The Fortunes of Nigel

Chapter 10

When they were fairly embarked on the Thames, the earl took from his

pocket the Supplication, and, pointing out to George Heriot the royal

warrant indorsed thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular

form? The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand

as if to congratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then checked himself,

pulled out his barnacles, (a present from old David Ramsay,) and again

perused the warrant with the most business-like and critical

attention. "It is strictly correct and formal," he said, looking to

the Earl of Huntinglen; "and I sincerely rejoice at it."

"I doubt nothing of its formality," said the earl; "the king

understands business well, and, if he does not practise it often, it

is only because indolence obscures parts which are naturally well

qualified for the discharge of affairs. But what is next to be done

for our young friend, Master Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced.

Scottish lords living at the English Court have seldom command of

money; yet, unless a sum can be presently raised on this warrant,

matters standing as you hastily hinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or

whatever it is called, will be foreclosed."

"It is true," said Heriot, in some embarrassment; "there is a large

sum wanted in redemption--yet, if it is not raised, there will be an

expiry of the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be

evicted."

"My noble--my worthy friends, who have taken up my cause so

undeservedly, so unexpectedly," said Nigel, "do not let me be a burden

on your kindness. You have already done too much where nothing was

merited."

"Peace, man, peace," said Lord Huntinglen, "and let old Heriot and I

puzzle this scent out. He is about to open--hark to him!"

"My lord," said the citizen, "the Duke of Buckingham sneers at our

city money-bags; yet they can sometimes open, to prop a falling and a

noble house."

"We know they can," said Lord Huntinglen--"mind not Buckingham, he is

a Peg-a-Ramsay--and now for the remedy."

"I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already," said Heriot, "that the

redemption money might be advanced upon such a warrant as the present,

and I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure

the lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom he

advances payment."

"Come in his shoes!" replied the earl; "why, what have boots or shoes

to do with this matter, my good friend?"

"It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few

of them," said Heriot.

"Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George," replied

Lord Huntinglen; "but what means it?"

"Simply this," resumed the citizen; "that the lender of this money

will transact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the

estate of Glenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his

right as shall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the

warrant upon the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. I fear,

in this uncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter

security, it will be very difficult to find so large a sum."

"Ho la!" said the Earl of Huntinglen, "halt there! a thought strikes

me.--What if the new creditor should admire the estate as a hunting-

field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and should

wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to me, that

on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as well entitled

to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the present holder

of the mortgage."

The citizen laughed. "I will engage," he said, "that the keenest

sportsman to whom I may apply on this occasion, shall not have a

thought beyond the Lord Mayor's Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But

your lordship's caution is reasonable. The creditor must be bound to

allow Lord Glenvarloch sufficient time to redeem his estate by means

of the royal warrant, and must wave in his favour the right of instant

foreclosure, which may be, I should think, the more easily managed, as

the right of redemption must be exercised in his own name."

"But where shall we find a person in London fit to draw the necessary

writings?" said the earl. "If my old friend Sir John Skene of Halyards

had lived, we should have had his advice; but time presses, and--"

"I know," said Heriot, "an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dwells by

Temple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the English and Scottish

fashion, and I have trusted him often in matters of weight and of

importance. I will send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutual

deeds may be executed in your lordship's presence; for, as things

stand, there should be no delay." His lordship readily assented; and,

as they now landed upon the private stairs leading down to the river

from the gardens of the handsome hotel which he inhabited, the

messenger was dispatched without loss of time.

Nigel, who had sat almost stupefied while these zealous friends

volunteered for him in arranging the measures by which his fortune was

to be disembarrassed, now made another eager attempt to force upon

them his broken expressions of thanks and gratitude. But he was again

silenced by Lord Huntinglen, who declared he would not hear a word on

that topic, and proposed instead, that they should take a turn in the

pleached alley, or sit upon the stone bench which overlooked the

Thames, until his son's arrival should give the signal for dinner.

"I desire to introduce Dalgarno and Lord Glenvarloch to each other,"

he said, "as two who will be near neighbours, and I trust will be more

kind ones than their fathers were formerly. There is but three Scots

miles betwixt the castles, and the turrets of the one are visible from

the battlements of the other."

The old earl was silent for a moment, and appeared to muse upon the

recollections which the vicinity of the castles had summoned up.

"Does Lord Dalgarno follow the Court to Newmarket next week?" said

Heriot, by way of removing the conversation.

"He proposes so, I think," answered Lord Huntinglen, relapsed into his

reverie for a minute or two, and then addressed Nigel somewhat

abruptly--

"My young friend, when you attain possession of your inheritance, as I

hope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers

of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your

ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the

poor against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do,

with fewer lights and with less means than we have."

