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The Fortunes of Nigel

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #5950 · 1,157,203 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Fortunes of Nigel

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5950]
                Most recently updated: April 5, 2020

Language: English

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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
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THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL

By Sir Walter Scott



A Tale Which Holdeth Children From Play & Old Men From The Chimney
Corner --Sir Philip Sidney




INTRODUCTION

  But why should lordlings all our praise engross?
  Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross.

                                        Pope

Having, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some
degree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those
accomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next
tempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of
character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were necessary
to one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of
the usual accomplishments of those who strut through the pages of this
sort of composition, I made free with the name of a person who has left
the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the
capital of Scotland has to display.

To the Scottish reader little more need be said than that the man
alluded to is George Heriot. But for those south of the Tweed, it may
be necessary to add, that the person so named was a wealthy citizen of
Edinburgh, and the King's goldsmith, who followed James to the English
capital, and was so successful in his profession, as to die, in 1624,
extremely wealthy for that period. He had no children; and after making
a full provision for such relations as might have claims upon him, he
left the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in which the
sons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously brought up and educated for
the station to which their talents may recommend them, and are finally
enabled to enter life under respectable auspices. The hospital in which
this charity is maintained is a noble quadrangle of the Gothic order,
and as ornamental to the city as a building, as the manner in which the
youths are provided for and educated, renders it useful to the community
as an institution. To the honour of those who have the management, (the
Magistrates and Clergy of Edinburgh), the funds of the Hospital have
increased so much under their care, that it now supports and educates
one hundred and thirty youths annually, many of whom have done honour to
their country in different situations.

The founder of such a charity as this may be reasonably supposed to have
walked through life with a steady pace, and an observant eye, neglecting
no opportunity of assisting those who were not possessed of the
experience necessary for their own guidance. In supposing his
efforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, misguided by the
aristocratic haughtiness of his own time, and the prevailing tone
of selfish luxury which seems more peculiar to ours, as well as the
seductions of pleasure which are predominant in all, some amusement,
or even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived from the manner in
which I might bring the exertions of this civic Mentor to bear in his
pupil's behalf. I am, I own, no great believer in the moral utility
to be derived from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word
spoken in season may be of advantage to a young person, it must surely
be when it calls upon him to attend to the voice of principle and
self-denial, instead of that of precipitate passion. I could not,
indeed, hope or expect to represent my prudent and benevolent citizen
in a point of view so interesting as that of the peasant girl, who
nobly sacrificed her family affections to the integrity of her moral
character. Still however, something I hoped might be done not altogether
unworthy the fame which George Heriot has secured by the lasting
benefits he has bestowed on his country.

It appeared likely, that out of this simple plot I might weave something
attractive; because the reign of James I., in which George Heriot
flourished, gave unbounded scope to invention in the fable, while at the
same time it afforded greater variety and discrimination of character
than could, with historical consistency, have been introduced, if the
scene had been laid a century earlier. Lady Mary Wortley Montague has
said, with equal truth and taste, that the most romantic region of every
country is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or
lowlands. For similiar reasons, it may be in like manner said, that the
most picturesque period of history is that when the ancient rough and
wild manners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated upon, and
contrasted, by the illumination of increased or revived learning, and
the instructions of renewed or reformed religion. The strong contrast
produced by the opposition of ancient manners to those which are
gradually subduing them, affords the lights and shadows necessary to
give effect to a fictitious narrative; and while such a period entitles
the author to introduce incidents of a marvellous and improbable
character, as arising out of the turbulent independence and ferocity,
belonging to old habits of violence, still influencing the manners of
a people who had been so lately in a barbarous state; yet, on the other
hand, the characters and sentiments of many of the actors may, with
the utmost probability, be described with great variety of shading and
delineation, which belongs to the newer and more improved period, of
which the world has but lately received the light.

The reign of James I. of England possessed this advantage in a peculiar
degree. Some beams of chivalry, although its planet had been for some
time set, continued to animate and gild the horizon, and although
probably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men and women
still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; and
the ceremonial of the tilt-yard was yet exhibited, though it now only
flourished as a Place de Carrousel. Here and there a high-spirited
Knight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
was found devoted enough to the vows he had taken, to imagine himself
obliged to compel, by the sword's-point, a fellow-knight or squire
to restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from a fair
damsel;[Footnote: See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs.] but yet,
while men were taking each other's lives on such punctilios of honour,
the hour was already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the world
that they were no longer to reason from authority to fact, but to
establish truth by advancing from fact to fact, till they fixed an
indisputable authority, not from hypothesis, but from experiment.

The state of society in the reign of James I. was also strangely
disturbed, and the license of a part of the community was perpetually
giving rise to acts of blood and violence. The bravo of the Queen's day,
of whom Shakspeare has given us so many varieties, as Bardolph, Nym,
Pistol, Peto, and the other companions of Falstaff, men who had their
humours, or their particular turn of extravaganza, had, since the
commencement of the Low Country wars, given way to a race of sworders,
who used the rapier and dagger, instead of the far less dangerous sword
and buckler; so that a historian says on this subject, "that private
quarrels were nourished, but especially between the Scots and English;
and duels in every street maintained; divers sects and peculiar titles
passed unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring Boys,
Bonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such like, being persons
prodigal, and of great expense, who, having run themselves into debt,
were constrained to run next into factions, to defend themselves
from danger of the law. These received countenance from divers of the
nobility; and the citizens, through lasciviousness consuming their
estates, it was like that the number [of these desperadoes] would rather
increase than diminish; and under these pretences they entered into many
desperate enterprizes, and scarce any durst walk in the street after
nine at night."[Footnote: history of the First Fourteen Years of King
James's Reign. See Somers's Tracts, edited by Scott, vol. ii. p.266.]

The same authority assures us farther, that "ancient gentlemen, who had
left their inheritance whole and well furnished with goods and chattels
(having thereupon kept good houses) unto their sons, lived to see part
consumed in riot and excess, and the rest in possibility to be utterly
lost; the holy state of matrimony made but a May-game, by which divers
families had been subverted; brothel houses much frequented, and even
great persons, prostituting their bodies to the intent to satisfy their
lusts, consumed their substance in lascivious appetites. And of
all sorts, such knights and gentlemen, as either through pride or
prodigality--had consumed their substance, repairing to the city, and to
the intent to consume their virtue also, lived dissolute lives; many
of their ladies and daughters, to the intent to maintain themselves
according to their dignity, prostituting their bodies in shameful
manner. Ale-houses, dicing-houses, taverns, and places of iniquity,
beyond manner abounding in most places."

Nor is it only in the pages of a puritanical, perhaps a satirical
writer, that we find so shocking and disgusting a picture of the
coarseness of the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the contrary,
in all the comedies of the age, the principal character for gaiety and
wit is a young heir, who has totally altered the establishment of
the father to whom he has succeeded, and, to use the old simile, who
resembles a fountain, which plays off in idleness and extravagance
the wealth which its careful parents painfully had assembled in hidden
reservoirs.

And yet, while that spirit of general extravagance seemed at work over
a whole kingdom, another and very different sort of men were gradually
forming the staid and resolved characters, which afterwards displayed
themselves during the civil wars, and powerfully regulated and affected
the character of the whole English nation, until, rushing from one
extreme to another, they sunk in a gloomy fanaticism the splendid traces
of the reviving fine arts.

From the quotations which I have produced, the selfish and disgusting
conduct of Lord Dalgarno will not perhaps appear overstrained; nor will
the scenes in Whitefriars and places of similar resort seem too highly
coloured. This indeed is far from being the case. It was in James I.'s
reign that vice first appeared affecting the better classes in its
gross and undisguised depravity. The entertainments and amusements of
Elizabeth's time had an air of that decent restraint which became the
court of a maiden sovereign; and, in that earlier period, to use the
words of Burke, vice lost half its evil by being deprived of all its
grossness. In James's reign, on the contrary, the coarsest pleasures
were publicly and unlimitedly indulged, since, according to Sir John
Harrington, the men wallowed in beastly delights; and even ladies
abandoned their delicacy and rolled about in intoxication. After a
ludicrous account of a mask, in which the actors had got drunk, and
behaved themselves accordingly, he adds, "I have much marvelled at these
strange pageantries, and they do bring to my recollection what passed of
this sort in our Queen's days, in which I was sometimes an assistant and
partaker: but never did I see such lack of good order and sobriety as I
have now done. The gunpowder fright is got out of all our heads, and we
are going on hereabout as if the devil was contriving every man should
blow up himself by wild riot, excess, and devastation of time and
temperance. The great ladies do go well masqued; and indeed, it be the
only show of their modesty to conceal their countenance, but alack, they
meet with such countenance to uphold their strange doings, that I marvel
not at aught that happens."[Footnote: Harrington's Nugae Antique, vol.
ii. p. 352. For the gross debauchery of the period, too much encouraged
by the example of the monarch, who was, in other respects, neither
without talent nor a good-natured disposition, see Winwood's Memorials,
Howell's Letters, and other Memorials of the time; but particularly,
consult the Private Letters and Correspondence of Steenie, _alias_
Buckingham, with his reverend Dad and Gossip, King James, which abound
with the grossest as well as the most childish language. The learned Mr.
D'Israeli, in an attempt to vindicate the character of James, has
only succeeded in obtaining for himself the character of a skilful and
ingenious advocate, without much advantage to his royal client]

Such being the state of the court, coarse sensuality brought along with
it its ordinary companion, a brutal degree of undisguised selfishness,
destructive alike of philanthropy and good breeding; both of which, in
their several spheres, depend upon the regard paid by each individual
to the interest as well as the feelings of others. It is in such a time
that the heartless and shameless man of wealth and power may, like the
supposed Lord Dalgarno, brazen out the shame of his villainies, and
affect to triumph in their consequences, so long as they were personally
advantageous to his own pleasures or profit.

Alsatia is elsewhere explained as a cant name for Whitefriars, which,
possessing certain privileges of sanctuary, became for that reason a
nest of those mischievous characters who were generally obnoxious to the
law. These privileges were derived from its having been an establishment
of the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded says Stow, in his Survey
of London, by Sir Patrick Grey, in 1241. Edward I. gave them a plot of
ground in Fleet Street, to build their church upon. The edifice then
erected was rebuilt by Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, in the reign of
Edward. In the time of the Reformation the place retained its immunities
as a sanctuary, and James I. confirmed and added to them by a charter
in 1608. Shadwell was the first author who made some literary use of
Whitefriars, in his play of the Squire of Alsatia, which turns upon the
plot of the Adelphi of Terence.

In this old play, two men of fortune, brothers, educate two young men,
(sons to the one and nephews to the other,) each under his own separate
system of rigour and indulgence. The elder of the subjects of this
experiment, who has been very rigidly brought up, falls at once into
all the vices of the town, is debauched by the cheats and bullies of
Whitefriars, and, in a word, becomes the Squire of Alsatia. The poet
gives, as the natural and congenial inhabitants of the place, such
characters as the reader will find in the note. [Footnote: "Cheatly, a
rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but
there inveigles young heirs of entail, and helps them to goods and money
upon great disadvantages, is bound for them, and shares with them till
he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the
cant about town.

"Shamwell, cousin to the Belfords, who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made
a decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he
lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute
debauched life.

"Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cowardly, impudent,
blustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in Flanders, who has run from his
colours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by
the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain, marries one that lets lodgings,
sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd.

"Scrapeall a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise
fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with
Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods, and money."--Dramatis
Personae to the Squire of Alsatia, SHADWELL'S Works, vol. iv.] The play,
as we learn from the dedication to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, was
successful above the author's expectations, "no comedy these many years
having filled the theatre so long together. And I had the great honour,"
continues Shadwell, "to find so many friends, that the house was never
so full since it was built as upon the third day of this play, and vast
numbers went away that could not be admitted." [Footnote: Dedication to
the Squire of Alsatia, Shadwell's Works, vol. iv.] From the Squire of
Alsatia the author derived some few hints, and learned the footing
on which the bullies and thieves of the Sanctuary stood with their
neighbours, the fiery young students of the Temple, of which some
intimation is given in the dramatic piece.

Such are the materials to which the author stands indebted for the
composition of the Fortunes of Nigel, a novel, which may be perhaps one
of those that are more amusing on a second perusal, than when read a
first time for the sake of the story, the incidents of which are few and
meagre.

The Introductory Epistle is written, in Lucio's phrase, "according
to the trick," and would never have appeared had the writer meditated
making his avowal of the work. As it is the privilege of a masque or
incognito to speak in a feigned voice and assumed character, the author
attempted, while in disguise, some liberties of the same sort; and while
he continues to plead upon the various excuses which the introduction
contains, the present acknowledgment must serve as an apology for a
species of "hoity toity, whisky frisky" pertness of manner, which, in
his avowed character, the author should have considered as a departure
from the rules of civility and good taste.


ABBOTSFORD.

1st July, 1831.




INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK TO THE REVEREND DR. DRYASDUST

DEAR SIR,

I readily accept of, and reply to the civilities with which you have
been pleased to honour me in your obliging letter, and entirely agree
with your quotation, of _"Quam bonum et quam jucundum!"_ We may indeed
esteem ourselves as come of the same family, or, according to our
country proverb, as being all one man's bairns; and there needed no
apology on your part, reverend and dear sir, for demanding of me any
information which I may be able to supply respecting the subject of your
curiosity. The interview which you allude to took place in the course
of last winter, and is so deeply imprinted on my recollection, that it
requires no effort to collect all its most minute details.

You are aware that the share which I had in introducing the Romance,
called THE MONASTERY, to public notice, has given me a sort of character
in the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in
the outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of my
curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to
buy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth
of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, with,
"Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get a chair for Captain
Clutterbuck. There is the newspaper, Captain--to-day's paper;" or, "Here
is the last new work--there is a folder, make free with the leaves;"
or, "Put it in your pocket and carry it home;" or, "We will make a
bookseller of you, sir, and you shall have it at trade price." Or,
perhaps if it is the worthy trader's own publication, his liberality
may even extend itself to--"Never mind booking such a trifle to
_you_, sir--it is an over-copy. Pray, mention the work to your reading
friends." I say nothing of the snug well-selected literary party
arranged round a turbot, leg of five-year-old mutton, or some such gear,
or of the circulation of a quiet bottle of Robert Cockburn's choicest
black--nay, perhaps, of his new ones. All these are comforts reserved
to such as are freemen of the corporation of letters, and I have the
advantage of enjoying them in perfection. But all things change under
the sun; and it is with no ordinary feelings of regret, that, in my
annual visits to the metropolis, I now miss the social and warm-hearted
welcome of the quick-witted and kindly friend who first introduced me to
the public; who had more original wit than would have set up a dozen of
professed sayers of good things, and more racy humour than would have
made the fortune of as many more. To this great deprivation has been
added, I trust for a time only, the loss of another bibliopolical
friend, whose vigorous intellect, and liberal ideas, have not only
rendered his native country the mart of her own literature, but
established there a Court of Letters, which must command respect, even
from those most inclined to dissent from many of its canons. The effect
of these changes, operated in a great measure by the strong sense and
sagacious calculations of an individual, who knew how to avail himself,
to an unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talent which his
country produced, will probably appear more clearly to the generation
which shall follow the present.

I entered the shop at the Cross, to enquire after the health of my
worthy friend, and learned with satisfaction, that his residence in the
south had abated the rigour of the symptoms of his disorder. Availing
myself, then, of the privileges to which I have alluded, I strolled
onward in that labyrinth of small dark rooms, or _crypts_, to speak our
own antiquarian language, which form the extensive back-settlements of
that celebrated publishing-house. Yet, as I proceeded from one obscure
recess to another, filled, some of them with old volumes, some with such
as, from the equality of their rank on the shelves, I suspected to be
the less saleable modern books of the concern, I could not help feeling
a holy horror creep upon me, when I thought of the risk of intruding on
some ecstatic bard giving vent to his poetical fury; or it might be,
on the yet more formidable privacy of a band of critics, in the act of
worrying the game which they had just run down. In such a supposed case,
I felt by anticipation the horrors of the Highland seers, whom their
gift of deuteroscopy compels to witness things unmeet for mortal eye;
and who, to use the expression of Collins,

     ----"heartless, oft, like moody madness, stare,
     To see the phantom train their secret work prepare."

