The Fortunes of Nigel Part 9

"Habits, Master George, habits," replied the earl, "which to young men are like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken; but which hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves of iron. To go to Scotland for a brief s.p.a.ce were but labour in vain; and when I think of abiding there, I cannot bring myself to leave my old master, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful, and whose weal and woe I have shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scottish n.o.ble."

"Has he visited the North?" said Heriot.

"He was there last year and made such a report of the country, that the prince has expressed a longing to see it." "Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his Highness and the Duke of Buckingham?" observed the goldsmith.

"He is so," answered the earl,--"I pray it may be for the advantage of them all. The prince is just and equitable in his sentiments, though cold and stately in his manners, and very obstinate in his most trifling purposes; and the duke, n.o.ble and gallant, and generous and open, is fiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno has none of these faults, and such as he may have of his own, may perchance be corrected by the society in which he moves.--See, here he comes."

Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley to the bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that Nigel had full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was dressed point-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fas.h.i.+on of the time, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and- twenty, with a n.o.ble form and fine countenance, in which last could easily be traced the manly features of his father, but softened by a more habitual air of a.s.siduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had ever condescended to a.s.sume towards the world in general. In other respects, his address was gallant, free, and unenc.u.mbered either by pride or ceremony--far remote certainly from the charge either of haughty coldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly freed him from the marked faults which he ascribed to the manners of the prince and his favourite Buckingham.

While the old earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch to his son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked the countenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aught of that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his broken expostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clas.h.i.+ng of interests betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothing of this was visible; on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his new acquaintance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes conquest at once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous young man.

It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equally ready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months, and while a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained by circ.u.mstances from the conversation of his equals. When, on his father's sudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had found himself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with the details of the law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of the patrimony which should support his hereditary rank. His term of sincere mourning, joined to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart under unexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty attending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young Lord of Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reserved manner. How he had pa.s.sed his time in London, the reader is acquainted with. But this melancholy and secluded course of life was neither agreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was genial and sociable. He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the approaches which a young man of his own age and rank made towards him; and when he had exchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by which, as surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognise a mutual wish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two n.o.blemen had been acquainted for some time.

Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of Lord Huntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards a man dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed, considering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, he kept his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that he came in sight of the company to which he was about to be presented.

"Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old lord, who had retained the keen appet.i.te and impatience of a Scottish baron even during a long alienation from his native country; "and why does John Cook, with a murrain to him, keep back dinner?"

"I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion," said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.-- Look up, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of beating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram."

The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action of an automaton which suddenly obeys the impulse of a pressed spring. But, strange to tell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron's mandate, a business, as Master Heriot's message expressed, of weight and importance--nay not even the state of depression in which, out of sheer humility, doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from the moment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had called any colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow from haste and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before; nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hung down on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was when we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet and humble desk.

Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous and puritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to the company, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch's ear-- "The devil d.a.m.n thee black, thou cream-faced loon, Where got'st thou that goose-look?"

Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage to understand a quotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London. Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, "That fellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most hypocritical rogue--and such is my excellent opinion of human nature, that I always suspect the worst. But they seem deep in business. Will you take a turn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member of the serious conclave?"

"With you, my lord, most willingly," said Nigel; and they were turning away accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belonging to his station, observed, that, "as their business concerned Lord Glenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, and witness to it."

"My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, my best friend, Master Heriot," said the young n.o.bleman, "I shall understand nothing the better for c.u.mbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and can only say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare not take the helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already guided my course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven. Whatever you recommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the import of the deeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation from Master Heriot, if he will bestow so much trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learned words and law terms from this person of skill."

"He is right," said Lord Huntinglen; "our young friend is right, in confiding these matters to you and me, Master George Heriot--he has not misplaced his confidence."

Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two young n.o.blemen, who had now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, "He hath not, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lords.h.i.+p well and truly says--but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it behoves every man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon as he hath any that are worth attending to."