"And yet the advice to keep the country," said Heriot, "comes from an

ancient and constant ornament of the Court."

"From an old courtier, indeed," said the earl, "and the first of my

family that could so write himself--my grey beard falls on a cambric

ruff and a silken doublet--my father's descended upon a buff coat and

a breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I

should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring

once more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone-

arched hall return the hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the

bicker and the quaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I should like

to see the broad Tay once more before I die--not even the Thames can

match it, in my mind."

"Surely, my lord," said the citizen, "all this might be easily done--

it costs but a moment's resolution, and the journey of some brief

days, and you will be where you desire to be--what is there to prevent

you?"

"Habits, Master George, habits," replied the earl, "which to young men

are like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken;

but which hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into

gyves of iron. To go to Scotland for a brief space were but labour in

vain; and when I think of abiding there, I cannot bring myself to

leave my old master, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful, and

whose weal and woe I have shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall

be a Scottish noble."

"Has he visited the North?" said Heriot.

"He was there last year and made such a report of the country, that

the prince has expressed a longing to see it." "Lord Dalgarno is in

high grace with his Highness and the Duke of Buckingham?" observed the

goldsmith.

"He is so," answered the earl,--"I pray it may be for the advantage of

them all. The prince is just and equitable in his sentiments, though

cold and stately in his manners, and very obstinate in his most

trifling purposes; and the duke, noble and gallant, and generous and

open, is fiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno has none of these

faults, and such as he may have of his own, may perchance be corrected

by the society in which he moves.--See, here he comes."

Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley

to the bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that

Nigel had full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was

dressed point-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion

of the time, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-

twenty, with a noble form and fine countenance, in which last could

easily be traced the manly features of his father, but softened by a

more habitual air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had

ever condescended to assume towards the world in general. In other

respects, his address was gallant, free, and unencumbered either by

pride or ceremony--far remote certainly from the charge either of

haughty coldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father had

justly freed him from the marked faults which he ascribed to the

manners of the prince and his favourite Buckingham.

While the old earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch

to his son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel

marked the countenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could

detect aught of that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his

broken expostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clashing

of interests betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But

nothing of this was visible; on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received

his new acquaintance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes

conquest at once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous young

man.

It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equally

ready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months,

and while a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been

restrained by circumstances from the conversation of his equals. When,

on his father's sudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland,

he had found himself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with

the details of the law, all of which threatened to end in the

alienation of the patrimony which should support his hereditary rank.

His term of sincere mourning, joined to injured pride, and the

swelling of the heart under unexpected and undeserved misfortune,

together with the uncertainty attending the issue of his affairs, had

induced the young Lord of Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a

very private and reserved manner. How he had passed his time in

London, the reader is acquainted with. But this melancholy and

secluded course of life was neither agreeable to his age nor to his

temper, which was genial and sociable. He hailed, therefore, with

sincere pleasure, the approaches which a young man of his own age and

rank made towards him; and when he had exchanged with Lord Dalgarno

some of those words and signals by which, as surely as by those of

freemasonry, young people recognise a mutual wish to be agreeable to

each other, it seemed as if the two noblemen had been acquainted for

some time.

Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of Lord

Huntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards a man

dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed,

considering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety,

he kept his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that

he came in sight of the company to which he was about to be presented.

"Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old lord, who had retained

the keen appetite and impatience of a Scottish baron even during a

long alienation from his native country; "and why does John Cook, with

a murrain to him, keep back dinner?"

"I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion,"

said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.--

Look up, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead

of beating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram."

The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action of an automaton

which suddenly obeys the impulse of a pressed spring. But, strange to

tell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron's mandate, a

business, as Master Heriot's message expressed, of weight and

importance--nay not even the state of depression in which, out of

sheer humility, doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from

the moment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had

called any colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow

from haste and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured

as before; nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised

his head, hung down on either cheek as straight and sleek and

undisturbed as it was when we first introduced him to our readers,

seated at his quiet and humble desk.

Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous and

puritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to

the company, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch's

ear--

"The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,

Where got'st thou that goose-look?"

Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage to understand a

quotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London.

Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, "That

fellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most

hypocritical rogue--and such is my excellent opinion of human nature,

that I always suspect the worst. But they seem deep in business. Will

you take a turn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a

member of the serious conclave?"

"With you, my lord, most willingly," said Nigel; and they were turning

away accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belonging to

his station, observed, that, "as their business concerned Lord

Glenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, and

witness to it."

