fight, chastise. MORT-CLOTH, shroud. PANGED, crammed. MOTION, puppet-show. PAPISTRIE, Popery. MUCKLE v. MICKLE. PEASE-BOGLE, scarecrow among the pease growing. MUFFLED, disguised. PENNY-WEDDING, a wedding where all who attend con- MUSKETOON, a species of musket. tribute a trifle towards the expenses of the merrymaking. MY GERTIE, my goodness! gracious! PICKTHANK, a parasitical informer. PIG, earthen pot, vessel, or pitcher. NEB, nose, point. PINK, stab, pierce holes into. NEEDSNA, need not. PLACK, a copper coin, value the third part of an En- NICHER, snigger. glish penny. NICKS, notches. PLOY, trick. NIFFER, exchange. POCK-END, empty pocket or purse. NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d. sterling. POCK-PUDDING, bag pudding. NOWTE, black cattle. POORTITH, poverty. NUNCHION, luncheon, food taken between meals. PORK-GRISKINS, sucking-pigs; also broiled loin of pork.

556 Sir Walter Scott POUCH, pocket. SACK, sherry or canary wine, warmed and spiced. PRIE, taste. SACKLESS, innocent. PULLET, a young hen. SCAT, tribute, tax. SCAUDING, scalding. QUEAN, wench, young woman. SCAUR, scare, frighten. SCLATE-STANE, slate-stone. RAMPALLIONS, low women. SCRIVENER, one who draws up contracts. RAVE, tore. SHABBLE, cutlass. RAXING, stretching. SHOON, shoes. REDDING-KAME, hair-comb. SHOUTHER, shoulder. REDD-UP, tidy, put in order. SHULE, shovel. RED WUD, stark mad. SIB, related. REIRD, shouting. SIBYL, prophetess. REMEID, resource, remedy. SICKER, careful. ROOPIT, croupy, hoarse. SICLIKE, just so. ROSE-NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d., impressed SILLER, money, silver. with a rose. SIRRAH, sir! ROUT, ROWT, to roar or bellow. SKEIGH, skittish. RUDAS, wild, forward, bold. SKELDER, plunder, snatch. SLEEVELESS, thriftless. SAAM, same. SMAIK, mean, paltry fellow.

557 The Fortunes of Nigel SNAP-HAUNCHES, firelocks. TAIT, lock. SPANG, spring. TANE, the one. SPEER, ask. TAWSE, leather strap used for chastisement. SPEERINGS, information, inquiries. TEINDS, tithes. SPRAIKLE, to get on with difficulty. THROUGH-STANES, gravestones. SPUNK, slip. TIKE v. TYKE. TINT, lost. SPUNKIES, will-o’-the-wisps. TITHER, the other. STEEKING, closing. TOCHER, dowry. STEEKIT, shut. TOOM, empty. STONERN, stone. TOUR, see. STOT, a bullock between two and three years old. TOUT, blast on the horn. STRAND-SCOURING, gutter-raking. TOYS, goods. STURDIED, afflicted with the sturdy, a sheep disease. TREEN, wooden. STYPIC, astringent, something to arrest haemorrhage. TROTH, truth. SUCCORY-WATER, sugar water. TROW, believe, guess. SUNDOWN, sunset. TRYSTE, appointment. SUNER, sooner. TURN-BROCHE, turn-spit. SUMPTER HORSE, pack-horse. TYKE, TIKE, dog, cur. SWITH, begone! be off! TWA, two. SYNE, ago. TWIRING, coquetting, making eyes at.

558 Sir Walter Scott UMQUHILE, late, deceased. WINNA, will not. WITHY, gallows rope. VIVERS, victuals. WOO’, wool. WYLIE-COAT, under-petticoat. WAD, pledge. WYND, street, alley. WADNA, would not. WYTE, blame. WADSET, mortgage. WANION, misfortune. YESTREEN, last night. 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.

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