Still, however, the irresistible impulse of an undefined curiosity
drove me on through this succession of darksome chambers, till, like the
jeweller of Delhi in the house of the magician Bennaskar, I at length
reached a vaulted room, dedicated to secrecy and silence, and beheld,
seated by a lamp, and employed in reading a. blotted _revise_,
[Footnote: The uninitiated must be informed, that a second proof-sheet
is so called.] the person, or perhaps I should rather say the Eidolon,
or representative Vision of the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY! You will not be
surprised at the filial instinct which enabled me at once to acknowledge
the features borne by this venerable apparition, and that I at once
bended the knee, with the classical salutation of, _Salve, magne
parens!_ The vision, however, cut me short, by pointing to a seat,
intimating at the same time, that my presence was not expected, and that
he had something to say to me.

I sat down with humble obedience, and endeavoured to note the features
of him with whom I now found myself so unexpectedly in society. But on
this point I can give your reverence no satisfaction; for, besides the
obscurity of the apartment, and the fluttered state of my own nerves, I
seemed to myself overwhelmed by a sense of filial awe, which prevented
my noting and recording what it is probable the personage before me
might most desire to have concealed. Indeed, his figure was so closely
veiled and wimpled, either with a mantle, morning-gown, or some such
loose garb, that the verses of Spenser might well have been applied--

    "Yet, certes, by her face and physnomy,
     Whether she man or woman only were,
     That could not any creature well descry."

I must, however, go on as I have begun, to apply the masculine gender;
for, notwithstanding very ingenious reasons, and indeed something like
positive evidence, have been offered to prove the Author of Waverley to
be two ladies of talent, I must abide by the general opinion, that he is
of the rougher sex. There are in his writings too many things

    "Quae maribus sola tribuuntur,"

to permit me to entertain any doubt on that subject. I will proceed, in
the manner of dialogue, to repeat as nearly as I can what passed betwixt
us, only observing, that in the course of the conversation, my timidity
imperceptibly gave way under the familiarity of his address; and that,
in the concluding part of our dialogue, I perhaps argued with fully as
much confidence as was beseeming.

_Author of Waverley._ I was willing to see you, Captain Clutterbuck,
being the person of my family whom I have most regard for, since the
death of Jedediah Cleishbotham; and I am afraid I may have done you some
wrong, in assigning to you The Monastery as a portion of my effects. I
have some thoughts of making it up to you, by naming you godfather
to this yet unborn babe--(he indicated the proof-sheet with his
finger)--But first, touching The Monastery--How says the world--you are
abroad and can learn?

_Captain Clutterbuck._ Hem! hem!--The enquiry is delicate--I have not
heard any complaints from the Publishers.

_Author._ That is the principal matter; but yet an indifferent work is
sometimes towed on by those which have left harbour before it, with the
breeze in their poop.--What say the Critics?

_Captain._ There is a general--feeling--that the White Lady is no
favourite.

_Author._ I think she is a failure myself; but rather in execution than
conception. Could I have evoked an _esprit follet_, at the same time
fantastic and interesting, capricious and kind; a sort of wildfire of
the elements, bound by no fixed laws, or motives of action; faithful and
fond, yet teazing and uncertain----

_Captain._ If you will pardon the interruption, sir, I think you are
describing a pretty woman.

_Author._ On my word, I believe I am. I must invest my elementary
spirits with a little human flesh and blood--they are too fine-drawn for
the present taste of the public.

_Captain._ They object, too, that the object of your Nixie ought to
have been more uniformly noble--Her ducking the priest was no Naiad-like
amusement.

_Author._ Ah! they ought to allow for the capriccios of what is, after
all, but a better sort of goblin. The bath into which Ariel, the most
delicate creation of Shakspeare's imagination, seduces our jolly friend
Trinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me
rowing against the stream. I care not who knows it--I write for general
amusement; and, though I never will aim at popularity by what I think
unworthy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in the
defence of my own errors against the voice of the public.

_Captain._ You abandon, then, in the present work--(looking, in my turn,
towards the proof-sheet)--the mystic, and the magical, and the whole
system of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages,
or obscure allusions to future events?

_Author._ Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son--not one bounce on the drum of
Tedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in
the wainscot. All is clear and above board--a Scots metaphysician might
believe every word of it.

_Captain._ And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing
strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily--like the course of a
famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic
grotto--then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course,
visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of
interest are presented by the country through which it passes--widening
and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at
the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where ships of all kinds
strike sail and yard?

_Author._ Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why,'tis Ercles' vein,
and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I, to produce
a story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and
widen, and deepen, and all the rest on't. I should be chin-deep in the
grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all
the quirks and quiddities which I might have devised for my reader's
amusement, would lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho's suppressed
witticisms, when he was under his master's displeasure.--There never was
a novel written on this plan while the world stood.

_Captain._ Pardon me--Tom Jones.

_Author._ True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of
the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. He
challenges a comparison between the Novel and the Epic. Smollett, Le
Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of
the rules he has laid down, have written rather a history of the
miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of
life, than the plot of a regular and connected epopeia, where every step
brings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters
have been satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the
conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end--just as the
traveller alights at the inn, because it is evening.

_Captain._ A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at
least. In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes--"What the devil
does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?"

_Author._ Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and
spirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had
sufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in
another, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a
brow bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place
of bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an
idler to study the history of his country; in all, save where the
perusal interrupted the discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless
amusement,--might not the author of such a work, however inartificially
executed, plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave,
who, about to be punished for having spread the false report of a
victory, saved himself by exclaiming--"Am I to blame, O Athenians, who
have given you one happy day?"

_Captain._ Will your goodness permit me to mention an anecdote of my
excellent grandmother?

_Author._ I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain
Clutterbuck.

_Captain._ It may come into our dialogue on Bayes's plan.--The sagacious
old lady--rest her soul!--was a good friend to the church, and could
never hear a minister maligned by evil tongues, without taking his
part warmly. There was one fixed point, however, at which she always
abandoned the cause of her reverend _protege_--it was so soon as
she learned he had preached a regular sermon against slanderers and
backbiters.

_Author._ And what is that to the purpose?

_Captain._ Only that I have heard engineers say, that one may betray the
weak point to the enemy, by too much ostentation of fortifying it.

_Author._ And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose?

_Captain._ Nay, then, without farther metaphor, I am afraid this new
production, in which your generosity seems willing to give me some
concern, will stand much in need of apology, since you think proper to
begin your defence before the case is on trial.-The story is hastily
huddled up, I will venture a pint of claret.

_Author._ A pint of port, I suppose you mean?

_Captain._ I say of claret--good claret of the Monastery. Ah, sir, would
you but take the advice of your friends, and try to deserve at least
one-half of the public favour you have met with, we might all drink
Tokay!

_Author._ I care not what I drink, so the liquor be wholesome.

_Captain._ Care for your reputation, then,--for your fame.

_Author._ My fame?--I will answer you as a very ingenious, able, and
experienced friend, being counsel for the notorious Jem MacCoul, replied
to the opposite side of the bar, when they laid weight on his client's
refusing to answer certain queries, which they said any man who had a
regard for his reputation would not hesitate to reply to. "My client,"
said he-by the way, Jem was standing behind him at the time, and a rich
scene it was-"is so unfortunate as to have no regard for his reputation;
and I should deal very uncandidly with the Court, should I say he had
any that was worth his attention."-I am, though from very different
reasons, in Jem's happy state of indifference. Let fame follow those who
have a substantial shape. A shadow-and an impersonal author is nothing
better-can cast no shade.

_Captain._ You are not now, perhaps, so impersonal as here-tofore. These
Letters to the Member for the University of Oxford--_Author._ Show the
wit, genius, and delicacy of the author, which I heartily wish to see
engaged on a subject of more importance; and show, besides, that the
preservation of my character of _incongnito_ has engaged early talent in
the discussion of a curious question of evidence. But a cause, however
ingeniously pleaded, is not therefore gained. You may remember, the
neatly-wrought chain of circumstantial evidence, so artificially brought
forward to prove Sir Philip Francis's title to the Letters of Junius,
seemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has
passed away, and Junius, in the general opinion, is as much unknown as
ever. But on this subject I will not be soothed or provoked into saying
one word more. To say who I am not, would be one step towards saying
who I am; and as I desire not, any more than a certain justice of peace
mentioned by Shenstone, the noise or report such things make in the
world, I shall continue to be silent on a subject, which, in my opinion,
is very undeserving the noise that has been made about it, and still
more unworthy of the serious employment of such ingenuity as has been
displayed by the young letter-writer.

_Captain._ But allowing, my dear sir, that you care not for your
personal reputation, or for that of any literary person upon whose
shoulders your faults may be visited, allow me to say, that common
gratitude to the public, which has received you so kindly, and to the
critics, who have treated you so leniently, ought to induce you to
bestow more pains on your story.

_Author._ I do entreat you, my son, as Dr. Johnson would have said,
"free your mind from cant." For the critics, they have their business,
and I mine; as the nursery proverb goes--

"The children in Holland take pleasure in making What the children in
England take pleasure in breaking."

I am their humble jackal, too busy in providing food for them, to have
time for considering whether they swallow or reject it.--To the public,
I stand pretty nearly in the relation of the postman who leaves a packet
at the door of an individual. If it contains pleasing intelligence, a
billet from a mistress, a letter from an absent son, a remittance from
a correspondent supposed to be bankrupt,--the letter is acceptably
welcome, and read and re-read, folded up, filed, and safely deposited in
the bureau. If the contents are disagreeable, if it comes from a dun or
from a bore, the correspondent is cursed, the letter is thrown into the
fire, and the expense of postage is heartily regretted; while all the
time the bearer of the dispatches is, in either case, as little thought
on as the snow of last Christmas. The utmost extent of kindness between
the author and the public which can really exist, is, that the world are
disposed to be somewhat indulgent to the succeeding works of an original
favourite, were it but on account of the habit which the public mind has
acquired; while the author very naturally thinks well of _their_ taste,
who have so liberally applauded _his_ productions. But I deny there is
any call for gratitude, properly so called, either on one side or the
other.

_Captain._ Respect to yourself, then, ought to teach caution.

_Author._ Ay, if caution could augment the chance of my success. But,
to confess to you the truth, the works and passages in which I have
succeeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity; and
when I have seen some of these placed in opposition with others, and
commended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen and standish,
that the parts in which I have come feebly off, were by much the more
laboured. Besides, I doubt the beneficial effect of too much delay, both
on account of the author and the public. A man should strike while the
iron is hot, and hoist sail while the wind is fair. If a successful
author keep not the stage, another instantly takes his ground. If
a writer lie by for ten years ere he produces a second work, he is
superseded by others; or, if the age is so poor of genius that this does
not happen, his own reputation becomes his greatest obstacle. The public
will expect the new work to be ten times better than its predecessor;
the author will expect it should be ten times more popular, and 'tis a
hundred to ten that both are disappointed.

_Captain_. This may justify a certain degree of rapidity in publication,
but not that which is proverbially said to be no speed. You should take
time at least to arrange your story.

_Author_. That is a sore point with me, my son. Believe me, I have not
been fool enough to neglect ordinary precautions. I have repeatedly laid
down my future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters,
and endeavoured to construct a story which I meant should evolve itself
gradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, and stimulate curiosity;
and which, finally, should terminate in a striking catastrophe. But I
think there is a demon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when I
begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand
under my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the
materials increase; my regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and
the work is closed long before I have attained the point I proposed.

_Captain_. Resolution and determined forbearance might remedy that evil.

_Author_. Alas! my dear sir, you do not know the force of paternal
affection. When I light on such a character as Bailie Jarvie, or
Dalgetty, my imagination brightens, and my conception becomes clearer
at every step which I take in his company, although it leads me many
a weary mile away from the regular road, and forces me leap hedge and
ditch to get back into the route again. If I resist the temptation,
as you advise me, my thoughts become prosy, flat, and dull; I write
painfully to myself, and under a consciousness of flagging which makes
me flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had invested the
incidents, departs from them, and leaves every thing dull and gloomy.
I am no more the same author I was in my better mood, than the dog in a
wheel, condemned to go round and round for hours, is like the same
dog merrily chasing his own tail, and gambolling in all the frolic of
unrestrained freedom. In short, sir, on such occasions, I think I am
bewitched.

_Captain_. Nay, sir, if you plead sorcery, there is no more to be
said--he must needs go whom the devil drives. And this, I suppose, sir,
is the reason why you do not make the theatrical attempt to which you
have been so often urged?

_Author_. It may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that
I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too
favourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of
poetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which,
being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have hastily
considered the offspring of my mother-wit. Now, the manner in which I
became possessed of these fragments is so extraordinary, that I cannot
help telling it to you.

You must know, that, some twenty years since, I went down to visit an
old friend in Worcestershire, who had served with me in the----Dragoons.

_Captain._ Then you _have_ served, sir?

_Author._ I have--or I have not, which signifies the same thing--Captain
is a good travelling name.--I found my friend's house unexpectedly
crowded with guests, and, as usual, was condemned--the mansion being
an old one--to the _haunted apartment._ I have, as a great modern said,
seen too many ghosts to believe in them, so betook myself seriously
to my repose, lulled by the wind rustling among the lime-trees, the
branches of which chequered the moonlight which fell on the floor
through the diamonded casement, when, behold, a darker shadow interposed
itself, and I beheld visibly on the floor of the apartment--

_Captain._ The White Lady of Avenel, I suppose?--You have told the very
story before.

_Author._ No--I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, and apron,
sleeves tucked up to the elbow, a dredging-box in the one hand, and in
the other a sauce-ladle. I concluded, of course, that it was my friend's
cook-maid walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value for Sally,
who could toss a pancake with any girl in the country, I got up
to conduct her safely to the door. But as I approached her, she
said,--"Hold, sir! I am not what you take me for;"--words which seemed
so opposite to the circumstances, that I should not have much minded
them, had it not been for the peculiarly hollow sound in which they were
uttered.--"Know, then," she said, in the same unearthly accents, "that
I am the spirit of Betty Barnes."--"Who hanged herself for love of the
stage-coachman," thought I; "this is a proper spot of work!"--"Of that
unhappy Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr. Warburton, the
painful collector, but ah! the too careless custodier, of the largest
collection of ancient plays ever known--of most of which the titles only
are left to gladden the Prolegomena of the Variorum Shakspeare. Yes,
stranger, it was these ill-fated hands That consigned to grease and
conflagration the scores of small quartos, which, did they now exist,
would drive the whole Roxburghe Club out of their senses--it was these
unhappy pickers and stealers that singed fat fowls and wiped dirty
trenchers with the lost works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger,
Jonson, Webster--what shall I say?--even of Shakspeare himself!"

Like every dramatic antiquary, my ardent curiosity after some play named
in the Book of the Master of Revels, had often been checked by finding
the object of my research numbered amongst the holocaust of victims
which this unhappy woman had sacrificed to the God of Good Cheer. It is
no wonder then, that, like the Hermit of Parnell,

      "I broke the bands of fear, and madly cried,
       'You careless jade!'--But scarce the words began,
       When Betty brandish'd high her saucing-pan."