"My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, my best friend,

Master Heriot," said the young nobleman, "I shall understand nothing

the better for cumbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and

can only say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare

not take the helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already

guided my course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven.

Whatever you recommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and

the import of the deeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation

from Master Heriot, if he will bestow so much trouble in my behalf,

than by a thousand learned words and law terms from this person of

skill."

"He is right," said Lord Huntinglen; "our young friend is right, in

confiding these matters to you and me, Master George Heriot--he has

not misplaced his confidence."

Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two young noblemen,

who had now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, "He

hath not, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and

truly says--but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it

behoves every man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon

as he hath any that are worth attending to."

When he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with the

scrivener, to look into various papers, and to direct in what manner

writings should be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient

security to those who were to advance the money, and at the same time

preserve the right of the young nobleman to redeem the family estate,

provided he should obtain the means of doing so, by the expected

reimbursement from the Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is

needless to enter into those details. But it is not unimportant to

mention, as an illustration of character, that Heriot went into the

most minute legal details with a precision which showed that

experience had made him master even of the intricacies of Scottish

conveyancing; and that the Earl of Huntinglen, though far less

acquainted with technical detail, suffered no step of the business to

pass over, until he had attained a general but distinct idea of its

import and its propriety.

They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevolent intentions

towards the young Lord Glenvarloch, by the skill and eager zeal of the

scrivener, whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of business, the

most important which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and the

particulars of which were moreover agitated in his presence between an

actual earl, and one whose wealth and character might entitle him to

be an alderman of his ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn.

While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earl

even forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, in

his anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions,

and that all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him

to engross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on

the terrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which

Lord Dalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most

likely to interest his new friend.

These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and

Lord Dalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel

proposed an instant return to Scotland.

"You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings--it is

needless to mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit--

against the highest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon

at Whitehall. Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you--

ask each other, who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so

far in a single day? They augur, in whispers to each other, how high

and how far you may push your fortune--and all that you design to make

of it, is, to return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a

peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who

chooses to dub you cousin, though your relationship comes by Noah;

drink Scots twopenny ale, eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you

can kill it, ride upon a galloway, and be called my right honourable

and maist worthy lord!"

"There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said

Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should

succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And

yet I trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me,

and to teach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some

personal sacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with

dignity the situation in which they are placed by Providence."

Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter during

this speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty and so

resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel

along with him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to join

in a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but

almost impertinent.

He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a tone qualified to

allay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth: "This is all well, my lord; but

how am I to understand your merriment?" Lord Dalgarno only answered

him with redoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord

Glenvarloch's cloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground,

in the extremity of his convulsion.

At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half angry, at becoming

thus the subject of his new acquaintance's ridicule, and was only

restrained from expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense

of the obligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno recovered

himself, and spoke in a half-broken voice, his eyes still running with

tears: "I crave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch--ten thousand

times do I crave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity,

accompanied by your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what

would have made any court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as

bayed the moon once from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame

me. Why, my liefest and dearest lord, you, a young and handsome

fellow, with high birth, a title, and the name of an estate, so well

received by the king at your first starting, as makes your further

progress scarce matter of doubt, if you know how to improve it--for

the king has already said you are a 'braw lad, and well studied in the

more humane letters'--you, too, whom all the women, and the very

marked beauties of the Court, desire to see, because you came from

Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a hard-contested suit

in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince, an eye of fire,

and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on the table when

the game is in your very hand, running back to the frozen north, and

marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed, fair-skinned bony

wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort of Lot's wife,

newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut yourself up in

your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall never survive the

idea!"

It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere

strength of character and principle, to support itself against the

force of ridicule. Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half

ashamed of his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and

flattered himself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a rigid

moral patriot, in presence of a young man whose current fluency of

language, as well as his experience in the highest circles of society,

gave him, in spite of Nigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary

ascendency over him. He sought, therefore, to compromise the matter,

and avoid farther debate, by frankly owning, that, if to return to his

own country were not his choice, it was at least a matter of

necessity. "His affairs," he said, "were unsettled, his income

precarious."

"And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose income is less

than precarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?" said

Lord Dalgarno; "all are either losing or winning. Those who have

wealth, come hither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who,

like you and I, dear Glenvarloch, have little or none, have every

chance to be sharers in their spoils."

"I have no ambition of that sort," said Nigel, "and if I had, I must

tell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so. I can

scarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot

blush to say so, to the friendship of yonder good man."

"I will not laugh again, if I can help it," said Lord Dalgarno. "But,

Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for your habit

--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor, who

should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the

little word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and then

your goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have

equipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have

bought you thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."

"I do not understand these fashions, my lord," said Nigel, his

displeasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of my

sovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting or

borrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires."

