The Fortunes of Nigel

Chapter 1

The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the

south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been

happily terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the

English Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland

was worn by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and

the succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate

national prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister

kingdoms were removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed

brought to regard those upon the opposite bank as friends and as

brethren.

These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of

King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of

his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged

him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with

neglecting those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much

indebted.

The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him

perpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions,

whose brawls disturbed the Court. But, notwithstanding all his

precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual

hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years,

had been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which

menaced a general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the

lowest classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament,

factions in the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less

productive of riots and brawls amongst the lower orders.

While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in

the city of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned

mechanic, much devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who,

whether recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the

courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his

birthplace, in the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in

James's household the post of maker of watches and horologes to his

Majesty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar,

a few yards to the eastward of Saint Dunstan's Church.

The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed,

was something very different from those we now see in the same

locality. The goods were exposed to sale in cases, only defended from

the weather by a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the

stalls and booths now erected for the temporary accommodation of

dealers at a country fair, rather than the established emporium of a

respectable citizen. But most of the shopkeepers of note, and David

Ramsay amongst others, had their booth connected with a small

apartment which opened backward from it, and bore the same resemblance

to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's cavern did to the tent which

he erected before it.

To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of

his abstruse calculations; for he aimed at improvements and

discoveries in his own art, and sometimes pushed his researches, like

Napier, and other mathematicians of the period, into abstract science.

When thus engaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial

establishment to be maintained by two stout-bodied and strong-voiced

apprentices, who kept up the cry of, "What d'ye lack? what d'ye lack?"

accompanied with the appropriate recommendations of the articles in

which they dealt.

This direct and personal application for custom to those who chanced

to pass by, is now, we believe, limited to Monmouth Street, (if it

still exists even in that repository of ancient garments,) under the

guardianship of the scattered remnant of Israel. But at the time we

are speaking of, it was practised alike by Jew and Gentile, and

served, instead of all our present newspaper puffs and advertisements,

to solicit the attention of the public in general, and of friends in

particular, to the unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they

offered to sale upon such easy terms, that it might fairly appear that

the venders had rather a view to the general service of the public,

than to their own particular advantage.

The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had

this advantage over those who, in the present day, use the public

papers for the same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their

address to the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the

passengers. [This, as we have said, was also the case in Monmouth

Street in our remembrance. We have ourselves been reminded of the

deficiencies of our femoral habiliments, and exhorted upon that score

to fit ourselves more beseemingly; but this is a digression.] This

direct and personal mode of invitation to customers became, however, a

dangerous temptation to the young wags who were employed in the task

of solicitation during the absence of the principal person interested

in the traffic; and, confiding in their numbers and civic union, the

'prentices of London were often seduced into taking liberties with the

passengers, and exercising their wit at the expense of those whom they

had no hopes of converting into customers by their eloquence. If this

were resented by any act of violence, the inmates of each shop were

ready to pour forth in succour; and in the words of an old song which

Dr. Johnson was used to hum,--

"Up then rose the 'prentices all,

Living in London, both proper and tall."

Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the

Templars, or other youths connected with the aristocracy, were

insulted, or conceived themselves to be so. Upon such occasions, bare

steel was frequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death

sometimes ensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of

the time had no other resource than by the Alderman of the ward

calling out the householders, and putting a stop to the strife by

overpowering numbers, as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon

the stage.

At the period when such was the universal custom of the most

respectable, as well as the most inconsiderable, shopkeepers in

London, David Ramsay, on the evening to which we solicit the attention

of the reader, retiring to more abstruse and private labours, left the

administration of his outer shop, or booth, to the aforesaid sharp-

witted, active, able-bodied, and well-voiced apprentices, namely,

Jenkin Vincent and Frank Tunstall.