"Beware," she said, "you do not, by your ill-timed anger, cut off the
opportunity I yet have to indemnify the world for the errors of my
ignorance. In yonder coal-hole, not used for many a year, repose the few
greasy and blackened fragments of the elder Drama which were not totally
destroyed. Do thou then"--Why, what do you stare at, Captain? By my
soul, it is true; as my friend Major Longbow says, "What should I tell
you a lie for?"

_Captain._ Lie, sir! Nay, Heaven forbid I should apply the word to a
person so veracious. You are only inclined to chase your tail a little
this morning, that's all. Had you not better reserve this legend to form
an introduction to "Three Recovered Dramas," or so?

_Author._ You are quite right--habit's a strange thing, my son. I had
forgot whom I was speaking to. Yes, Plays for the closet, not for the
stage--

_Captain._ Right, and so you are sure to be acted; for the managers,
while thousands of volunteers are desirous of serving them, are
wonderfully partial to pressed men.

_Author._ I am a living witness, having been, like a second Laberius,
made a dramatist whether I would or not. I believe my muse would be
_Terry_-fied into treading the stage, even if I should write a sermon.

_Captain._ Truly, if you did, I am afraid folks might make a farce
of it; and, therefore, should you change your style, I still advise a
volume of dramas like Lord Byron's.

_Author._ No, his lordship is a cut above me--I won't run my horse
against his, if I can help myself. But there is my friend Allan has
written just such a play as I might write myself, in a very sunny day,
and with one of Bramah's extra-patent pens. I cannot make neat work
without such appurtenances.

_Captain._ Do you mean Allan Ramsay?

_Author._ No, nor Barbara Allan either. I mean Allan Cunningham, who
has just published his tragedy of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, full of
merry-making and murdering, kissing and cutting of throats, and passages
which lead to nothing, and which are very pretty passages for all
that. Not a glimpse of probability is there about the plot, but so much
animation in particular passages, and such a vein of poetry through the
whole, as I dearly wish I could infuse into my Culinary Remains, should
I ever be tempted to publish them. With a popular impress, people would
read and admire the beauties of Allan--as it is, they may perhaps only
note his defects--or, what is worse, not note him at all.--But
never mind them, honest Allan; you are a credit to Caledonia for all
that.--There are some lyrical effusions of his, too, which you would do
well to read, Captain. "It's hame, and it's hame," is equal to Burns.

_Captain._ I will take the hint. The club at Kennaquhair are turned
fastidious since Catalan! visited the Abbey. My "Poortith Cauld" has
been received both poorly and coldly, and "the Banks of Bonnie Doon"
have been positively coughed down--_Tempora mutantur._

_Author._ They cannot stand still, they will change with all of us. What
then?

                 "A man's a man for a' that."

But the hour of parting approaches.

_Captain._ You are determined to proceed then in your own system?
Are you aware that an unworthy motive may be assigned for this rapid
succession of publication? You will be supposed to work merely for the
lucre of gain.

_Author._ Supposing that I did permit the great advantages which must
be derived from success in literature, to join with other motives in
inducing me to come more frequently before the public,--that emolument
is the voluntary tax which the public pays for a certain species of
literary amusement--it is extorted from no one, and paid, I presume,
by those only who can afford it, and who receive gratification in
proportion to the expense. If the capital sum which these volumes have
put into circulation be a very large one, has it contributed to my
indulgences only? or can I not say to hundreds, from honest Duncan the
paper-manufacturer, to the most snivelling of the printer's devils,
"Didst thou not share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?" I profess I think
our Modern Athens much obliged to me for having established such an
extensive manufacture; and when universal suffrage comes in fashion,
I intend to stand for a seat in the House on the interest of all the
unwashed artificers connected with literature.

_Captain._ This would be called the language of a calico-manufacturer.

_Author._ Cant again, my dear son--there is lime in this sack,
too--nothing but sophistication in this world! I do say it, in spite of
Adam Smith and his followers, that a successful author is a productive
labourer, and that his works constitute as effectual a part of the
public wealth, as that which is created by any other manufacture. If a
new commodity, having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be
the result of the operation, why are the author's bales of books to be
esteemed a less profitable part of the public stock than the goods of
any other manufacturer? I speak with reference to the diffusion of the
wealth arising to the public, and the degree of industry which even such
a trifling work as the present must stimulate and reward, before the
volumes leave the publisher's shop. Without me it could not exist,
and to this extent I am a benefactor to the country. As for my own
emolument, it is won by my toil, and I account myself answerable to
Heaven only for the mode in which I expend it. The candid may hope it is
not all dedicated to selfish purposes; and, without much pretensions to
merit in him who disburses it, a part may "wander, heaven-directed, to
the poor."

_Captain._ Yet it is generally held base to write from the mere motives
of gain.

_Author._ It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to make it a
principal motive for literary exertion. Nay, I will venture to say,
that no work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of
a certain sum of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the
lawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician who prescribes,
the clergyman--if such there be--who preaches, without any zeal for his
profession, or without any sense of its dignity, and merely on account
of the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to the rank of sordid
mechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of the learned faculties
at least, their services are considered as unappreciable, and are
acknowledged, not by any exact estimate of the services rendered, but by
a _honorarium,_ or voluntary acknowledgment. But let a client or patient
make the experiment of omitting this little ceremony of the honorarium,
which is _cense_ to be a thing entirely out of consideration between
them, and mark how the learned gentleman will look upon his case. Cant
set apart, it is the same thing with literary emolument. No man of
sense, in any rank of life, is, or ought to be, above accepting a just
recompense for his time, and a reasonable share of the capital which
owes its very existence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the
trenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and nobles, statesmen,
and divines, the most distinguished of their time, have not scorned to
square accounts with their bookseller.

_Captain. (Sings._)

    "O if it were a mean thing,
       The gentles would not use it;
     And if it were ungodly,
       The clergy would refuse it."

_Author._ You say well. But no man of honour, genius, or spirit, would
make the mere love of gain, the chief, far less the only, purpose of his
labours. For myself, I am not displeased to find the game a winning one;
yet while I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely for
the pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as most folks that
love of composition, which is perhaps the strongest of all instincts,
driving the author to the pen, the painter to the pallet, often without
either the chance of fame or the prospect of reward. Perhaps I have said
too much of this. I might, perhaps, with as much truth as most people,
exculpate myself from the charge of being either of a greedy or
mercenary disposition; but I am not, therefore, hypocrite enough to
disclaim the ordinary motives, on account of which the whole world
around me is toiling unremittingly, to the sacrifice of ease, comfort,
health, and life. I do not affect the disinterestedness of that
ingenious association of gentlemen mentioned by Goldsmith, who sold
their magazine for sixpence a-piece, merely for their own amusement.

_Captain._ I have but one thing more to hint.--The world say you will
run yourself out.

_Author._ The world say true: and what then? When they dance no longer,
I will no longer pipe; and I shall not want flappers enough to remind me
of the apoplexy.

_Captain._ And what will become of us then, your poor family? We shall
fall into contempt and oblivion.

_Author._ Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number
of his family, I cannot help going on to increase it--"'Tis my vocation,
Hal."--Such of you as deserve oblivion--perhaps the whole of you--may be
consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is
more than can be said of some of your contemporaries, of less fortune
and more merit. They cannot say but that you _had_ the crown. It is
always something to have engaged the public attention for seven years.
Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to
the established phrase, "the ingenious author of a novel much admired
at the time." I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley
is sustained very much by the praises of those, who may be inclined to
prefer that tale to its successors.

_Captain._ You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for
present popularity?

_Author. Meliora spero._ Horace himself expected not to survive in all
his works--I may hope to live in some of mine;--_non omnis moriar._ It
is some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries
have been the most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those
who have been best received in their own time, have also continued to
be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present
generation, as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers
future condemnation.

_Captain._ Were all to act on such principles, the public would be
inundated.

_Author_ Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the
public were obliged to read books merely because they are printed--your
friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good.
The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of,
is, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the
present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed
us.

_Captain._ I do not see how that is to happen.

_Author._ The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James, of
the alarming fertility of the press, were as loud as they are at
present--yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age
flowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen--

     ----"Besrrew'd all with rich array,
     Of pearl and precious stones of great assay;
     And all the gravel mix'd with golden ore."

Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age,
the next may discover treasures.

_Captain._ Some books will defy all alchemy.

_Author._ They will be but few in number; since, as for the writers, who
are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their
works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of
annoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding
undertaking booksellers.

_Captain._ You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity?

_Author._ There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and
virtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart--

    "Where as she look'd about, she did behold
     How over that same door was likewise writ,
     _Be Bold--Be Bold,_ and everywhere _Be Bold._
     Whereat she mused, and could not construe it;
     At last she spied at that room's upper end
     Another iron door, on which was writ--
     BE NOT TOO BOLD."

_Captain._ Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on your own
principles.

_Author._ Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here
till the dinner hour is over.--I will add this work to your patrimony,
_valeat quantum._

Here our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced Apollyon from
the Canongate came to demand the proof-sheet on the part of Mr.
M'Corkindale; and I heard Mr. C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment
of the same labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to
penetrate so far into the _penetralia_ of their temple.

I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning the import of this
dialogue, and I cannot but believe I shall meet the wishes of our common
parent in prefixing this letter to the work which it concerns.

I am, reverend and dear Sir,

Very sincerely and affectionately

Yours,






THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL

  _Knifegrinder._ Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
                               _Poetry of the Antijacobin._




CHAPTER I


  Now Scot and English are agreed,
  And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
  Where, such the splendours that attend him,
  His very mother scarce had kend him.
  His metamorphosis behold,
  From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
  His back-sword, with the iron hilt,
  To rapier, fairly hatch'd and gilt;
  Was ever seen a gallant braver!
  His very bonnet's grown a beaver.
                  _The Reformation._

The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the
south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been happily
terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the English
Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland was worn
by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and the
succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate national
prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were
removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed brought to regard
those upon the opposite bank as friends and as brethren.

These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of
King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of
his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged
him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neglecting
those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much indebted.

The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him
perpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions,
whose brawls disturbed the Court. But, notwithstanding all his
precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual
hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years,
had been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which menaced
a general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the lowest
classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament, factions in
the court, and duels among the gentry, was no less productive of riots
and brawls amongst the lower orders.

While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in the
city of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned mechanic,
much devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who, whether
recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the courtiers
alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his birthplace, in
the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James's household the
post of maker of watches and horologes to his Majesty. He scorned
not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few yards to the
eastward of Saint Dunstan's Church.

The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed, was
something very different from those we now see in the same locality. The
goods were exposed to sale in cases, only defended from the weather by
a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the stalls and booths now
erected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair,
rather than the established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most
of the shopkeepers of note, and David Ramsay amongst others, had their
booth connected with a small apartment which opened backward from it,
and bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's
cavern did to the tent which he erected before it.

To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of
his abstruse calculations; for he aimed at improvements and discoveries
in his own art, and sometimes pushed his researches, like Napier, and
other mathematicians of the period, into abstract science. When thus
engaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial establishment to be
maintained by two stout-bodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who kept
up the cry of, "What d'ye lack? what d'ye lack?" accompanied with the
appropriate recommendations of the articles in which they dealt.

This direct and personal application for custom to those who chanced to
pass by, is now, we believe, limited to Monmouth Street, (if it
still exists even in that repository of ancient garments,) under the
guardianship of the scattered remnant of Israel. But at the time we
are speaking of, it was practised alike by Jew and Gentile, and served,
instead of all our present newspaper puffs and advertisements, to
solicit the attention of the public in general, and of friends in
particular, to the unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they
offered to sale upon such easy terms, that it might fairly appear that
the venders had rather a view to the general service of the public, than
to their own particular advantage.

The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this
advantage over those who, in the present day, use the public papers for
the same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their address to
the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. [This, as
we have said, was also the case in Monmouth Street in our remembrance.
We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral
habiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more
beseemingly; but this is a digression.] This direct and personal mode of
invitation to customers became, however, a dangerous temptation to the
young wags who were employed in the task of solicitation during
the absence of the principal person interested in the traffic; and,
confiding in their numbers and civic union, the 'prentices of London
were often seduced into taking liberties with the passengers, and
exercising their wit at the expense of those whom they had no hopes of
converting into customers by their eloquence. If this were resented by
any act of violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour forth
in succour; and in the words of an old song which Dr. Johnson was used
to hum,--

    "Up then rose the 'prentices all,
     Living in London, both proper and tall."

Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the
Templars, or other youths connected with the aristocracy, were insulted,
or conceived themselves to be so. Upon such occasions, bare steel was
frequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sometimes
ensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of the time
had no other resource than by the Alderman of the ward calling out the
householders, and putting a stop to the strife by overpowering numbers,
as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon the stage.

At the period when such was the universal custom of the most
respectable, as well as the most inconsiderable, shopkeepers in London,
David Ramsay, on the evening to which we solicit the attention of
the reader, retiring to more abstruse and private labours, left
the administration of his outer shop, or booth, to the aforesaid
sharp-witted, active, able-bodied, and well-voiced apprentices, namely,
Jenkin Vincent and Frank Tunstall.

Vincent had been educated at the excellent foundation of Christ's Church
Hospital, and was bred, therefore, as well as born, a Londoner, with
all the acuteness, address, and audacity which belong peculiarly to
the youth of a metropolis. He was now about twenty years old, short in
stature, but remarkably strong made, eminent for his feats upon holidays
at foot-ball, and other gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled in
the broad-sword play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of
single-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and sequestered court of
the ward, better than his catechism; was alike active in his master's
affairs, and in his own adventures of fun and mischief; and so managed
matters, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him out, or at
least served for his apology, when the latter propensity led him into
scrapes, of which, however, it is but fair to state, that they had
hitherto inferred nothing mean or discreditable. Some aberrations there
were, which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to reduce to regular
order when he discovered them, and others which he winked at--supposing
them to answer the purpose of the escapement of a watch, which disposes
of a certain quantity of the extra power of that mechanical impulse
which puts the whole in motion.

The physiognomy of Jin Vin--by which abbreviation he was familiarly
known through the ward--corresponded with the sketch we have given
of his character. His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was
generally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered
with thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely, and
would have grown to great length, but for the modest custom enjoined by
his state in life and strictly enforced by his master, which compelled
him to keep it short-cropped,--not unreluctantly, as he looked with
envy on the flowing ringlets, in which the courtiers, and aristocratic
students of the neighbouring Temple, began to indulge themselves, as
marks of superiority and of gentility.

Vincent's eyes were deep set in his head, of a strong vivid black, full
of fire, roguery, and intelligence, and conveying a humorous expression,
even while he was uttering the usual small-talk of his trade, as if
he ridiculed those who were disposed to give any weight to his
commonplaces. He had address enough, however, to add little touches of
his own, which gave a turn of drollery even to this ordinary routine of
the booth; and the alacrity of his manner--his ready and obvious wish
to oblige--his intelligence and civility, when he thought civility
necessary, made him a universal favourite with his master's customers.

His features were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, his mouth
tending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be more dark
than was then thought consistent with masculine beauty. But, in despite
of his having always breathed the air of a crowded city, his complexion
had the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health; his turned-up
nose gave an air of spirit and raillery to what he said, and seconded
the laugh of his eyes; and his wide mouth was garnished with a pair of
well-formed and well-coloured lips, which, when he laughed, disclosed a
range of teeth strong and well set, and as white as the very pearl. Such
was the elder apprentice of David Ramsay, Memory's Monitor, watchmaker,
and constructor of horologes, to his Most Sacred Majesty James I.