"Which my rank requires!" said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last

words; "that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it. I fancy

you would love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of

old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and

broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong

waters, can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms,

to show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard

of plate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with

the flavour of onions and genievre--pah!"

"The poor knaves!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "they have served your

father, it may be, in the wars. What would become of them were he to

turn them off?"

"Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, "or to the bridge-

end, to sell switches. The king is a better man than my father, and

you see those who have served in HIS wars do so every day; or, when

their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows.

Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared

not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more

service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a

lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old

memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged

by the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name

from the figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of

Morton. Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.]

where they cut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve

pennies Scots on the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make

amends, they will eat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if

their bellies were puncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound--

hark, it is clearing its rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That

is another clamorous relic of antiquity, that, were I master, should

soon be at the bottom of the Thames. How the foul fiend can it

interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to know that the

Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father looks our

way--we must not be late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace,

if you will forgive a quibble which would have made his Majesty laugh.

You will find us all of a piece, and, having been accustomed to eat in

saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should witness our larded capons, our

mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills

and lochs; but you shall see better cheer to-morrow. Where lodge you?

I will call for you. I must be your guide through the peopled desert,

to certain enchanted lands, which you will scarce discover without

chart and pilot. Where lodge you?"

"I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good deal embarrassed, "at

any hour you please to name."

"O, you would be private," said the young lord; "nay, fear not me--I

will be no intruder. But we have attained this huge larder of flesh,

fowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it."

They had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the mansion, where

the table was superabundantly loaded, and where the number of

attendants, to a certain extent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young

nobleman. The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the party.

The latter complimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had

made at Court. "One would have thought ye had brought the apple of

discord in your pouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of

whilk Althea was delivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of

gunpowder, for the king, and the prince, and the duke, have been by

the lugs about ye, and so have many more, that kendna before this

blessed day that there was such a man living on the face of the

earth."

"Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo," said the earl; "they get cold while

you talk." "Troth, and that needsna, my lord," said the knight; "your

lordship's dinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are

turning auld, like oursells, my lord, and it is far between the

kitchen and the ha'."

With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo remained

satisfied, until the dishes were removed, when, fixing his eyes on the

brave new doublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his

economy, pretending to recognise it as the same which his father had

worn in Edinburgh in the Spanish ambassador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too

much a man of the world to be moved by any thing from such a quarter,

proceeded to crack some nuts with great deliberation, as he replied,

that the doublet was in some sort his father's, as it was likely to

cost him fifty pounds some day soon. Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in

his own way to convey this agreeable intelligence to the earl,

observing, that his son was a better maker of bargains than his

lordship, for he had bought a doublet as rich as that his lordship

wore when the Spanish ambassador was at Holyrood, and it had cost him

but fifty pounds Scots;--"that was no fool's bargain, my lord."

"Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo," answered the earl,

calmly; "and a fool's bargain it is, in all the tenses. Dalgarno WAS a

fool when he bought--I _will_ be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir

Mungo, craving your pardon, _are_ a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking

of what concerns you not."

So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of the

table and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the

hilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until

their joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener

had engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed.

George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legal

documents were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if

they had laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and

received the respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such

an ungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lordship's pleasure

was performed.

"Thou shalt eat before thou goest," said Lord Huntinglen; "and I will

have thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some

colour into these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household,

thou shouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion

as thou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof

is concerned."

Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. Lord

Glenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and

interchanged, and thus closed a transaction, of which the principal

party concerned understood little, save that it was under the

management of a zealous and faithful friend, who undertook that the

money should be forthcoming, and the estate released from forfeiture,

by p*****t of the stipulated sum for which it stood pledged, and that

at the term of Lambmas, and at the hour of noon, and beside the tomb

of the Regent Earl of Murray, in the High Kirk of Saint Giles, at

Edinburgh, being the day and place assigned for such redemption.

[Footnote: As each covenant in those days of accuracy had a special

place nominated for execution, the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray

in Saint Giles's Church was frequently assigned for the purpose.]

When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have

renewed his carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the

deeds he had about him, and the business he had to transact betimes

the next morning, not only refused to return to table, but carried

with him to his barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been

otherwise found more tractable.

When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on the

river, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they had

left--"There live," he said, "the old fashion and the new. The father

is like a noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect and

inactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt,

and fashioned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince if

the metal be as good as the show. God grant it prove so, says an old

friend to the family."

Nothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch,

landing at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, and

retired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a

little elevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality

of Lord Huntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of

them to the buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at

length was shining upon what Richie called "the right side of the

hedge."