Vincent had been educated at the excellent foundation of Christ's

Church Hospital, and was bred, therefore, as well as born, a Londoner,

with all the acuteness, address, and audacity which belong peculiarly

to the youth of a metropolis. He was now about twenty years old, short

in stature, but remarkably strong made, eminent for his feats upon

holidays at foot-ball, and other gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled

in the broad-sword play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of

single-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and sequestered court

of the ward, better than his catechism; was alike active in his

master's affairs, and in his own adventures of fun and mischief; and

so managed matters, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him

out, or at least served for his apology, when the latter propensity

led him into scrapes, of which, however, it is but fair to state, that

they had hitherto inferred nothing mean or discreditable. Some

aberrations there were, which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to

reduce to regular order when he discovered them, and others which he

winked at--supposing them to answer the purpose of the escapement of a

watch, which disposes of a certain quantity of the extra power of that

mechanical impulse which puts the whole in motion.

The physiognomy of Jin Vin--by which abbreviation he was familiarly

known through the ward--corresponded with the sketch we have given of

his character. His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was

generally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered

with thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely,

and would have grown to great length, but for the modest custom

enjoined by his state in life and strictly enforced by his master,

which compelled him to keep it short-cropped,--not unreluctantly, as

he looked with envy on the flowing ringlets, in which the courtiers,

and aristocratic students of the neighbouring Temple, began to indulge

themselves, as marks of superiority and of gentility.

Vincent's eyes were deep set in his head, of a strong vivid black,

full of fire, roguery, and intelligence, and conveying a humorous

expression, even while he was uttering the usual small-talk of his

trade, as if he ridiculed those who were disposed to give any weight

to his commonplaces. He had address enough, however, to add little

touches of his own, which gave a turn of drollery even to this

ordinary routine of the booth; and the alacrity of his manner--his

ready and obvious wish to oblige--his intelligence and civility, when

he thought civility necessary, made him a universal favourite with his

master's customers.

His features were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, his

mouth tending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be

more dark than was then thought consistent with masculine beauty. But,

in despite of his having always breathed the air of a crowded city,

his complexion had the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health;

his turned-up nose gave an air of spirit and raillery to what he said,

and seconded the laugh of his eyes; and his wide mouth was garnished

with a pair of well-formed and well-coloured lips, which, when he

laughed, disclosed a range of teeth strong and well set, and as white

as the very pearl. Such was the elder apprentice of David Ramsay,

Memory's Monitor, watchmaker, and constructor of horologes, to his

Most Sacred Majesty James I.

Jenkin's companion was the younger apprentice, though, perhaps, he

might be the elder of the two in years. At any rate, he was of a much

more staid and composed temper. Francis Tunstall was of that ancient

and proud descent who claimed the style of the "unstained;" because,

amid the various chances of the long and bloody wars of the Roses,

they had, with undeviating faith, followed the House of Lancaster, to

which they had originally attached themselves. The meanest sprig of

such a tree attached importance to the root from which it derived

itself; and Tunstall was supposed to nourish in secret a proportion of

that family pride, which had exhorted tears from his widowed and

almost indigent mother, when she saw herself obliged to consign him to

a line of life inferior, as her prejudices suggested, to the course

held by his progenitors. Yet, with all this aristocratic prejudice,

his master found the well-born youth more docile, regular, and

strictly attentive to his duty, than his far more active and alert

comrade. Tunstall also gratified his master by the particular

attention which he seemed disposed to bestow on the abstract

principles of science connected with the trade which he was bound to

study, the limits of which were daily enlarged with the increase of

mathematical science.

Vincent beat his companion beyond the distance-post, in every thing

like the practical adaptation of thorough practice, in the dexterity

of hand necessary to execute the mechanical branches of the art, and

doubled-distanced him in all respecting the commercial affairs of the

shop. Still David Ramsay was wont to say, that if Vincent knew how to

do a thing the better of the two, Tunstall was much better acquainted

with the principles on which it ought to be done; and he sometimes

objected to the latter, that he knew critical excellence too well ever

to be satisfied with practical mediocrity.