Jenkin's companion was the younger apprentice, though, perhaps, he might
be the elder of the two in years. At any rate, he was of a much more
staid and composed temper. Francis Tunstall was of that ancient and
proud descent who claimed the style of the "unstained;" because, amid
the various chances of the long and bloody wars of the Roses, they had,
with undeviating faith, followed the House of Lancaster, to which they
had originally attached themselves. The meanest sprig of such a tree
attached importance to the root from which it derived itself; and
Tunstall was supposed to nourish in secret a proportion of that family
pride, which had exhorted tears from his widowed and almost indigent
mother, when she saw herself obliged to consign him to a line of
life inferior, as her prejudices suggested, to the course held by his
progenitors. Yet, with all this aristocratic prejudice, his master found
the well-born youth more docile, regular, and strictly attentive to
his duty, than his far more active and alert comrade. Tunstall also
gratified his master by the particular attention which he seemed
disposed to bestow on the abstract principles of science connected with
the trade which he was bound to study, the limits of which were daily
enlarged with the increase of mathematical science.

Vincent beat his companion beyond the distance-post, in every thing like
the practical adaptation of thorough practice, in the dexterity of
hand necessary to execute the mechanical branches of the art, and
doubled-distanced him in all respecting the commercial affairs of the
shop. Still David Ramsay was wont to say, that if Vincent knew how to do
a thing the better of the two, Tunstall was much better acquainted with
the principles on which it ought to be done; and he sometimes objected
to the latter, that he knew critical excellence too well ever to be
satisfied with practical mediocrity.

The disposition of Tunstall was shy, as well as studious; and, though
perfectly civil and obliging, he never seemed to feel himself in his
place while he went through the duties of the shop. He was tall
and handsome, with fair hair, and well-formed limbs, good features,
well-opened light-blue eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and a countenance
which expressed both good-humour and intelligence, but qualified by a
gravity unsuitable to his years, and which almost amounted to dejection.
He lived on the best of terms with his companion, and readily stood by
him whenever he was engaged in any of the frequent skirmishes, which, as
we have already observed, often disturbed the city of London about this
period. But though Tunstall was allowed to understand quarter-staff (the
weapon of the North country) in a superior degree, and though he was
naturally both strong and active, his interference in such affrays
seemed always matter of necessity; and, as he never voluntarily joined
either their brawls or their sports, he held a far lower place in the
opinion of the youth of the ward than his hearty and active friend Jin
Vin. Nay, had it not been for the interest made for his comrade, by the
intercession of Vincent, Tunstall would have stood some chance of being
altogether excluded from the society of his contemporaries of the same
condition, who called him, in scorn, the Cavaliero Cuddy, and the Gentle
Tunstall.

On the other hand, the lad himself, deprived of the fresh air in which
he had been brought up, and foregoing the exercise to which he had
formerly been accustomed, while the inhabitant of his native mansion,
lost gradually the freshness of his complexion, and, without showing any
formal symptoms of disease, grew more thin and pale as he grew older,
and at length exhibited the appearance of indifferent health, without
any thing of the habits and complaints of an invalid, excepting a
disposition to avoid society, and to spend his leisure time in private
study, rather than mingle in the sports of his companions, or even
resort to the theatres, then the general rendezvous of his class; where,
according to high authority, they fought for half-bitten apples, cracked
nuts, and filled the upper gallery with their clamours.

Such were the two youths who called David Ramsay master; and with both
of whom he used to fret from morning till night, as their peculiarities
interfered with his own, or with the quiet and beneficial course of his
traffic.

Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached to their master, and
he, a good-natured, though an absent and whimsical man, was scarce
less so to them; and when a little warmed with wine at an occasional
junketing, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his "twa bonnie
lads, and the looks that the court ladies threw at them, when visiting
his shop in their caroches, when on a frolic into the city." But David
Ramsay never failed, at the same time, to draw up his own tall,
thin, lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming grin, and
indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of his little
grey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street worth looking
at than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, the
sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip-top revellers of
the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, distinguished more deeply
the sort of attention paid by the females of quality, who so regularly
visited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates. "The boy Frank," she
admitted, "used to attract the attention of the young ladies, as having
something gentle and downcast in his looks; but then he could not better
himself, for the poor youth had not a word to throw at a dog. Now Jin
Vin was so full of his jibes and jeers, and so willing, and so ready,
and so serviceable, and so mannerly all the while, with a step that
sprung like a buck's in Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as
black as a gipsy's, that no woman who knew the world would make a
comparison betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the
man," she said, "was a civil neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless,
and might be a rich man if he had common sense to back his learning; and
doubtless, for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but
he was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings,
and smeared with lamp-black and oil, that Dame Simmons judged it would
require his whole shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to
touch the said neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a pair of tongs."

A still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Benjamin Suddlechop, the
barber, was of exactly the same opinion.

Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, the two youths,
who, in a fine April day, having first rendered their dutiful service
and attendance on the table of their master and his daughter, at their
dinner at one o'clock,--Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe
discipline undergone by your predecessors!--and having regaled
themselves upon the fragments, in company with two female domestics, one
a cook, and maid of all work, the other called Mistress Margaret's maid,
now relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; and agreeably
to the established custom, were soliciting, by their entreaties and
recommendations of their master's manufacture, the attention and
encouragement of the passengers.

In this species of service it may be easily supposed that Jenkin Vincent
left his more reserved and bashful comrade far in the background. The
latter could only articulate with difficulty, and as an act of duty
which he was rather ashamed of discharging, the established words
of form--"What d'ye lack?--What d'ye lack?--Clocks--watches--barnacles?
--What d'ye lack?--Watches--clocks--barnacles?--What d'ye lack, sir? What
d'ye lack, madam?--Barnacles--watches--clocks?"

But this dull and dry iteration, however varied by diversity of verbal
arrangement, sounded flat when mingled with the rich and recommendatory
oratory of the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-witted Jenkin
Vincent.--"What d'ye lack, noble sir?--What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?"
he said, in a tone at once bold and soothing, which often was so applied
as both to gratify the persons addressed, and to excite a smile from
other hearers.--"God bless your reverence," to a beneficed clergyman;
"the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your reverence's eyes--Buy a pair of
David Ramsay's barnacles. The King--God bless his Sacred Majesty!--never
reads Hebrew or Greek without them."

"Are you well avised of that?" said a fat parson from the Vale of
Evesham. "Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,--God bless his
Sacred Majesty!--I will try what they can do for me; for I have not
been able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since--I cannot
remember the time--when I had a bad fever. Choose me a pair of his
most Sacred Majesty's own wearing, my good youth."

"This is a pair, and please your reverence," said Jenkin, producing a
pair of spectacles which he touched with an air of great deference and
respect, "which his most blessed Majesty placed this day three weeks on
his own blessed nose; and would have kept them for his own sacred use,
but that the setting being, as your reverence sees, of the purest jet,
was, as his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a bishop than
for a secular prince."

"His Sacred Majesty the King," said the worthy divine, "was ever a very
Daniel in his judgment. Give me the barnacles, my good youth, and who
can say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?--our reverend
brother of Gloucester waxes in years." He then pulled out his purse,
paid for the spectacles, and left the shop with even a more important
step than that which had paused to enter it.

"For shame," said Tunstall to his companion; "these glasses will never
suit one of his years."

"You are a fool, Frank," said Vincent, in reply; "had the good doctor
wished glasses to read with, he would have tried them before buying.
He does not want to look through them himself, and these will serve
the purpose of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best
magnifiers in the shop.--What d'ye lack?" he cried, resuming his
solicitations. "Mirrors for your toilette, my pretty madam; your
head-gear is something awry--pity, since it is so well fancied." The
woman stopped and bought a mirror.--"What d'ye lack?--a watch, Master
Sergeant--a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and true
as your own eloquence?"

"Hold your peace, sir," answered the Knight of the Coif, who was
disturbed by Vin's address whilst in deep consultation with an eminent
attorney; "hold your peace! You are the loudest-tongued varlet betwixt
the Devil's Tavern and Guildhall."

"A watch," reiterated the undaunted Jenkin, "that shall not lose
thirteen minutes in a thirteen years' lawsuit.--He's out of hearing--A
watch with four wheels and a bar-movement--a watch that shall tell you,
Master Poet, how long the patience of the audience will endure your next
piece at the Black Bull." The bard laughed, and fumbled in the pocket of
his slops till he chased into a corner, and fairly caught, a small piece
of coin.

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

"Gramercy," said Vin; "at the next play of yours I will bring down a
set of roaring boys, that shall make all the critics in the pit, and the
gallants on the stage, civil, or else the curtain shall smoke for it."

"Now, that I call mean," said Tunstall, "to take the poor rhymer's
money, who has so little left behind."

"You are an owl, once again," said Vincent; "if he has nothing left to
buy cheese and radishes, he will only dine a day the sooner with some
patron or some player, for that is his fate five days out of the seven.
It is unnatural that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer; I will
drink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; and when his
third night comes round, he shall have penniworths for his coin, I
promise you.--But here comes another-guess customer. Look at that
strange fellow--see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow
the wares.--O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not
the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply
their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that same
fellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show he's of
gentle blood, God wot--his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his sword with a
ton of iron in the handle--his grey thread-bare cloak--his step like a
Frenchman--his look like a Spaniard--a book at his girdle, and a broad
dudgeon-dagger on the other side, to show him half-pedant, half-bully.
How call you that pageant, Frank?"

"A raw Scotsman," said Tunstall; "just come up, I suppose, to help the
rest of his countrymen to gnaw old England's bones; a palmerworm, I
reckon, to devour what the locust has spared."

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

    'In Scotland he was born and bred,
     And, though a beggar, must be fed.'"

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

"Pshaw!" answered his mercurial companion; "he knows on which side
his bread is buttered, and I warrant you has not lived so long among
Englishmen, and by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an English
mind. But see, our Scot has done gazing at St. Dunstan's, and comes our
way. By this light, a proper lad and a sturdy, in spite of freckles and
sun-burning.--He comes nearer still, I will have at him."

"And, if you do," said his comrade, "you may get a broken head--he looks
not as if he would carry coals."

"A fig for your threat," said Vincent, and instantly addressed the
stranger. "Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane--buy a watch, to count
the hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind
you.--Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your
gripe.--Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days; for,
were your pockets as bare as Father Fergus's, you are a Scot in London,
and you will be stocked in that time." The stranger looked sternly
at the waggish apprentice, and seemed to grasp his cudgel in rather a
menacing fashion. "Buy physic," said the undaunted Vincent, "if you will
buy neither time nor light--physic for a proud stomach, sir;--there is a
'pothecary's shop on the other side of the way."

Here the probationary disciple of Galen, who stood at his master's door
in his flat cap and canvass sleeves, with a large wooden pestle in his
hand, took up the ball which was flung to him by Jenkin, with, "What
d'ye lack, sir?--Buy a choice Caledonian salve, _Flos sulphvr. cum
butyro quant. suff._"

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

The bonny Scot had given full scope to the play of this small artillery
of city wit, by halting his stately pace, and viewing grimly, first the
one assailant, and then the other, as if menacing either repartee or
more violent revenge. But phlegm or prudence got the better of his
indignation, and tossing his head as one who valued not the raillery to
which he had been exposed, he walked down Fleet Street, pursued by the
horse-laugh of his tormentors.

"The Scot will not fight till he see his own blood," said Tunstall, whom
his north of England extraction had made familiar with all manner of
proverbs against those who lay yet farther north than himself.

"Faith, I know not," said Jenkin; "he looks dangerous, that
fellow--he will hit some one over the noddle before he goes
far.--Hark!--hark!--they are rising."

Accordingly, the well-known cry of,
"'Prentices--'prentices--Clubs--clubs!" now rang along Fleet Street; and
Jenkin, snatching up his weapon, which lay beneath the counter ready
at the slightest notice, and calling to Tunstall to take his bat and
follow, leaped over the hatch-door which protected the outer-shop, and
ran as fast as he could towards the affray, echoing the cry as he ran,
and elbowing, or shoving aside, whoever stood in his way. His comrade,
first calling to his master to give an eye to the shop, followed
Jenkin's example, and ran after him as fast as he could, but with more
attention to the safety and convenience of others; while old David
Ramsay, with hands and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and a
glass which he had been polishing thrust into his bosom, came forth
to look after the safety of his goods and chattels, knowing, by old
experience, that, when the cry of "Clubs" once arose, he would have
little aid on the part of his apprentices.





CHAPTER II


  This, sir, is one among the Seignory,
  Has wealth at will, and will to use his wealth,
  And wit to increase it. Marry, his worst folly
  Lies in a thriftless sort of charity,
  That goes a-gadding sometimes after objects,
  Which wise men will not see when thrust upon them.
                             _The Old Couple._

The ancient gentleman bustled about his shop, in pettish displeasure
at being summoned hither so hastily, to the interruption of his more
abstract studies; and, unwilling to renounce the train of calculation
which he had put in progress, he mingled whimsically with the fragments
of the arithmetical operation, his oratory to the passengers, and angry
reflections on his idle apprentices. "What d'ye lack, sir? Madam,
what d'ye lack--clocks for hall or table--night-watches--day
watches?--_Locking wheel being 48--the power of retort 8--the striking
pins are 48_--What d'ye lack, honoured sir?--_The quotient--the
multiplicand_--That the knaves should have gone out this blessed
minute!--_the acceleration being at the rate of 5 minutes, 55 seconds,
53 thirds, 59 fourths_--I will switch them both when they come back--I
will, by the bones of the immortal Napier!"

Here the vexed philosopher was interrupted by the entrance of a grave
citizen of a most respectable appearance, who, saluting him familiarly
by the name of "Davie, my old acquaintance," demanded what had put him
so much out of sorts, and gave him at the same time a cordial grasp of
his hand.

The stranger's dress was, though grave, rather richer than usual. His
paned hose were of black velvet, lined with purple silk, which garniture
appeared at the slashes. His doublet was of purple cloth, and his
short cloak of black velvet, to correspond with his hose; and both were
adorned with a great number of small silver buttons richly wrought in
filigree. A triple chain of gold hung round his neck; and, in place of
a sword or dagger, he wore at his belt an ordinary knife for the purpose
of the table, with a small silver case, which appeared to contain
writing materials. He might have seemed some secretary or clerk engaged
in the service of the public, only that his low, flat, and unadorned
cap, and his well-blacked, shining shoes, indicated that he belonged to
the city. He was a well-made man, about the middle size, and seemed in
firm health, though advanced in years. His looks expressed sagacity and
good-humour: and the air of respectability which his dress announced,
was well supported by his clear eye, ruddy cheek, and grey hair. He used
the Scottish idiom in his first address, but in such a manner that it
could hardly be distinguished whether he was passing upon his friend a
sort of jocose mockery, or whether it was his own native dialect, for
his ordinary discourse had little provincialism.

In answer to the queries of his respectable friend, Ramsay groaned
heavily, answering by echoing back the question, "What ails me, Master
George? Why, every thing ails me! I profess to you that a man may
as well live in Fairyland as in the Ward of Farringdon-Without. My
apprentices are turned into mere goblins--they appear and disappear like
spunkies, and have no more regularity in them than a watch without a
scapement. If there is a ball to be tossed up, or a bullock to be driven
mad, or a quean to be ducked for scolding, or a head to be broken,
Jenkin is sure to be at the one end or the other of it, and then
away skips Francis Tunstall for company. I think the prize-fighters,
bear-leaders, and mountebanks, are in a league against me, my dear
friend, and that they pass my house ten times for any other in the city.
Here's an Italian fellow come over, too, that they call Punchinello;
and, altogether----"

"Well," interrupted Master George, "but what is all this to the present
case?"

"Why," replied Ramsay, "here has been a cry of thieves or murder, (I
hope that will prove the least of it amongst these English pock-pudding
swine!) and I have been interrupted in the deepest calculation ever
mortal man plunged into, Master George."

"What, man!" replied Master George, "you must take patience--You are a
man that deals in time, and can make it go fast and slow at pleasure;
you, of all the world, have least reason to complain, if a little of it
be lost now and then.--But here come your boys, and bringing in a slain
man betwixt them, I think--here has been serious mischief, I am afraid."