When he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with the scrivener, to look into various papers, and to direct in what manner writings should be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient security to those who were to advance the money, and at the same time preserve the right of the young n.o.bleman to redeem the family estate, provided he should obtain the means of doing so, by the expected reimburs.e.m.e.nt from the Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is needless to enter into those details. But it is not unimportant to mention, as an ill.u.s.tration of character, that Heriot went into the most minute legal details with a precision which showed that experience had made him master even of the intricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the Earl of Huntinglen, though far less acquainted with technical detail, suffered no step of the business to pa.s.s over, until he had attained a general but distinct idea of its import and its propriety.

They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevolent intentions towards the young Lord Glenvarloch, by the skill and eager zeal of the scrivener, whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of business, the most important which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and the particulars of which were moreover agitated in his presence between an actual earl, and one whose wealth and character might ent.i.tle him to be an alderman of his ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn.

While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earl even forgetting the calls of his appet.i.te, and the delay of dinner, in his anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions, and that all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him to engross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on the terrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which Lord Dalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most likely to interest his new friend.

These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and Lord Dalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel proposed an instant return to Scotland.

"You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings--it is needless to mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit-- against the highest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall. Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you-- ask each other, who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so far in a single day? They augur, in whispers to each other, how high and how far you may push your fortune--and all that you design to make of it, is, to return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin, though your relations.h.i.+p comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale, eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon a galloway, and be called my right honourable and maist worthy lord!"

"There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet I trust to do something for my va.s.sals as my ancestors before me, and to teach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personal sacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity the situation in which they are placed by Providence."

Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter during this speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty and so resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel along with him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to join in a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but almost impertinent.

He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a tone qualified to allay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth: "This is all well, my lord; but how am I to understand your merriment?" Lord Dalgarno only answered him with redoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord Glenvarloch's cloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground, in the extremity of his convulsion.

At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half angry, at becoming thus the subject of his new acquaintance's ridicule, and was only restrained from expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense of the obligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno recovered himself, and spoke in a half-broken voice, his eyes still running with tears: "I crave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch--ten thousand times do I crave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, accompanied by your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what would have made any court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon once from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame me. Why, my liefest and dearest lord, you, a young and handsome fellow, with high birth, a t.i.tle, and the name of an estate, so well received by the king at your first starting, as makes your further progress scarce matter of doubt, if you know how to improve it--for the king has already said you are a 'braw lad, and well studied in the more humane letters'--you, too, whom all the women, and the very marked beauties of the Court, desire to see, because you came from Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a hard-contested suit in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince, an eye of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on the table when the game is in your very hand, running back to the frozen north, and marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed, fair-skinned bony wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort of Lot's wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut yourself up in your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall never survive the idea!"

It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere strength of character and principle, to support itself against the force of ridicule. Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half ashamed of his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and flattered himself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a rigid moral patriot, in presence of a young man whose current fluency of language, as well as his experience in the highest circles of society, gave him, in spite of Nigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary ascendency over him. He sought, therefore, to compromise the matter, and avoid farther debate, by frankly owning, that, if to return to his own country were not his choice, it was at least a matter of necessity. "His affairs," he said, "were unsettled, his income precarious."

"And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose income is less than precarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?" said Lord Dalgarno; "all are either losing or winning. Those who have wealth, come hither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who, like you and I, dear Glenvarloch, have little or none, have every chance to be sharers in their spoils."

"I have no ambition of that sort," said Nigel, "and if I had, I must tell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so. I can scarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot blush to say so, to the friends.h.i.+p of yonder good man."

"I will not laugh again, if I can help it," said Lord Dalgarno. "But, Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for your habit --why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor, who should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the little word, 'lords.h.i.+p,' which you place before your name;--and then your goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have equipped you with such a purse of fair rose-n.o.bles as would have bought you thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."

"I do not understand these fas.h.i.+ons, my lord," said Nigel, his displeasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of my sovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without s.h.i.+fting or borrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires."