The disposition of Tunstall was shy, as well as studious; and, though

perfectly civil and obliging, he never seemed to feel himself in his

place while he went through the duties of the shop. He was tall and

handsome, with fair hair, and well-formed limbs, good features, well-

opened light-blue eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and a countenance

which expressed both good-humour and intelligence, but qualified by a

gravity unsuitable to his years, and which almost amounted to

dejection. He lived on the best of terms with his companion, and

readily stood by him whenever he was engaged in any of the frequent

skirmishes, which, as we have already observed, often disturbed the

city of London about this period. But though Tunstall was allowed to

understand quarter-staff (the weapon of the North country) in a

superior degree, and though he was naturally both strong and active,

his interference in such affrays seemed always matter of necessity;

and, as he never voluntarily joined either their brawls or their

sports, he held a far lower place in the opinion of the youth of the

ward than his hearty and active friend Jin Vin. Nay, had it not been

for the interest made for his comrade, by the intercession of Vincent,

Tunstall would have stood some chance of being altogether excluded

from the society of his contemporaries of the same condition, who

called him, in scorn, the Cavaliero Cuddy, and the Gentle Tunstall.

On the other hand, the lad himself, deprived of the fresh air in which

he had been brought up, and foregoing the exercise to which he had

formerly been accustomed, while the inhabitant of his native mansion,

lost gradually the freshness of his complexion, and, without showing

any formal symptoms of disease, grew more thin and pale as he grew

older, and at length exhibited the appearance of indifferent health,

without any thing of the habits and complaints of an invalid,

excepting a disposition to avoid society, and to spend his leisure

time in private study, rather than mingle in the sports of his

companions, or even resort to the theatres, then the general

rendezvous of his class; where, according to high authority, they

fought for half-bitten apples, cracked nuts, and filled the upper

gallery with their clamours.

Such were the two youths who called David Ramsay master; and with both

of whom he used to fret from morning till night, as their

peculiarities interfered with his own, or with the quiet and

beneficial course of his traffic.

Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached to their master, and

he, a good-natured, though an absent and whimsical man, was scarce

less so to them; and when a little warmed with wine at an occasional

junketing, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his "twa

bonnie lads, and the looks that the court ladies threw at them, when

visiting his shop in their caroches, when on a frolic into the city."

But David Ramsay never failed, at the same time, to draw up his own

tall, thin, lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming

grin, and indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of

his little grey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street

worth looking at than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour,

Widow Simmons, the sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very

tip-top revellers of the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands,

distinguished more deeply the sort of attention paid by the females of

quality, who so regularly visited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates.

"The boy Frank," she admitted, "used to attract the attention of the

young ladies, as having something gentle and downcast in his looks;

but then he could not better himself, for the poor youth had not a

word to throw at a dog. Now Jin Vin was so full of his jibes and

jeers, and so willing, and so ready, and so serviceable, and so

mannerly all the while, with a step that sprung like a buck's in

Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as black as a gipsy's, that

no woman who knew the world would make a comparison betwixt the lads.

As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the man," she said, "was a civil

neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless, and might be a rich man if he

had common sense to back his learning; and doubtless, for a Scot,

neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but he was so constantly

grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings, and smeared with lamp-

black and oil, that Dame Simmons judged it would require his whole

shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to touch the said

neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a pair of tongs."

A still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Benjamin Suddlechop,

the barber, was of exactly the same opinion.

Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, the two youths,

who, in a fine April day, having first rendered their dutiful service

and attendance on the table of their master and his daughter, at their

dinner at one o'clock,--Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe

discipline undergone by your predecessors!--and having regaled

themselves upon the fragments, in company with two female domestics,

one a cook, and maid of all work, the other called Mistress Margaret's

maid, now relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; and

agreeably to the established custom, were soliciting, by their

entreaties and recommendations of their master's manufacture, the

attention and encouragement of the passengers.