"The more mischief the better sport," said the crabbed old
watchmaker. "I am blithe, though, that it's neither of the twa loons
themselves.--What are ye bringing a corpse here for, ye fause villains?"
he added, addressing the two apprentices, who, at the head of a
considerable mob of their own class, some of whom bore evident marks of
a recent fray, were carrying the body betwixt them.

"He is not dead yet, sir," answered Tunstall.

"Carry him into the apothecary's, then," replied his master. "D'ye
think I can set a man's life in motion again, as if he were a clock or a
timepiece?"

"For godsake, old friend," said his acquaintance, "let us have him here
at the nearest--he seems only in a swoon."

"A swoon?" said Ramsay, "and what business had he to swoon in the
streets? Only, if it will oblige my friend Master George, I would take
in all the dead men in St. Dunstan's parish. Call Sam Porter to look
after the shop." So saying, the stunned man, being the identical
Scotsman who had passed a short time before amidst the jeers of the
apprentices, was carried into the back shop of the artist, and there
placed in an armed chair till the apothecary from over the way came to
his assistance. This gentleman, as sometimes happens to those of the
learned professions, had rather more lore than knowledge, and began to
talk of the sinciput and occiput, and cerebrum and cerebellum, until he
exhausted David Ramsay's brief stock of patience.

"Bell-um! bell-ell-um!" he repeated, with great indignation; "What
signify all the bells in London, if you do not put a plaster on the
child's crown?"

Master George, with better-directed zeal, asked the apothecary whether
bleeding might not be useful; when, after humming and hawing for a
moment, and being unable, upon the spur of the occasion, to suggest any
thing else, the man of pharmacy observed, that it would, at all events,
relieve the brain or cerebrum, in case there was a tendency to the
depositation of any extravasated blood, to operate as a pressure upon
that delicate organ.

Fortunately he was adequate to performing this operation; and, being
powerfully aided by Jenkin Vincent (who was learned in all cases of
broken heads) with plenty of cold water, and a little vinegar, applied
according to the scientific method practised by the bottle-holders in a
modern ring, the man began to raise himself on his chair, draw his cloak
tightly around him, and look about like one who struggles to recover
sense and recollection.

"He had better lie down on the bed in the little back closet," said Mr.
Ramsay's visitor, who seemed perfectly familiar with the accommodations
which the house afforded.

"He is welcome to my share of the truckle," said Jenkin,--for in
the said back closet were the two apprentices accommodated in one
truckle-bed,--"I can sleep under the counter."

"So can I," said Tunstall, "and the poor fellow can have the bed all
night."

"Sleep," said the apothecary, "is, in the opinion of Galen,
a restorative and febrifuge, and is most naturally taken in a
truckle-bed."

"Where a better cannot be come by,"--said Master George; "but these are
two honest lads, to give up their beds so willingly. Come, off with his
cloak, and let us bear him to his couch--I will send for Dr. Irving, the
king's chirurgeon--he does not live far off, and that shall be my share
of the Samaritan's duty, neighbour Ramsay."

"Well, sir," said the apothecary, "it is at your pleasure to send for
other advice, and I shall not object to consult with Dr. Irving or any
other medical person of skill, neither to continue to furnish such drugs
as may be needful from my pharmacopeia. However, whatever Dr. Irving,
who, I think, hath had his degrees in Edinburgh, or Dr. Any-one-beside,
be he Scottish or English, may say to the contrary, sleep, taken
timeously, is a febrifuge, or sedative, and also a restorative."

He muttered a few more learned words, and concluded by informing
Ramsay's friend in English far more intelligible than his Latin, that he
would look to him as his paymaster, for medicines, care, and attendance,
furnished, or to be furnished, to this party unknown.

Master George only replied by desiring him to send his bill for what he
had already to charge, and to give himself no farther trouble unless he
heard from him. The pharmacopolist, who, from discoveries made by the
cloak falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of
this chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case
espoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to
quit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master
George, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing
when occasion required, to send to his own dwelling this Esculapius of
Temple Bar.

When they were rid of Mr. Raredrench, the charitable efforts of Jenkin
and Francis, to divest the patient of his long grey cloak, were firmly
resisted on his own part.--"My life suner--my life suner," he muttered
in indistinct murmurs. In these efforts to retain his upper garment,
which was too tender to resist much handling, it gave way at length with
a loud rent, which almost threw the patient into a second syncope,
and he sat before them in his under garments, the looped and repaired
wretchedness of which moved at once pity and laughter, and had certainly
been the cause of his unwillingness to resign the mantle, which, like
the virtue of charity, served to cover so many imperfections.

The man himself cast his eyes on his poverty-struck garb, and seemed so
much ashamed of the disclosure, that, muttering between his teeth, that
he would be too late for his appointment, he made an effort to rise and
leave the shop, which was easily prevented by Jenkin Vincent and his
comrade, who, at the nod of Master George, laid hold of and detained him
in his chair.

The patient next looked round him for a moment, and then said faintly,
in his broad northern language--"What sort of usage ca' ye this,
gentlemen, to a stranger a sojourner in your town? Ye hae broken my
head--ye hae riven my cloak, and now ye are for restraining my personal
liberty! They were wiser than me," he said, after a moment's pause,
"that counselled me to wear my warst claithing in the streets of
London; and, if I could have got ony things warse than these mean
garments,"--("which would have been very difficult," said Jin Vin, in a
whisper to his companion,)--"they would have been e'en ower gude for the
grips o' men sae little acquented with the laws of honest civility."

"To say the truth," said Jenkin, unable to forbear any longer, although
the discipline of the times prescribed to those in his situation a
degree of respectful distance and humility in the presence of parents,
masters, or seniors, of which the present age has no idea--"to say the
truth, the good gentleman's clothes look as if they would not brook much
handling."

"Hold your peace, young man," said Master George, with a tone of
authority; "never mock the stranger or the poor--the black ox has not
trod on your foot yet--you know not what lands you may travel in, or
what clothes you may wear, before you die."

Vincent held down his head and stood rebuked, but the stranger did not
accept the apology which was made for him.

"I _am_ a stranger, sir," said he, "that is certain; though methinks,
that, being such, I have been somewhat familiarly treated in this town
of yours; but, as for my being poor, I think I need not be charged with
poverty, till I seek siller of somebody."

"The dear country all over," said Master George, in a whisper, to David
Ramsay, "pride and poverty."

But David had taken out his tablets and silver pen, and, deeply immersed
in calculations, in which he rambled over all the terms of arithmetic,
from the simple unit to millions, billions, and trillions, neither heard
nor answered the observation of his friend, who, seeing his abstraction,
turned again to the Scot.

"I fancy now, Jockey, if a stranger were to offer you a noble, you would
chuck it back at his head?"

"Not if I could do him honest service for it, sir," said the Scot; "I
am willing to do what I may to be useful, though I come of an honourable
house, and may be said to be in a sort indifferently weel provided for."

"Ay!" said the interrogator, "and what house may claim the honour of
your descent?"

"An ancient coat belongs to it, as the play says," whispered Vincent to
his companion.

"Come, Jockey, out with it," continued Master George, observing that the
Scot, as usual with his countrymen, when asked a blunt, straightforward
question, took a little time before answering it.

"I am no more Jockey, sir, than you are John," said the stranger, as if
offended at being addressed by a name, which at that time was used, as
Sawney now is, for a general appellative of the Scottish nation. "My
name, if you must know it, is Richie Moniplies; and I come of the old
and honourable house of Castle Collop, weel kend at the West-Port of
Edinburgh."

"What is that you call the West-Port?" proceeded the interrogator.

"Why, an it like your honour," said Richie, who now, having recovered
his senses sufficiently to observe the respectable exterior of Master
George, threw more civility into his manner than at first, "the
West-Port is a gate of our city, as yonder brick arches at Whitehall
form the entrance of the king's palace here, only that the West-Port is
of stonern work, and mair decorated with architecture and the policy of
bigging."

"Nouns, man, the Whitehall gateways were planned by the great Holbein,"
answered Master George; "I suspect your accident has jumbled your
brains, my good friend. I suppose you will tell me next, you have
at Edinburgh as fine a navigable river as the Thames, with all its
shipping?"

"The Thames!" exclaimed Richie, in a tone of ineffable contempt--"God
bless your honour's judgment, we have at Edinburgh the Water-of-Leith
and the Nor-loch!"

"And the Pow-Burn, and the Quarry-holes, and the Gusedub, ye fause
loon!" answered Master George, speaking Scotch with a strong and natural
emphasis; "it is such land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and
fair fashions, bring reproach on our whole country."

"God forgie me, sir," said Richie, much surprised at finding the
supposed southron converted into a native Scot, "I took your honour for
an Englisher! But I hope there was naething wrang in standing up for
ane's ain country's credit in a strange land, where all men cry her
down?"

"Do you call it for your country's credit, to show that she has a lying,
puffing rascal, for one of her children?" said Master George. "But come,
man, never look grave on it,--as you have found a countryman, so you
have found a friend, if you deserve one--and especially if you answer me
truly."

"I see nae gude it wad do me to speak ought else but truth," said the
worthy North Briton.

"Well, then--to begin," said Master George, "I suspect you are a son of
old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher, at the West-Port."

"Your honour is a witch, I think," said Richie, grinning.

"And how dared you, sir, to uphold him for a noble?"

"I dinna ken, sir," said Richie, scratching his head; "I hear muckle
of an Earl of Warwick in these southern parts,--Guy, I think his name
was,--and he has great reputation here for slaying dun cows, and boars,
and such like; and I am sure my father has killed more cows and boars,
not to mention bulls, calves, sheep, ewes, lambs, and pigs, than the
haill Baronage of England."

"Go to! you are a shrewd knave," said Master George; "charm your tongue,
and take care of saucy answers. Your father was an honest burgher, and
the deacon of his craft: I am sorry to see his son in so poor a coat."

"Indifferent, sir," said Richie Moniplies, looking down on his
garments--"very indifferent; but it is the wonted livery of poor
burghers' sons in our country--one of Luckie Want's bestowing upon
us--rest us patient! The king's leaving Scotland has taken all custom
frae Edinburgh; and there is hay made at the Cross, and a dainty crop
of fouats in the Grass-market. There is as much grass grows where my
father's stall stood, as might have been a good bite for the beasts he
was used to kill."

"It is even too true," said Master George; "and while we make fortunes
here, our old neighbours and their families are starving at home. This
should be thought upon oftener.--And how came you by that broken head,
Richie?--tell me honestly."

"Troth, sir, I'se no lee about the matter," answered Moniplies. "I was
coming along the street here, and ilk ane was at me with their jests and
roguery. So I thought to mysell, ye are ower mony for me to mell with;
but let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I
could gar some of ye sing another sang. Sae ae auld hirpling deevil of
a potter behoved just to step in my way and offer me a pig, as he
said, just to put my Scotch ointment in, and I gave him a push, as but
natural, and the tottering deevil coupit ower amang his ain pigs, and
damaged a score of them. And then the reird raise, and hadna these twa
gentlemen helped me out of it, murdered I suld hae been, without remeid.
And as it was, just when they got haud of my arm to have me out of the
fray, I got the lick that donnerit me from a left-handed lighterman."

Master George looked to the apprentices as if to demand the truth of
this story.

"It is just as he says, sir," replied Jenkin; "only I heard nothing
about pigs.--The people said he had broke some crockery, and that--I beg
pardon, sir--nobody could thrive within the kenning of a Scot."

"Well, no matter what they said, you were an honest fellow to help the
weaker side.--And you, sirrah," continued Master George, addressing his
countryman, "will call at my house to-morrow morning, agreeable to this
direction."

"I will wait upon your honour," said the Scot, bowing very low; "that
is, if my honourable master will permit me."

"Thy master?" said George,--"Hast thou any other master save Want, whose
livery you say you wear?"

"Troth, in one sense, if it please your honour, I serve twa masters,"
said Richie; "for both my master and me are slaves to that same beldam,
whom we thought to show our heels to by coming off from Scotland. So
that you see, sir, I hold in a sort of black ward tenure, as we call it
in our country, being the servant of a servant."

"And what is your master's name?" said Master George; and observing that
Richie hesitated, he added, "Nay, do not tell me, if it is a secret."

"A secret that there is little use in keeping," said Richie; "only ye
ken that our northern stomachs are ower proud to call in witnesses to
our distress. No that my master is in mair than present pinch, sir," he
added, looking towards the two English apprentices, "having a large sum
in the Royal Treasury--that is," he continued, in a whisper to Master
George,--"the king is owing him a lot of siller; but it's ill getting at
it, it's like.--My master is the young Lord Glenvarloch."

Master George testified surprise at the name.--"_You_ one of the young
Lord Glenvarloch's followers, and in such a condition?"

"Troth, and I am all the followers he has, for the present that is; and
blithe wad I be if he were muckle better aff than I am, though I were to
bide as I am."

"I have seen his father with four gentlemen and ten lackeys at his
heels," said Master George, "rustling in their laces and velvets. Well,
this is a changeful world, but there is a better beyond it.--The good
old house of Glenvarloch, that stood by king and country five hundred
years!"

"Your honour may say a thousand," said the follower.

"I will say what I know to be true, friend," said the citizen, "and not
a word more.--You seem well recovered now--can you walk?"

"Bravely, sir," said Richie; "it was but a bit dover. I was bred at the
West-Port, and my cantle will stand a clour wad bring a stot down."

"Where does your master lodge?"

"We pit up, an it like your honour," replied the Scot, "in a sma' house
at the fit of ane of the wynds that gang down to the water-side, with
a decent man, John Christie, a ship-chandler, as they ca't. His father
came from Dundee. I wotna the name of the wynd, but it's right anent the
mickle kirk yonder; and your honour will mind, that we pass only by our
family-name of simple Mr. Nigel Olifaunt, as keeping ourselves retired
for the present, though in Scotland we be called the Lord Nigel."

"It is wisely done of your master," said the citizen. "I will find
out your lodgings, though your direction be none of the clearest."
So saying, and slipping a piece of money at the same time into Richie
Moniplies's hand, he bade him hasten home, and get into no more affrays.

"I will take care of that now, sir," said Richie, with a look of
importance, "having a charge about me. And so, wussing ye a' weel, with
special thanks to these twa young gentlemen----"

"I am no gentleman," said Jenkin, flinging his cap on his head; "I am
a tight London 'prentice, and hope to be a freeman one day. Frank may
write himself gentleman, if he will."

"I _was_ a gentleman once," said Tunstall, "and I hope I have done
nothing to lose the name of one."

"Weel, weel, as ye list," said Richie Moniplies; "but I am mickle
beholden to ye baith--and I am not a hair the less like to bear it in
mind that I say but little about it just now.--Gude-night to you, my
kind countryman." So saying, he thrust out of the sleeve of his ragged
doublet a long bony hand and arm, on which the muscles rose like
whip-cord. Master George shook it heartily, while Jenkin and Frank
exchanged sly looks with each other.

Richie Moniplies would next have addressed his thanks to the master of
the shop, but seeing him, as he afterwards said, "scribbling on his
bit bookie, as if he were demented," he contented his politeness
with "giving him a hat," touching, that is, his bonnet, in token of
salutation, and so left the shop.

"Now, there goes Scotch Jockey, with all his bad and good about him,"
said Master George to Master David, who suspended, though unwillingly,
the calculations with which he was engaged, and keeping his pen within
an inch of the tablets, gazed on his friend with great lack-lustre eyes,
which expressed any thing rather than intelligence or interest in the
discourse addressed to him.--"That fellow," proceeded Master George,
without heeding his friend's state of abstraction, "shows, with great
liveliness of colouring, how our Scotch pride and poverty make liars
and braggarts of us; and yet the knave, whose every third word to an
Englishman is a boastful lie, will, I warrant you, be a true and tender
friend and follower to his master, and has perhaps parted with his
mantle to him in the cold blast, although he himself walked _in cuerpo,_
as the Don says.--Strange! that courage and fidelity--for I will warrant
that the knave is stout--should have no better companion than this
swaggering braggadocio humour.--But you mark me not, friend Davie."