"Which my rank requires!" said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last words; "that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it. I fancy you would love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong waters, can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms, to show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard of plate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with the flavour of onions and genievre--pah!"

"The poor knaves!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "they have served your father, it may be, in the wars. What would become of them were he to turn them off?"

"Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, "or to the bridge- end, to sell switches. The king is a better man than my father, and you see those who have served in HIS wars do so every day; or, when their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows. Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged by the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name from the figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of Morton. Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.] where they cut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Scots on the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make amends, they will eat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if their bellies were puncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound-- hark, it is clearing its rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That is another clamorous relic of antiquity, that, were I master, should soon be at the bottom of the Thames. How the foul fiend can it interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father looks our way--we must not be late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble which would have made his Majesty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and, having been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should witness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills and lochs; but you shall see better cheer to-morrow. Where lodge you? I will call for you. I must be your guide through the peopled desert, to certain enchanted lands, which you will scarce discover without chart and pilot. Where lodge you?"

"I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good deal embarra.s.sed, "at any hour you please to name."

"O, you would be private," said the young lord; "nay, fear not me--I will be no intruder. But we have attained this huge larder of flesh, fowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it."

They had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the mansion, where the table was superabundantly loaded, and where the number of attendants, to a certain extent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young n.o.bleman. The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the party. The latter complimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had made at Court. "One would have thought ye had brought the apple of discord in your pouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of whilk Althea was delivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of gunpowder, for the king, and the prince, and the duke, have been by the lugs about ye, and so have many more, that kendna before this blessed day that there was such a man living on the face of the earth."

"Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo," said the earl; "they get cold while you talk." "Troth, and that needsna, my lord," said the knight; "your lords.h.i.+p's dinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are turning auld, like oursells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen and the ha'."

With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo remained satisfied, until the dishes were removed, when, fixing his eyes on the brave new doublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his economy, pretending to recognise it as the same which his father had worn in Edinburgh in the Spanish amba.s.sador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too much a man of the world to be moved by any thing from such a quarter, proceeded to crack some nuts with great deliberation, as he replied, that the doublet was in some sort his father's, as it was likely to cost him fifty pounds some day soon. Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in his own way to convey this agreeable intelligence to the earl, observing, that his son was a better maker of bargains than his lords.h.i.+p, for he had bought a doublet as rich as that his lords.h.i.+p wore when the Spanish amba.s.sador was at Holyrood, and it had cost him but fifty pounds Scots;--"that was no fool's bargain, my lord."

"Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo," answered the earl, calmly; "and a fool's bargain it is, in all the tenses. Dalgarno WAS a fool when he bought--I will be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir Mungo, craving your pardon, are a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking of what concerns you not."

So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of the table and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the hilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until their joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener had engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed.

George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legal doc.u.ments were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if they had laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the b.u.t.tery and received the respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such an ungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lords.h.i.+p's pleasure was performed.

"Thou shalt eat before thou goest," said Lord Huntinglen; "and I will have thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some colour into these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household, thou shouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fas.h.i.+on as thou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof is concerned."

Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. Lord Glenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and interchanged, and thus closed a transaction, of which the princ.i.p.al party concerned understood little, save that it was under the management of a zealous and faithful friend, who undertook that the money should be forthcoming, and the estate released from forfeiture, by payment of the stipulated sum for which it stood pledged, and that at the term of Lambmas, and at the hour of noon, and beside the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray, in the High Kirk of Saint Giles, at Edinburgh, being the day and place a.s.signed for such redemption. [Footnote: As each covenant in those days of accuracy had a special place nominated for execution, the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray in Saint Giles's Church was frequently a.s.signed for the purpose.]

When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have renewed his carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the deeds he had about him, and the business he had to transact betimes the next morning, not only refused to return to table, but carried with him to his barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been otherwise found more tractable.

When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on the river, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they had left--"There live," he said, "the old fas.h.i.+on and the new. The father is like a n.o.ble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect and inactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt, and fas.h.i.+oned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince if the metal be as good as the show. G.o.d grant it prove so, says an old friend to the family."