In this species of service it may be easily supposed that Jenkin

Vincent left his more reserved and bashful comrade far in the

background. The latter could only articulate with difficulty, and as

an act of duty which he was rather ashamed of discharging, the

established words of form--"What d'ye lack?--What d'ye lack?--Clocks--

watches--barnacles?--What d'ye lack?--Watches--clocks--barnacles?--

What d'ye lack, sir? What d'ye lack, madam?--Barnacles--watches--

clocks?"

But this dull and dry iteration, however varied by diversity of verbal

arrangement, sounded flat when mingled with the rich and

recommendatory oratory of the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-

witted Jenkin Vincent.--"What d'ye lack, noble sir?--What d'ye lack,

beauteous madam?" he said, in a tone at once bold and soothing, which

often was so applied as both to gratify the persons addressed, and to

excite a smile from other hearers.--"God bless your reverence," to a

beneficed clergyman; "the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your

reverence's eyes--Buy a pair of David Ramsay's barnacles. The King--

God bless his Sacred Majesty!--never reads Hebrew or Greek without

them."

"Are you well avised of that?" said a fat parson from the Vale of

Evesham. "Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,--God bless his

Sacred Majesty!--I will try what they can do for me; for I have not

been able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since--I

cannot remember the time--when I had a bad fever. Choose me a pair of

his most Sacred Majesty's own wearing, my good youth." "This is a

pair, and please your reverence," said Jenkin, producing a pair of

spectacles which he touched with an air of great deference and

respect, "which his most blessed Majesty placed this day three weeks

on his own blessed nose; and would have kept them for his own sacred

use, but that the setting being, as your reverence sees, of the purest

jet, was, as his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a

bishop than for a secular prince."

"His Sacred Majesty the King," said the worthy divine, "was ever a

very Daniel in his judgment. Give me the barnacles, my good youth, and

who can say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?--our

reverend brother of Gloucester waxes in years." He then pulled out his

purse, paid for the spectacles, and left the shop with even a more

important step than that which had paused to enter it.

"For shame," said Tunstall to his companion; "these glasses will never

suit one of his years."

"You are a fool, Frank," said Vincent, in reply; "had the good doctor

wished glasses to read with, he would have tried them before buying.

He does not want to look through them himself, and these will serve

the purpose of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best

magnifiers in the shop.--What d'ye lack?" he cried, resuming his

solicitations. "Mirrors for your toilette, my pretty madam; your head-

gear is something awry--pity, since it is so well fancied." The woman

stopped and bought a mirror.--"What d'ye lack?--a watch, Master

Sergeant--a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and

true as your own eloquence?"

"Hold your peace, sir," answered the Knight of the Coif, who was

disturbed by Vin's address whilst in deep consultation with an eminent

attorney; "hold your peace! You are the loudest-tongued varlet betwixt

the Devil's Tavern and Guildhall."

"A watch," reiterated the undaunted Jenkin, "that shall not lose

thirteen minutes in a thirteen years' lawsuit.--He's out of hearing--A

watch with four wheels and a bar-movement--a watch that shall tell

you, Master Poet, how long the patience of the audience will endure

your next piece at the Black Bull." The bard laughed, and fumbled in

the pocket of his slops till he chased into a corner, and fairly

caught, a small piece of coin.

"Here is a tester to cherish thy wit, good boy," he said.

"Gramercy," said Vin; "at the next play of yours I will bring down a

set of roaring boys, that shall make all the critics in the pit, and

the gallants on the stage, civil, or else the curtain shall smoke for

it."

"Now, that I call mean," said Tunstall, "to take the poor rhymer's

money, who has so little left behind."