"I do--I do, most heedfully," said Davie.--"For, as the sun goeth round
the dial-plate in twenty-four hours, add, for the moon, fifty minutes
and a half----"

"You are in the seventh heavens, man," said his companion.

"I crave your pardon," replied Davie.--"Let the wheel A go round in
twenty-four hours--I have it--and the wheel B in twenty-four hours,
fifty minutes and a half--fifty-seven being to fifty-four, as fifty-nine
to twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half, or very nearly,--I crave
your forgiveness, Master George, and heartily wish you good-even."

"Good-even?" said Master George; "why, you have not wished me good-day
yet. Come, old friend, lay by these tablets, or you will crack the inner
machinery of _your_ skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case
of his damaged.--Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with you so
easily. I came to get my four hours' nunchion from you, man, besides a
tune on the lute from my god-daughter, Mrs. Marget."

"Good faith! I was abstracted, Master George--but you know me. Whenever
I get amongst the wheels," said Mr. Ramsay, "why, 'tis----"

"Lucky that you deal in small ones," said his friend; as, awakened from
his reveries and calculations, Ramsay led the way up a little back-stair
to the first storey, occupied by his daughter and his little household.

The apprentices resumed their places in the front-shop, and relieved
Sam Porter; when Jenkin said to Tunstall--"Didst see, Frank, how the old
goldsmith cottoned in with his beggarly countryman? When would one
of his wealth have shaken hands so courteously with a poor
Englishman?--Well, I'll say that for the best of the Scots, that they
will go over head and ears to serve a countryman, when they will not
wet a nail of their finger to save a Southron, as they call us, from
drowning. And yet Master George is but half-bred Scot neither in that
respect; for I have known him do many a kind thing to the English too."

"But hark ye, Jenkin," said Tunstall, "I think you are but half-bred
English yourself. How came you to strike on the Scotsman's side after
all?"

"Why, you did so, too," answered Vincent.

"Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no Cumberland fashion
to fall fifty upon one," replied Tunstall.

"And no Christ Church fashion neither," said Jenkin. "Fair play and Old
England for ever!--Besides, to tell you a secret, his voice had a twang
in it--in the dialect I mean--reminded me of a little tongue, which I
think sweeter--sweeter than the last toll of St. Dunstan's will sound,
on the day that I am shot of my indentures--Ha!--you guess who I mean,
Frank?"

"Not I, indeed," answered Tunstall.--"Scotch Janet, I suppose, the
laundress."


"Off with Janet in her own bucking-basket!--No, no, no!--You blind
buzzard,--do you not know I mean pretty Mrs. Marget?"

"Umph!" answered Tunstall, dryly.

A flash of anger, not unmingled with suspicion, shot from Jenkin's keen
black eyes.

"Umph!--and what signifies umph? I am not the first 'prentice has
married his master's daughter, I suppose?"

"They kept their own secret, I fancy," said Tunstall, "at least till
they were out of their time."

"I tell you what it is, Frank," answered Jenkin, sharply, "that may
be the fashion of you gentlefolks, that are taught from your biggin to
carry two faces under the same hood, but it shall never be mine."

"There are the stairs, then," said Tunstall, coolly; "go up and ask Mrs.
Marget of our master just now, and see what sort of a face he will wear
under _his_ hood."

"No, I wonnot," answered Jenkin; "I am not such a fool as that neither.
But I will take my own time; and all the Counts in Cumberland shall not
cut my comb, and this is that which you may depend upon."

Francis made no reply; and they resumed their usual attention to the
business of the shop, and their usual solicitations to the passengers.




CHAPTER III


_Bobadil._ I pray you, possess no gallant of your acquaintance with a
knowledge of my lodging. _Master Matthew._ Who, I, sir?--Lord, sir! _Ben
Jonson._

The next morning found Nigel Olifaunt, the young Lord of Glenvarloch,
seated, sad and solitary, in his little apartment, in the mansion
of John Christie, the ship-chandler; which that honest tradesman, in
gratitude perhaps to the profession from which he derived his chief
support, appeared to have constructed as nearly as possible upon the
plan of a ship's cabin.

It was situated near to Paul's Wharf, at the end of one of those
intricate and narrow lanes, which, until that part of the city was swept
away by the Great Fire in 1666, constituted an extraordinary labyrinth
of small, dark, damp, and unwholesome streets and alleys, in one corner
or other of which the plague was then as surely found lurking, as in the
obscure corners of Constantinople in our own time. But John Christie's
house looked out upon the river, and had the advantage, therefore,
of free air, impregnated, however, with the odoriferous fumes of the
articles in which the ship-chandler dealt, with the odour of pitch, and
the natural scent of the ooze and sludge left by the reflux of the tide.

Upon the whole, except that his dwelling did not float with the
flood-tide, and become stranded with the ebb, the young lord was nearly
as comfortably accommodated as he was while on board the little trading
brig from the long town of Kirkaldy, in Fife, by which he had come a
passenger to London. He received, however, every attention which could
be paid him by his honest landlord, John Christie; for Richie Moniplies
had not thought it necessary to preserve his master's _incognito_ so
completely, but that the honest ship-chandler could form a guess that
his guest's quality was superior to his appearance.

As for Dame Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laughter-loving dame,
with black eyes, a tight well-laced bodice, a green apron, and a red
petticoat edged with a slight silver lace, and judiciously shortened so
as to show that a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon her
well-burnished shoe,--she, of course, felt interest in a young man, who,
besides being very handsome, good-humoured, and easily satisfied with
the accommodations her house afforded, was evidently of a rank, as well
as manners, highly superior to the skippers (or Captains, as they called
themselves) of merchant vessels, who were the usual tenants of the
apartments which she let to hire; and at whose departure she was sure to
find her well-scrubbed floor soiled with the relics of tobacco, (which,
spite of King James's Counterblast, was then forcing itself into use,)
and her best curtains impregnated with the odour of Geneva and strong
waters, to Dame Nelly's great indignation; for, as she truly said, the
smell of the shop and warehouse was bad enough without these additions.

But all Mr. Olifaunt's habits were regular and cleanly, and his address,
though frank and simple, showed so much of the courtier and gentleman,
as formed a strong contrast with the loud halloo, coarse jests, and
boisterous impatience of her maritime inmates. Dame Nelly saw that her
guest was melancholy also, notwithstanding his efforts to seem contented
and cheerful; and, in short, she took that sort of interest in him,
without being herself aware of the extent, which an unscrupulous gallant
might have been tempted to improve to the prejudice of honest John,
who was at least a score of years older than his helpmate. Olifaunt,
however, had not only other matters to think of, but would have regarded
such an intrigue, had the idea ever occurred to him, as an abominable
and ungrateful encroachment upon the laws of hospitality, his religion
having been by his late father formed upon the strict principles of the
national faith, and his morality upon those of the nicest honour. He
had not escaped the predominant weakness of his country, an overweening
sense of the pride of birth, and a disposition to value the worth and
consequence of others according to the number and the fame of their
deceased ancestors; but this pride of family was well subdued, and
in general almost entirely concealed, by his good sense and general
courtesy.

Such as we have described him, Nigel Olifaunt, or rather the young
Lord Glenvarloch, was, when our narrative takes him up, under great
perplexity respecting the fate of his trusty and only follower, Richard
Moniplies, who had been dispatched by his young master, early the
preceding morning, as far as the court at Westminster, but had not yet
returned. His evening adventures the reader is already acquainted with,
and so far knows more of Richie than did his master, who had not heard
of him for twenty-four hours.

Dame Nelly Christie, in the meantime, regarded her guest with some
anxiety, and a great desire to comfort him, if possible. She placed on
the breakfast-table a noble piece of cold powdered beef, with its usual
guards of turnip and carrot, recommended her mustard as coming direct
from her cousin at Tewkesbury, and spiced the toast with her own
hands--and with her own hands, also, drew a jug of stout and nappy ale,
all of which were elements of the substantial breakfast of the period.

When she saw that her guest's anxiety prevented him from doing justice
to the good cheer which she set before him, she commenced her career
of verbal consolation with the usual volubility of those women in her
station, who, conscious of good looks, good intentions, and good lungs,
entertain no fear either of wearying themselves or of fatiguing their
auditors.

"Now, what the good year! are we to send you down to Scotland as thin
as you came up?--I am sure it would be contrary to the course of nature.
There was my goodman's father, old Sandie Christie, I have heard he was
an atomy when he came up from the North, and I am sure he died, Saint
Barnaby was ten years, at twenty stone weight. I was a bare-headed girl
at the time, and lived in the neighbourhood, though I had little thought
of marrying John then, who had a score of years the better of me--but he
is a thriving man and a kind husband--and his father, as I was saying,
died as fat as a church-warden. Well, sir, but I hope I have not
offended you for my little joke--and I hope the ale is to your honour's
liking,--and the beef--and the mustard?"

"All excellent--all too good," answered Olifaunt; "you have every thing
so clean and tidy, dame, that I shall not know how to live when I go
back to my own country--if ever I go back there."

This was added as it seemed involuntarily, and with a deep sigh.

"I warrant your honour go back again if you like it," said the dame:
"unless you think rather of taking a pretty well-dowered English lady,
as some of your countryfolk have done. I assure you, some of the best of
the city have married Scotsmen. There was Lady Trebleplumb, Sir Thomas
Trebleplumb the great Turkey merchant's widow, married Sir Awley
Macauley, whom your honour knows, doubtless; and pretty Mistress
Doublefee, old Sergeant Doublefee's daughter, jumped out of window,
and was married at May-fair to a Scotsman with a hard name; and old
Pitchpost the timber merchant's daughters did little better, for they
married two Irishmen; and when folks jeer me about having a Scotsman
for lodger, meaning your honour, I tell them they are afraid of their
daughters and their mistresses; and sure I have a right to stand up for
the Scots, since John Christie is half a Scotsman, and a thriving man,
and a good husband, though there is a score of years between us; and so
I would have your honour cast care away, and mend your breakfast with a
morsel and a draught."

"At a word, my kind hostess, I cannot," said Olifaunt; "I am anxious
about this knave of mine, who has been so long absent in this dangerous
town of yours."

It may be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of
consolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and
she is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who
had lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be
better to-morrow, which perhaps might not have proved an appropriate,
even if it had been a possible, mode of relief.

On this occasion she denied stoutly that Richie had been absent
altogether twenty hours; and as for people being killed in the streets
of London, to be sure two men had been found in Tower-ditch last week,
but that was far to the east, and the other poor man that had his throat
cut in the fields, had met his mishap near by Islington; and he that was
stabbed by the young Templar in a drunken frolic, by Saint Clement's
in the Strand, was an Irishman. All which evidence she produced to show
that none of these casualties had occurred in a case exactly parallel
with that of Richie, a Scotsman, and on his return from Westminster.

"My better comfort is, my good dame," answered Olifaunt, "that the lad
is no brawler or quarreller, unless strongly urged, and that he has
nothing valuable about him to any one but me."

"Your honour speaks very well," retorted the inexhaustible hostess, who
protracted her task of taking away, and putting to rights, in order
that she might prolong her gossip. "I'll uphold Master Moniplies to be
neither reveller nor brawler, for if he liked such things, he might
be visiting and junketing with the young folks about here in the
neighbourhood, and he never dreams of it; and when I asked the young
man to go as far as my gossip's, Dame Drinkwater, to taste a glass of
aniseed, and a bit of the groaning cheese,--for Dame Drinkwater has had
twins, as I told your honour, sir,--and I meant it quite civilly to the
young man, but he chose to sit and keep house with John Christie; and
I dare say there is a score of years between them, for your honour's
servant looks scarce much older than I am. I wonder what they could have
to say to each other. I asked John Christie, but he bid me go to sleep."

"If he comes not soon," said his master, "I will thank you to tell me
what magistrate I can address myself to; for besides my anxiety for the
poor fellow's safety, he has papers of importance about him."

"O! your honour may be assured he will be back in a quarter of an hour,"
said Dame Nelly; "he is not the lad to stay out twenty-four hours at a
stretch. And for the papers, I am sure your honour will pardon him for
just giving me a peep at the corner, as I was giving him a small cup,
not so large as my thimble, of distilled waters, to fortify his stomach
against the damps, and it was directed to the King's Most Excellent
Majesty; and so doubtless his Majesty has kept Richie out of civility to
consider of your honour's letter, and send back a fitting reply."

Dame Nelly here hit by chance on a more available topic of consolation
than those she had hitherto touched upon; for the youthful lord had
himself some vague hopes that his messenger might have been delayed at
Court until a fitting and favourable answer should be dispatched back to
him. Inexperienced, however, in public affairs as he certainly was,
it required only a moment's consideration to convince him of the
improbability of an expectation so contrary to all he had heard of
etiquette, as well as the dilatory proceedings in a court suit, and he
answered the good-natured hostess with a sigh, that he doubted whether
the king would even look on the paper addressed to him, far less take it
into his immediate consideration.

"Now, out upon you for a faint-hearted gentleman!" said the good
dame; "and why should he not do as much for us as our gracious Queen
Elizabeth? Many people say this and that about a queen and a king, but
I think a king comes more natural to us English folks; and this good
gentleman goes as often down by water to Greenwich, and employs as many
of the barge-men and water-men of all kinds; and maintains, in his royal
grace, John Taylor, the water-poet, who keeps both a sculler and a pair
of oars. And he has made a comely Court at Whitehall, just by the river;
and since the king is so good a friend to the Thames, I cannot see,
if it please your honour, why all his subjects, and your honour in
specialty, should not have satisfaction by his hands."

"True, dame--true,--let us hope for the best; but I must take my cloak
and rapier, and pray your husband in courtesy to teach me the way to a
magistrate."

"Sure, sir," said the prompt dame, "I can do that as well as he, who has
been a slow man of his tongue all his life, though I will give him his
due for being a loving husband, and a man as well to pass in the world
as any betwixt us and the top of the lane. And so there is the sitting
alderman, that is always at the Guildhall, which is close by Paul's, and
so I warrant you he puts all to rights in the city that wisdom can mend;
and for the rest there is no help but patience. But I wish I were as
sure of forty pounds as I am that the young man will come back safe and
sound."

Olifaunt, in great and anxious doubt of what the good dame so strongly
averred, flung his cloak on one shoulder, and was about to belt on his
rapier, when first the voice of Richie Moniplies on the stair, and
then that faithful emissary's appearance in the chamber, put the matter
beyond question. Dame Nelly, after congratulating Moniplies on his
return, and paying several compliments to her own sagacity for having
foretold it, was at length pleased to leave the apartment. The truth
was, that, besides some instinctive feelings of good breeding which
combated her curiosity, she saw there was no chance of Richie's
proceeding in his narrative while she was in the room, and she therefore
retreated, trusting that her own address would get the secret out of one
or other of the young men, when she should have either by himself.

"Now, in Heaven's name, what is the matter?" said Nigel
Olifaunt.--"Where have you been, or what have you been about? You look
as pale as death. There is blood on your hand, and your clothes are
torn. What barns-breaking have you been at? You have been drunk,
Richard, and fighting."