Nothing of consequence pa.s.sed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch, landing at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, and retired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a little elevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality of Lord Huntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of them to the buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at length was s.h.i.+ning upon what Richie called "the right side of the hedge."

CHAPTER XI.

You are not for the manner nor the times, They have their vices now most like to virtues; You cannot know them apait by any difference, They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat-- Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride in those coaches, Or very like four horses in a coach, As the best men and women. Ben Jonson On the following morning, while Nigel, his breakfast finished, was thinking how he should employ the day, there was a little bustle upon the stairs which attracted his attention, and presently entered Dame Nelly, blus.h.i.+ng like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out--"A young n.o.bleman, sir--no one less," she added, drawing her hand slightly over her lips, "would be so saucy--a young n.o.bleman, sir, to wait on you!"

And she was followed into the little cabin by Lord Dalgarno, gay, easy, disembarra.s.sed, and apparently as much pleased to rejoin his new acquaintance as if he had found him in the apartments of a palace. Nigel, on the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circ.u.mstances,) was discountenanced and mortified at being surprised by so splendid a gallant in a chamber which, at the moment the elegant and high-dressed cavalier appeared in it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower, narrower, darker, and meaner than it had ever shown before. He would have made some apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno cut him short-- "Not a word of it," he said, "not a single word--I know why you ride at anchor here--but I can keep counsel--so pretty a hostess would recommend worse quarters."

"On my word--on my honour," said Lord Glenvarloch-- "Nay, nay, make no words of the matter," said Lord Dalgarno; "I am no tell-tale, nor shall I cross your walk; there is game enough in the forest, thank Heaven, and I can strike a doe for myself."

All this he said in so significant a manner, and the explanation which he had adopted seemed to put Lord Glenvarloch's gallantry on so respectable a footing, that Nigel ceased to try to undeceive him; and less ashamed, perhaps, (for such is human weakness,) of supposed vice than of real poverty, changed the discourse to something else, and left poor Dame Nelly's reputation and his own at the mercy of the young courtier's misconstruction.

He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord Dalgarno had long since breakfasted, but had just come from playing a set of tennis, he said, and would willingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess's single beer. This was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, as the hostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord Dalgarno profited by the opportunity to take a second and more attentive view of her, and then gravely drank to her husband's health, with an almost imperceptible nod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much honoured, smoothed her ap.r.o.n down with her hands, and said "Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their lords.h.i.+ps--he was a kind painstaking man for his family, as was in the alley, or indeed, as far north as Paul's Chain."

She would have proceeded probably to state the difference betwixt their ages, as the only alloy to their nuptial happiness; but her lodger, who had no mind to be farther exposed to his gay friend's raillery, gave her, contrary to his wont, a signal to leave the room.

Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at Glenvarloch, shook his head, and repeated the well-known lines-- "'My lord, beware of jealousy-- It is the green-eyed monster which doth make The meat it feeds on.'

"But come," he said, changing his tone, "I know not why I should worry you thus--I who have so many follies of my own, when I should rather make excuse for being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came."

So saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for Lord Glenvarloch, in spite of his anxious haste to antic.i.p.ate this act of courtesy, he proceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity:-- "We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other. Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish neighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemies--must either walk hand-in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose the hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer."

"How were it possible, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch, "to refuse what is offered so frankly, even if your father had not been a second father to me?"--And, as he took Lord Dalgarno's hand, he added--"I have, I think, lost no time, since, during one day's attendance at Court, I have made a kind friend and a powerful enemy."

"The friend thanks you," replied Lord Dalgarno, "for your just opinion; but, my dear Glenvarloch--or rather, for t.i.tles are too formal between us of the better file--what is your Christian name?"

"Nigel," replied Lord Glenvarloch.

"Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other," said his visitor, "and my lord to the plebeian world around us. But I was about to ask you whom you suppose your enemy?"