"You are an owl, once again," said Vincent; "if he has nothing left to

buy cheese and radishes, he will only dine a day the sooner with some

patron or some player, for that is his fate five days out of the

seven. It is unnatural that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer;

I will drink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; and when

his third night comes round, he shall have penniworths for his coin, I

promise you.--But here comes another-guess customer. Look at that

strange fellow--see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow

the wares.--O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow

not the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply

their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that

same fellow, with his blue cap with a c**k's feather in it, to show

he's of gentle blood, God wot--his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his

sword with a ton of iron in the handle--his grey thread-bare cloak--

his step like a Frenchman--his look like a Spaniard--a book at his

girdle, and a broad dudgeon-dagger on the other side, to show him

half-pedant, half-bully. How call you that pageant, Frank?"

"A raw Scotsman," said Tunstall; "just come up, I suppose, to help the

rest of his countrymen to gnaw old England's bones; a palmerworm, I

reckon, to devour what the locust has spared."

"Even so, Frank," answered Vincent; "just as the poet sings sweetly,--

'In Scotland he was born and bred,

And, though a beggar, must be fed.'"

"Hush!" said Tunstall, "remember our master."

"Pshaw!" answered his mercurial companion; "he knows on which side his

bread is buttered, and I warrant you has not lived so long among

Englishmen, and by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an

English mind. But see, our Scot has done gazing at St. Dunstan's, and

comes our way. By this light, a proper lad and a sturdy, in spite of

freckles and sun-burning.--He comes nearer still, I will have at him."

"And, if you do," said his comrade, "you may get a broken head--he

looks not as if he would carry coals."

"A fig for your threat," said Vincent, and instantly addressed the

stranger. "Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane--buy a watch, to

count the hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick

behind you.--Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for

your gripe.--Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days;

for, were your pockets as bare as Father Fergus's, you are a Scot in

London, and you will be stocked in that time." The stranger looked

sternly at the waggish apprentice, and seemed to grasp his cudgel in

rather a menacing fashion. "Buy physic," said the undaunted Vincent,

"if you will buy neither time nor light--physic for a proud stomach,

sir;--there is a 'pothecary's shop on the other side of the way."

Here the probationary disciple of Galen, who stood at his master's

door in his flat cap and canvass sleeves, with a large wooden pestle

in his hand, took up the ball which was flung to him by Jenkin, with,

"What d'ye lack, sir?--Buy a choice Caledonian salve, _Flos sulphvr.

cum butyro quant. suff._"

"To be taken after a gentle rubbing-down with an English oaken towel,"

said Vincent.

The bonny Scot had given full scope to the play of this small

artillery of city wit, by halting his stately pace, and viewing

grimly, first the one assailant, and then the other, as if menacing

either repartee or more violent revenge. But phlegm or prudence got

the better of his indignation, and tossing his head as one who valued

not the raillery to which he had been exposed, he walked down Fleet

Street, pursued by the horse-laugh of his tormentors.

"The Scot will not fight till he see his own blood," said Tunstall,

whom his north of England extraction had made familiar with all manner

of proverbs against those who lay yet farther north than himself.

"Faith, I know not," said Jenkin; "he looks dangerous, that fellow--he

will hit some one over the noddle before he goes far.--Hark!--hark!--

they are rising."

Accordingly, the well-known cry of, "'Prentices--'prentices--Clubs--

clubs!" now rang along Fleet Street; and Jenkin, snatching up his

weapon, which lay beneath the counter ready at the slightest notice,

and calling to Tunstall to take his bat and follow, leaped over the

hatch-door which protected the outer-shop, and ran as fast as he could

towards the affray, echoing the cry as he ran, and elbowing, or

shoving aside, whoever stood in his way. His comrade, first calling to

his master to give an eye to the shop, followed Jenkin's example, and

ran after him as fast as he could, but with more attention to the

safety and convenience of others; while old David Ramsay, with hands

and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and a glass which he had

been polishing thrust into his bosom, came forth to look after the

safety of his goods and chattels, knowing, by old experience, that,

when the cry of "Clubs" once arose, he would have little aid on the

part of his apprentices.