"Fighting I have been," said Richard, "in a small way; but for being
drunk, that's a job ill to manage in this town, without money to come
by liquor; and as for barns-breaking, the deil a thing's broken but my
head. It's not made of iron, I wot, nor my claithes of chenzie-mail; so
a club smashed the tane, and a claught damaged the tither. Some misleard
rascals abused my country, but I think I cleared the causey of them.
However, the haill hive was ower mony for me at last, and I got this
eclipse on the crown, and then I was carried, beyond my kenning, to
a sma' booth at the Temple Port, whare they sell the whirligigs and
mony-go-rounds that measure out time as a man wad measure a tartan
web; and then they bled me, wold I nold I, and were reasonably civil,
especially an auld country-man of ours, of whom more hereafter."

"And at what o'clock might this be?" said Nigel.

"The twa iron carles yonder, at the kirk beside the Port, were just
banging out sax o' the clock."

"And why came you not home as soon as you recovered?" said Nigel.

"In troth, my lord, every _why_ has its _wherefore_, and this has a gude
ane," answered his follower. "To come hame, I behoved to ken whare hame
was; now, I had clean tint the name of the wynd, and the mair I asked,
the mair the folk leugh, and the farther they sent me wrang; sae I gave
it up till God should send daylight to help me; and as I saw mysell near
a kirk at the lang run, I e'en crap in to take up my night's quarters in
the kirkyard."

"In the churchyard?" said Nigel--"But I need not ask what drove you to
such a pinch."

"It wasna sae much the want o' siller, my Lord Nigel," said Richie,
with an air of mysterious importance, "for I was no sae absolute without
means, of whilk mair anon; but I thought I wad never ware a saxpence
sterling on ane of their saucy chamberlains at a hostelry, sae lang as
I could sleep fresh and fine in a fair, dry, spring night. Mony a time,
when I hae come hame ower late, and faund the West-Port steekit, and the
waiter ill-willy, I have garr'd the sexton of Saint Cuthbert's calf-ward
serve me for my quarters. But then there are dainty green graffs in
Saint Cuthbert's kirkyard, whare ane may sleep as if they were in a
down-bed, till they hear the lavrock singing up in the air as high as
the Castle; whereas, and behold, these London kirkyards are causeyed
with through-stanes, panged hard and fast thegither; and my cloak being
something threadbare, made but a thin mattress, so I was fain to give
up my bed before every limb about me was crippled. Dead folks may sleep
yonder sound enow, but deil haet else."

"And what became of you next?" said his master.

"I just took to a canny bulkhead, as they ca' them here; that is, the
boards on the tap of their bits of outshots of stalls and booths,
and there I sleepit as sound as if I was in a castle. Not but I was
disturbed with some of the night-walking queans and swaggering billies,
but when they found there was nothing to be got by me but a slash of my
Andrew Ferrara, they bid me good-night for a beggarly Scot; and I was
e'en weel pleased to be sae cheap rid of them. And in the morning, I cam
daikering here, but sad wark I had to find the way, for I had been
east as far as the place they ca' Mile-End, though it is mair like
sax-mile-end."

"Well, Richie," answered Nigel, "I am glad all this has ended so
well--go get something to eat. I am sure you need it."

"In troth do I, sir," replied Moniplies; "but, with your lordship's
leave--"

"Forget the lordship for the present, Richie, as I have often told you
before."

"Faith," replied Richie, "I could weel forget that your honour was a
lord, but then I behoved to forget that I am a lord's man, and that's
not so easy. But, however," he added, assisting his description with the
thumb and the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after the
fashion of a bird's claw, while the little finger and ring-finger were
closed upon the palm, "to the Court I went, and my friend that promised
me a sight of his Majesty's most gracious presence, was as gude as
his word, and carried me into the back offices, where I got the best
breakfast I have had since we came here, and it did me gude for the rest
of the day; for as to what I have eaten in this accursed town, it is aye
sauced with the disquieting thought that it maun be paid for. After a',
there was but beef banes and fat brose; but king's cauff, your honour
kens, is better than ither folk's corn; at ony rate, it was a' in free
awmous.--But I see," he added, stopping short, "that your honour waxes
impatient."

"By no means, Richie," said the young nobleman, with an air of
resignation, for he well knew his domestic would not mend his pace for
goading; "you have suffered enough in the embassy to have a right to
tell the story in your own way. Only let me pray for the name of the
friend who was to introduce you into the king's presence. You were very
mysterious on the subject, when you undertook, through his means, to
have the Supplication put into his Majesty's own hands, since those
sent heretofore, I have every reason to think, went no farther than his
secretary's."

"Weel, my lord," said Richie, "I did not tell you his name and quality
at first, because I thought you would be affronted at the like of him
having to do in your lordship's affairs. But mony a man climbs up in
Court by waur help. It was just Laurie Linklater, one of the yeomen of
the kitchen, that was my father's apprentice lang syne."

"A yeoman in the kitchen--a scullion!" exclaimed Lord Nigel, pacing the
room in displeasure.

"But consider, sir," said Richie, composedly, "that a' your great
friends hung back, and shunned to own you, or to advocate your petition;
and then, though I am sure I wish Laurie a higher office, for your
lordship's sake and for mine, and specially for his ain sake, being a
friendly lad, yet your lordship must consider, that a scullion, if a
yeoman of the king's most royal kitchen may be called a scullion, may
weel rank with a master-cook elsewhere; being that king's cauff, as I
said before, is better than--"

"You are right, and I was wrong," said the young nobleman. "I have no
choice of means of making my case known, so that they be honest."

"Laurie is as honest a lad as ever lifted a ladle," said Richie; "not
but what I dare to say he can lick his fingers like other folk, and
reason good. But, in fine, for I see your honour is waxing impatient, he
brought me to the palace, where a' was astir for the king going out to
hunt or hawk on Blackheath, I think they ca'd it. And there was a horse
stood with all the quarries about it, a bonny grey as ever was foaled;
and the saddle and the stirrups, and the curb and bit, o' burning gowd,
or silver gilded at least; and down, sir, came the king, with all his
nobles, dressed out in his hunting-suit of green, doubly laced, and laid
down with gowd. I minded the very face o' him, though it was lang since
I saw him. But my certie, lad, thought I, times are changed since ye
came fleeing down the back stairs of auld Holyrood House, in grit fear,
having your breeks in your hand without time to put them on, and Frank
Stewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, hard at your haunches; and if auld
Lord Glenvarloch hadna cast his mantle about his arm, and taken bluidy
wounds mair than ane in your behalf, you wald not have craw'd sae
crouse this day; and so saying, I could not but think your lordship's
Sifflication could not be less than most acceptable; and so I banged
in among the crowd of lords. Laurie thought me mad, and held me by the
cloak-lap till the cloth rave in his hand; and so I banged in right
before the king just as he mounted, and crammed the Sifflication into
his hand, and he opened it like in amaze; and just as he saw the first
line, I was minded to make a reverence, and I had the ill luck to hit
his jaud o' a beast on the nose with my hat, and scaur the creature,
and she swarved aside, and the king, that sits na mickle better than a
draff-pock on the saddle, was like to have gotten a clean coup, and that
might have cost my craig a raxing-and he flung down the paper amang the
beast's feet, and cried, 'Away wi' the fause loon that brought it!' And
they grippit me, and cried treason; and I thought of the Ruthvens that
were dirked in their ain house, for, it may be, as small a forfeit.
However, they spak only of scourging me, and had me away to the porter's
lodge to try the tawse on my back, and I was crying mercy as loud as
I could; and the king, when he had righted himself on the saddle, and
gathered his breath, cried to do me nae harm; for, said he, he is ane
of our ain Norland stots, I ken by the rowt of him,--and they a'
laughed and rowted loud eneugh. And then he said, 'Gie him a copy of
the Proclamation, and let him go down to the North by the next light
collier, before waur come o't.' So they let me go, and rode out, a
sniggering, laughing, and rounding in ilk ither's lugs. A sair life I
had wi' Laurie Linklater; for he said it wad be the ruin of him. And
then, when I told him it was in your matter, he said if he had known
before he would have risked a scauding for you, because he minded
the brave old lord, your father. And then he showed how I suld have
done,--and that I suld have held up my hand to my brow, as if the
grandeur of the king and his horse-graith thegither had casten the
glaiks in my een, and mair jackanape tricks I suld hae played, instead
of offering the Sifflication, he said, as if I had been bringing guts to
a bear." [Footnote: I am certain this prudential advice is not original
on Mr. Linklater's part, but I am not at present able to produce my
authority. I think it amounted to this, that James flung down a petition
presented by some supplicant who paid no compliments to his horse,
and expressed no admiration at the splendour of his furniture, saying,
"Shall a king cumber himself about the petition of a beggar, while
the beggar disregards the king's splendour?" It is, I think, Sir John
Harrington who recommends, as a sure mode to the king's favour, to
praise the paces of the royal palfrey.]

'For,' said he, 'Richie, the king is a weel-natured and just man of
his ain kindly nature, but he has a wheen maggots that maun be cannily
guided; and then, Richie,' says he, in a very laigh tone, 'I would tell
it to nane but a wise man like yoursell, but the king has them about him
wad corrupt an angel from heaven; but I could have gi'en you avisement
how to have guided him, but now it's like after meat mustard.'--'Aweel,
aweel, Laurie,' said I, 'it may be as you say', but since I am clear of
the tawse and the porter's lodge, sifflicate wha like, deil hae Richie
Moniplies if he come sifflicating here again.'--And so away I came, and
I wasna far by the Temple Port, or Bar, or whatever they ca' it, when I
met with the misadventure that I tauld you of before."

"Well, my honest Richie," said Lord Nigel, "your attempt was well meant,
and not so ill conducted, I think, as to have deserved so bad an issue;
but go to your beef and mustard, and we'll talk of the rest afterwards."

"There is nae mair to be spoken, sir," said his follower, "except that
I met ane very honest, fair-spoken, weel-put-on gentleman, or rather
burgher, as I think, that was in the whigmaleery man's back-shop; and
when he learned wha I was, behold he was a kindly Scot himsell, and,
what is more, a town's-bairn o' the gude town, and he behoved to compel
me to take this Portugal piece, to drink, forsooth--my certie, thought
I, we ken better, for we will eat it--and he spoke of paying your
lordship a visit."

"You did not tell him where I lived, you knave?" said the Lord Nigel,
angrily. "'Sdeath! I shall have every clownish burgher from Edinburgh
come to gaze on my distress, and pay a shilling for having seen the
motion of the Poor Noble!"

"Tell him where you lived?" said Richie, evading the question; "How
could I tell him what I kendna mysell? If I had minded the name of the
wynd, I need not have slept in the kirkyard yestreen."

"See, then, that you give no one notice of our lodging," said the young
nobleman; "those with whom I have business I can meet at Paul's, or in
the Court of Requests."

"This is steeking the stable-door when the steed is stolen," thought
Richie to himself; "but I must put him on another pin."

So thinking, he asked the young lord what was in the Proclamation which
he still held folded in his hand; "for, having little time to spell at
it," said he, "your lordship well knows I ken nought about it but the
grand blazon at the tap--the lion has gotten a claught of our auld
Scottish shield now, but it was as weel upheld when it had a unicorn on
ilk side of it."

Lord Nigel read the Proclamation, and he coloured deep with shame and
indignation as he read; for the purport was, to his injured feelings,
like the pouring of ardent spirits upon a recent wound.

"What deil's in the paper, my lord?" said Richie, unable to suppress his
curiosity as he observed his master change colour; "I wadna ask such a
thing, only the Proclamation is not a private thing, but is meant for a'
men's hearing."

"It is indeed meant for all men's hearing," replied Lord Nigel, "and it
proclaims the shame of our country, and the ingratitude of our Prince."

"Now the Lord preserve us! and to publish it in London, too!" ejaculated
Moniplies.

"Hark ye, Richard," said Nigel Olifaunt, "in this paper the Lords of the
Council set forth, that, 'in consideration of the resort of idle persons
of low condition forth from his Majesty's kingdom of Scotland to his
English Court--filling the same with their suits and supplications,
and dishonouring the royal presence with their base, poor, and beggarly
persons, to the disgrace of their country in the estimation of the
English; these are to prohibit the skippers, masters of vessels
and others, in every part of Scotland, from bringing such miserable
creatures up to Court under pain of fine and impisonment."'

"I marle the skipper took us on board," said Richie.

"Then you need not marvel how you are to get back again," said Lord
Nigel, "for here is a clause which says, that such idle suitors are to
be transported back to Scotland at his Majesty's expense, and punished
for their audacity with stripes, stocking, or incarceration, according
to their demerits--that is to say, I suppose, according to the degree of
their poverty, for I see no other demerit specified."

"This will scarcely," said Richie, "square with our old proverb--

     A King's face
     Should give grace--

But what says the paper farther, my lord?"

"O, only a small clause which especially concerns us, making some still
heavier denunciations against those suitors who shall be so bold as to
approach the Court, under pretext of seeking payment of old debts due
to them by the king, which, the paper states, is, of all species of
importunity, that which is most odious to his Majesty."

"The king has neighbours in that matter," said Richie; "but it is not
every one that can shift off that sort of cattle so easily as he does."

Their conversation was here interrupted by a knocking at the door.
Olifaunt looked out at the window, and saw an elderly respectable person
whom he knew not. Richie also peeped, and recognised, but, recognising,
chose not to acknowledge, his friend of the preceding evening. Afraid
that his share in the visit might be detected, he made his escape out
of the apartment under pretext of going to his breakfast; and left their
landlady the task of ushering Master George into Lord Nigel's apartment,
which she performed with much courtesy.




CHAPTER IV


  Ay, sir, the clouted shoe hath oft times craft in't,
  As says the rustic proverb; and your citizen,
  In's grogram suit, gold chain, and well-black'd shoes,
  Bears under his flat cap ofttimes a brain
  Wiser than burns beneath the cap and feather,
  Or seethes within the statesman's velvet nightcap.
                               _Read me my Riddle._

The young Scottish nobleman received the citizen with distant
politeness, expressing that sort of reserve by which those of the higher
ranks are sometimes willing to make a plebeian sensible that he is an
intruder. But Master George seemed neither displeased nor disconcerted.
He assumed the chair, which, in deference to his respectable appearance,
Lord Nigel offered to him, and said, after a moment's pause, during
which he had looked attentively at the young man, with respect not
unmingled with emotion--"You will forgive me for this rudeness, my
lord; but I was endeavouring to trace in your youthful countenance the
features of my good old lord, your excellent father."

There was a moment's pause ere young Glenvarloch replied, still with
a reserved manner,--"I have been reckoned like my father, sir; and am
happy to see any one that respects his memory. But the business which
calls me to this city is of a hasty as well as a private nature, and--"

"I understand the hint, my lord," said Master George, "and would not
be guilty of long detaining you from business, or more agreeable
conversation. My errand is almost done when I have said that my name is
George Heriot, warmly befriended, and introduced into the employment
of the Royal Family of Scotland, more than twenty years since, by your
excellent father; and that, learning from a follower of yours that your
lordship was in this city in prosecution of some business of importance,
it is my duty,--it is my pleasure,--to wait on the son of my respected
patron; and, as I am somewhat known both at the Court, and in the city,
to offer him such aid in the furthering of his affairs as my credit and
experience may be able to afford."

"I have no doubt of either, Master Heriot," said Lord Nigel, "and I
thank you heartily for the good-will with which you have placed them at
a stranger's disposal; but my business at Court is done and ended, and
I intend to leave London and, indeed, the island, for foreign travel
and military service. I may add, that the suddenness of my departure
occasions my having little time at my disposal."

Master Heriot did not take the hint, but sat fast, with an embarrassed
countenance however, like one who had something to say that he knew not
exactly how to make effectual. At length he said, with a dubious smile,
"You are fortunate, my lord, in having so soon dispatched your business
at Court. Your talking landlady informs me you have been but a fortnight
in this city. It is usually months and years ere the Court and a suitor
shake hands and part."

"My business," said Lord Nigel, with a brevity which was intended to
stop further discussion, "was summarily dispatched."