"No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Duke of Buckingham."

"You dream! What could possess you with such an opinion?" said Dalgarno.

"He told me so himself," replied Glenvarloch; "and, in so doing, dealt frankly and honourably with me."

"O, you know him not yet," said his companion; "the duke is moulded of an hundred n.o.ble and fiery qualities, that prompt him, like a generous horse, to spring aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his forward course. But he means not what he says in such pa.s.sing heats--I can do more with him, I thank Heaven, than most who are around him; you shall go visit him with me, and you will see how you shall be received."

"I told you, my lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence, declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the slightest advance towards him."

"You would act becomingly in every other case," said Lord Dalgarno, "but here you are wrong. In the Court horizon Buckingham is Lord of the Ascendant, and as he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises the fortune of a suitor. The king would bid you remember your Phaedrus, 'Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas--'

and so forth. You are the vase of earth; beware of knocking yourself against the vase of iron."

"The vase of earth," said Glenvarloch, "will avoid the encounter, by getting ash.o.r.e out of the current--I mean to go no more to Court."

"O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find your Scottish suit move ill without it, for there is both patronage and favour necessary to enforce the sign-manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak more hereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, whether you did not wonder to see me here so early?"

"I am surprised that you could find me out in this obscure corner," said Lord Glenvarloch.

"My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discovery," replied Lord Dalgarno; "I have but to say, 'Goblin, I would know where he or she dwells,' and he guides me thither as if by art magic."

"I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord," said Nigel; "I will send my servant to seek him."

"Do not concern yourself--he is by this time," said Lord Dalgarno, "playing at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing with the most blackguard imps upon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs."

"Are you not afraid," said Lord Glenvarloch, "that in such company his morals may become depraved?"

"Let his company look to their own," answered Lord Dalgarno, cooly; "for it will be a company of real fiends in which Lutin cannot teach more mischief than he can learn: he is, I thank the G.o.ds, most thoroughly versed in evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of looking after his moralities, for nothing can make them either better or worse."

"I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord," said Nigel.

"I wonder where I should find his parents," replied his companion, "to render an account to them."

"He may be an orphan," said Lord Nigel; "but surely, being a page in your lords.h.i.+p's family, his parents must be of rank."

"Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them to," replied Lord Dalgarno, with the same indifference; "they were both hanged, I believe--at least the gipsies, from whom I bought him five years ago, intimated as much to me.--You are surprised at this, now. But is it not better that, instead of a lazy, conceited, whey-faced slip of gentility, to whom, in your old-world idea of the matter, I was bound to stand Sir Pedagogue, and see that he washed his hands and face, said his prayers, learned his acddens, spoke no naughty words, brushed his hat, and wore his best doublet only on Sunday,--that, instead of such a Jacky Goodchild, I should have something like this?"

He whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of darted into the room, almost with the effect of an actual apparition. From his height he seemed but fifteen, but, from his face, might be two or even three years older, very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin bronzed visage, which marked his gipsy descent, and a pair of sparkling black eyes, which seemed almost to pierce through those whom he looked at.

"There he is," said Lord Dalgarno, "fit for every element--prompt to execute every command, good, bad, or indifferent--unmatched in his tribe, as rogue, thief, and liar."

"All which qualities," said the undaunted page, "have each in turn stood your lords.h.i.+p in stead."

"Out, you imp of Satan!" said his master; "vanish-begone-or my conjuring rod goes about your ears." The boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly as he had entered. "You see," said Lord Dalgarno, "that, in choosing my household, the best regard I can pay to gentle blood is to exclude it from my service--that very gallows--bird were enough to corrupt a whole antechamber of pages, though they were descended from kings and kaisers."

"I can scarce think that a n.o.bleman should need the offices of such an attendant as your goblin," said Nigel; "you are but jesting with my inexperience."

"Time will show whether I jest or not, my dear Nigel," replied Dalgarno; "in the meantime, I have to propose to you to take the advantage of the flood-tide, to run up the river for pastime; and at noon I trust you will dine with me."

Nigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much amus.e.m.e.nt; and his new friend and he, attended by Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly resembled, when thus a.s.sociated, the conjunction of a bear and a monkey, took possession of Lord Dalgarno's wherry, which, with its badged watermen, bearing his lords.h.i.+p's crest on their arms, lay in readiness to receive them. The air was delightful upon the river; and the lively conversation of Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures of the little voyage. He could not only give an account of the various public buildings and n.o.blemen's houses which they pa.s.sed in ascending the Thames, but knew how to season his information with abundance of anecdote, political innuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very much wit, he was at least completely master of the fas.h.i.+onable tone, which in that time, as in ours, more than amply supplies any deficiency of the kind.

It was a style of conversation entirely new to his companion, as was the world which Lord Dalgarno opened to his observation; and it is no wonder that Nigel, notwithstanding his natural good sense and high spirit, admitted, more readily than seemed consistent with either, the tone of authoritative instruction which his new friend a.s.sumed towards him. There would, indeed, have been some difficulty in making a stand. To attempt a high and stubborn tone of morality, in answer to the light strain of Lord Dalgarno's conversation, which kept on the frontiers between jest and earnest, would have seemed pedantic and ridiculous; and every attempt which Nigel made to combat his companion's propositions, by reasoning as jocose as his own, only showed his inferiority in that gay species of controversy. And it must be owned, besides, though internally disapproving much of what he heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young as he was in society, became less alarmed by the language and manners of his new a.s.sociate, than in prudence he ought to have been.

Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, by insisting upon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or principles; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously, that it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in his propositions, or how far they flowed from a wild and extravagant spirit of raillery. And, ever and anon, those flashes of spirit and honour crossed his conversation, which seemed to intimate, that, when stirred to action by some adequate motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove something very different from the court-haunting and ease-loving voluptuary, which he was pleased to represent as his chosen character.

As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch remarked, that the boat pa.s.sed the mansion of Lord Huntinglen, and noticed the circ.u.mstance to Lord Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to have dined there. "Surely no," said the young n.o.bleman, "I have more mercy on you than to gorge you a second time with raw beef and canary wine. I propose something better for you, I promise you, than such a second Scythian festivity. And as for my father, he proposes to dine to-day with my grave, ancient Earl of Northampton, whilome that celebrated putter-down of pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard."

"And do you not go with him?" said his companion.

"To what purpose?" said Lord Dalgarno. "To hear his wise lords.h.i.+p speak musty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses, that he may give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of correcting his slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!"

"Nay," said Lord Nigel, "but out of respect, to wait on my lord your father."

"My lord my father," replied Lord Dalgarno, "has blue-bottles enough to wait on him, and can well dispense with such a b.u.t.terfly as myself. He can lift the cup of sack to his head without my a.s.sistance; and, should the said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men enough to guide his right honourable lords.h.i.+p to his lords.h.i.+p's right honourable couch.--Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words were to sink the boat with us. I love my father--I love him dearly--and I respect him, too, though I respect not many things; a trustier old Trojan never belted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what then? He belongs to the old world, I to the new. He has his follies, I have mine; and the less either of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the greater will be the honour and respect--that, I think, is the proper phrase--I say the respect in which we shall hold each other. Being apart, each of us is himself, such as nature and circ.u.mstances have made him; but, couple us up too closely together, you will be sure to have in your leash either an old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps both the one and t'other."

As he spoke thus, the boat put into the landing-place at Blackfriars. Lord Dalgarno sprung ash.o.r.e, and, flinging his cloak and rapier to his page, recommended to his companion to do the like. "We are coming among a press of gallants," he said; "and, if we walked thus m.u.f.fled, we shall look like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps him close in his cloak, to conceal the defects of his doublet."

"I have known many an honest man do that, if it please your lords.h.i.+p," said Richie Moniplies, who had been watching for an opportunity to intrude himself on the conversation, and probably remembered what had been his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a very recent period.