Still Master Heriot remained seated, and there was a cordial good-humour
added to the reverence of his appearance, which rendered it impossible
for Lord Nigel to be more explicit in requesting his absence.

"Your lordship has not yet had time," said the citizen, still attempting
to sustain the conversation, "to visit the places of amusement,--the
playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your
lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote:
Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask
what play?"

"Oh! a well-known piece," said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down
the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in
his hand,--"an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old
Debts._"

Master Heriot stooped down, saying, "Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip
Massinger;" but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked
at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, "I trust your lordship does not
think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your
claims?"

"I should scarce have thought so myself," said the young nobleman; "but
so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been
pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful
Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for
the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies."

"It is impossible!" said the citizen--"it is absolutely impossible!--If
the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still
he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so
flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead
in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people."

"I should have been of your opinion," answered Lord Nigel, in the same
tone as before; "but there is no fighting with facts."

"What was the tenor of this Supplication?" said Heriot; "or by whom was
it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or
else--"

"You may see my original draught," said the young lord, taking it out
of a small travelling strong-box; "the technical part is by my lawyer in
Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope,
with due deference and modesty."

Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. "Nothing," he said,
"can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can
have treated this petition with contempt?"

"He threw it down on the pavement," said the Lord of Glenvarloch, "and
sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the
paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes
of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with
heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England
himself."

"But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord?" said Heriot;
"for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to
the message."

"By my servant," said the Lord Nigel; "by the man you saw, and, I think,
were kind to."

"By your servant, my lord?" said the citizen; "he seems a shrewd fellow,
and doubtless a faithful; but surely--"

"You would say," said Lord Nigel, "he is no fit messenger to a king's
presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had
made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions
got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow
pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the
king's presence,--and so--"

"I understand," said Heriot; "but, my lord, why should you not, in
right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an
audience, which could not have been denied to you?"

The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very
plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having
seen service.

"I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth," he said,
after a momentary hesitation,--"I had no dress suitable for appearing
at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge;
and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door,
in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very
deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms."

"That had been, indeed, unseemly," said the citizen; "but yet, my lord,
my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak
with your domestic?"

"I see little good it can do," answered the young lord, "but the
interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore----"
He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies
appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread,
and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been
employed.--"Will your lordship grant permission," said Heriot, "that I
ask your groom a few questions?"

"His lordship's page, Master George," answered Moniplies, with a nod of
acknowledgment, "if you are minded to speak according to the letter."

"Hold your saucy tongue," said his master, "and reply distinctly to the
questions you are to be asked."

"And _truly,_ if it like your pageship," said the citizen, "for you may
remember I have a gift to discover falset."

"Weel, weel, weel," replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite
of his effrontery--"though I think that the sort of truth that serves my
master, may weel serve ony ane else."

"Pages lie to their masters by right of custom," said the citizen; "and
you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest
of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not
have it end in the whipping-post."

"And that's e'en a bad resting-place," said the well-grown page; "so
come away with your questions, Master George."

"Well, then," demanded the citizen, "I am given to understand that you
yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition,
from this honourable lord, your master."

"Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir," replied Moniplies; "there
were enow to see it besides me."

"And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt?" said
the citizen. "Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you
were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than
tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned."

"There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter," answered
Moniplies, firmly; "his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had
dirtied his fingers."

"You hear, sir," said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot.

"Hush!" said the sagacious citizen; "this fellow is not ill named--he
has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow," for Moniplies,
muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to
shamble towards the door, "answer me this farther question--When you
gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it?"

"Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George?"

"That is what I desire and insist to know," replied his interrogator.

"Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip
into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my
lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider
them baith at ance."

"A supplication of your own, you varlet!" said his master.

"Ou dear, ay, my lord," said Richie--"puir bodies hae their bits of
sifflications as weel as their betters."

"And pray, what might your worshipful petition import?" said Master
Heriot.--"Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we
shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah,
and I will stand your friend with my lord."

"It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an
auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist
gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings
and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to
my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his
Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the
saam."

"What string of impertinence is this?" said his master.

"Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke," said Richie; "here's the
bit double of the Sifflication."

Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said,
muttering betwixt his teeth--"'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's
maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of
fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for
jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for
the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I
think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this
petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took
care to present your own Supplication before your master's?"

"Troth did I not," answered Moniplies. "I thought to have given my
lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the
gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an'
the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I
crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was
bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright
and a' the risk--"

"And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave," said Nigel; "am I to
be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending
your base concerns with mine?"

"Nay, nay, nay, my lord," said the good-humoured citizen, interposing,
"I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow
me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You
have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of
conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of
him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll
make your peace."

"Na, na," said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, "if he likes to
strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has
been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just
let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would
rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his
baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us."

"Go, then," said his master, "and get out of my sight."

"Aweel I wot that is sune done," said Moniplies, retiring slowly; "I did
not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an
hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer
his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir."

And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who
has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong.

"There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The
fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me,
too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his
own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to
become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is
sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and
in no degree with himself."

"Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless," said the citizen;
"for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer
qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust
him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for
you see yourself how it may chance to fall."

"It is but too evident, Master Heriot," said the young nobleman; "and I
am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I
am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my
Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the
rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp,
and die in the battle-front like my ancestors."

"It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father,
my lord," replied Master George. "Nay, nay, never look down or shake
your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not
seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to
his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth
in this hold bias with his duty."

"I were well pleased to think so, and yet----" said Nigel Olifaunt,--"I
speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are
unredressed."

"My lord," said Master Heriot, "I speak of my royal master, not only
with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a
favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal
Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of
justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without
detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale.
You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it."

"I am surprised, Master Heriot," said the young lord, "to hear you, upon
so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with
my affairs."

"My lord," replied the goldsmith, "the nature of my employment affords
me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no
meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet
endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the
contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have
not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the
Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion,
and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek
such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I
have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was
last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been
able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information
respecting the impediments to your suit."

"Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited,"
answered Nigel, still with some reserve; "yet I hardly know how I have
deserved this interest."

"First let me satisfy you that it is real," said the citizen; "I blame
you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger
in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship
from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted
you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your
father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly
to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at
Campvere."

"I know nothing of a mortgage," said the young lord; "but there is
a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the
forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth
of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's
government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be
able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor."

"A wadset in Scotland," said Heriot, "is the same with a mortgage
on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real
creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less
a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover
of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to
gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer
his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the
transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch
will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under
cover of a sale, or some similar device."

"Can this be possible?" said Lord Nigel; "the Chancellor wept when I
took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with
letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused
himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses
of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would
carry deceit so far."

"I am not, it is true, of noble blood," said the citizen; "but once more
I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in
dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest,
save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had
any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters?"

"None," said Nigel Olifaunt, "except cold deeds and fair words. I have
thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one
yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order
that I might not want the means of exiling myself."

"Right," said Heriot; "rather than you fled not, they would themselves
furnish wings for you to fly withal."

"I will to him this instant," said the incensed youth, "and tell him my
mind of his baseness."

"Under your favour," said Heriot, detaining him, "you shall not do so.
By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though
I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you
would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to
you."

The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who
replied hastily--"Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur
damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of
serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting!"

"Leave me alone for that," said the citizen: "you have now erred as far
on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it
suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one)
for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your
follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the
matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I
will not give up the good cause."

"Sir," said the young nobleman, "your speech is so friendly, and my own
state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even
while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger."

"We are, I trust, no longer such," said the goldsmith; "and for my
guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are
re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George
Heriot."

"You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot," said Lord Nigel.

"I do not fear that," replied the goldsmith; "and I am glad to see you
smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old
lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small
request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge
hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white
broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld
Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was
barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company,
one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find
out a bonny Scots lass or so."

"I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot," said Nigel, "but I hear
the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to
let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said
the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for
the present."

"My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther," said Master George.
"I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at
me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for
I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting,
that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to
Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live
by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an
hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are
settled."

"And if they are never favourably settled?" said Nigel.

"Then, my lord," returned the citizen, "the miscarriage of such a sum
will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of
regret."

"Master Heriot," said the Lord Nigel, "your favour is generously
offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your
way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be
grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts
which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your
money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you
punctually."

"I will convince you, my lord," said the goldsmith, "that I mean to deal
with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you
shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these
monies, and an obligation to content and repay me."

He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few
lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from
a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an
hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically
upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was
an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the
word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's
forms of transacting business.

"Bear with me," he said, "my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and
thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within
the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment,
without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and,
body of me," he said, looking out at the window, "yonder come my boys
with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord;
it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in
the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent
good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held
thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift
son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of
a city-fortune."

"I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot," said the
Lord Nigel.

"I hope it will, my lord," said the old man, with a smile; "but," to use
honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,'
"it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one
adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient
and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want
inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you
good-morrow, my lord."

"One orphan has cause to thank you already," said Nigel, as he attended
him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old
citizen made his escape.

As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood
becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course
regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle
with a Dutch ship-master.

"Our way of business, sir," she said, "takes him much from home, and my
husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound
of oakum."

"All business must be minded, dame," said the goldsmith. "Make my
remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your
goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time
and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing.
Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there
be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so
that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is,
and whether he wants aught."

"And so he _is_ a real lord after all?" said the good dame. "I am sure I
always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament,
then?"

"He will, dame," answered Heriot, "to the Parliament of Scotland, which
is his own country."

"Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then," said the good dame; "and that's the
thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say."

"Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame," replied the citizen.

"Who, I, sir?" answered she; "no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot
or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather
than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as
far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too."

"Let your husband come to me, good dame," said the goldsmith, who,
with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and
disciplinarian. "The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and
let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is
more seemly. God give ye good-morrow."

"Good-morrow to your worship," said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so
soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter,
in contempt of his council, "Marry quep of your advice, for an old
Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as
old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he
is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride
upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after
him, as well as they do."




CHAPTER V


Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There
are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening,
Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling;
Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by
whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious
sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._

It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was
mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been
informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame
Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy
which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to
maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to
Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King
James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to
purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule,
that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and
crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm
the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an
eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the
metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the
sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset,
usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure
themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which
was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to
those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with
a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe
subjects of plunder by the street-robber.

As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant
attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the
ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to
adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master;
in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his
den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening
here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the
intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for
a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and
heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress
Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with
a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer.

"I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee," muttered Heriot to
himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,--"I pray you,
neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion
wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and
that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have
had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put
you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand."

There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory
dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can
resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie,
and answered in a pettish tone, "Wow, George, man, what needs aw this
din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims
on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious
Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye
may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an
unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine."

Heriot laughed, and replied, "Well, David, I see a demand of money is
like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world
at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you
will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret,
my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the
Lord of Glenvarloch?"

"The young Lord of Glenvarloch!" said the old mechanist; "wi' aw my
heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these
forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a
sweet youth."

"That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard
Dot-and-carry-one that you are," answered the goldsmith. "A sweet youth
he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is
his son, the Lord Nigel."

"His son!" said Ramsay; "maybe he will want something of a chronometer,
or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days."

"He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for
what I know," said his friend; "but, David, remember your bond, and
use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the
cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon."

"She had the more credit by her cookery," answered David, now fully
awake; "a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our
saying."

"Well," answered Master George, "but as there will be no sheep's-head
to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb
cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo
Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide
tryste, Davie."

"That will I--I will be true as a chronometer," said Ramsay.

"I will not trust you, though," replied Heriot.--"Hear you, Jenkin boy,
tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she
must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow,
and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a
brave young Scots lord."

Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are
either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to
which they must not enter a dissent.

"Umph!" repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was
something of a martinet in domestic discipline--"what does _umph_ mean?
Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah?"

"Sure, Master George Heriot," said the apprentice, touching his cap,
"I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an
invitation."

"Why, no," said Master George; "she is a dutiful girl to her god-father,
though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and
your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her
safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the
porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my
knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are
broken out worse and lighter than ever."

"We can keep their steel in order with good handbats," said Jenkin; "and
never trouble your servants for the matter."

"Or, if need be," said Tunstall, "we have swords as well as the
Templars."

"Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man," said the citizen;--"An apprentice
with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat
and feather."

"Well, sir," said Jenkin--"we will find arms fitting to our station, and
will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very
stones of the pavement."

"There spoke a London 'prentice bold," said the citizen; "and, for your
comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the
Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving
lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow
at noon." And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and
crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became
his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no
inconvenience to keep up with him.

At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into
one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A
young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then
cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched
hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered
with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of,
"How goes business, Andrew?"--"Aw the better for your worship's kind
countenance and maintenance."

"Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb,
and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife
course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never
come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with
one quill." [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the
author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred
printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of
manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at
the end of the volume--

    "With one good pen I wrote this book,
       Made of a grey goose quill;
     A pen it was when it I took,
       And a pen I leave it still."]

"Ah! sir," said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though
instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and
acquiescence, "how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the
world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship!"

"My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise.
Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and
worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal
hand. I will wait by you till it is done."

The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from
his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction.
The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on
his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his
mule, and rode on westward along the Strand.

It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which
Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present
day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of
alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also,
along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although
it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be
considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various
houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them
down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience
of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly
owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The
north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which,
as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly
arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense
of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular
buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid
increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a
regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the
shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which
should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a
connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the
city of London.

He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary
village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to
Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to
use Johnson's expression "pours the full tide of London population." The
buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint
idea of its present appearance.

At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of
the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated
brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the
West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of
Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was
just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in
constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass
in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in
removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and
Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo
Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now
engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained
his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings,
and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which
formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed.

The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true,
oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as
yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to
receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving
his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked
at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the
most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece
of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an
ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but
untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and
nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and
draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes.
A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied
by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of
recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered.

No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first
to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which
seemed to say, as plain as a look could, "Lies your business that way?"
The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with
as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to
the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The
broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,--"Admit him
instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not
learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome?"

The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was
presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign.

The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad
picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much
that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments;
but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost
half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which
they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios,
amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes
of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled
miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled
himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification
of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies
against canine madness.

The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be
dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly
protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure
an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured
nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His
high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled
by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap,
in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been
struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight,
in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather.

But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward
types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a
subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a
problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing
useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having
real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it,
yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most
unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet
one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations,
in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where
conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was
perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public
labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though
a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant
and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there
were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the
spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler
where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet
too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet
gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious
respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet
inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see.
In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular
cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and
comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves
as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed
on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom.

That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his
character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded
peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors
had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly,
although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that
lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's
disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of
dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their
harvest in a bloody and universal civil war.

Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling
Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all
those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new
clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native
Prince out of his siller.

"God forbid, my liege," said the citizen, "that I should have any such
disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most
gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship,
I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your
Majesty's pleasure anent it."

"Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's
service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word
as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you,
Geordie, keep yours."

"Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate," said the goldsmith, "your
Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and--"

"What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and
bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair
sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain
gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they
didna."

George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to
vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and
James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of
conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of
plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell
to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen
whence he had procured it.

"From Italy, may it please your Majesty," replied Heriot.

"It has naething in it tending to papistrie?" said the king, looking
graver than his wont.

"Surely not, please your Majesty," said Heriot; "I were not wise to
bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast."

"You would be the mair beast yourself to do so," said the king; "it is
weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the
groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time
called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes
Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius."

Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver,
for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable
for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture.

"Saul of my body, man," said the king, "it is a curious piece, and, as
I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master
George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of
Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to
walk with emulation."

"But whose footsteps," said Maxwell, "only one of them--if a subject may
say so much--hath ever overtaken."

"Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon!" said the king, but with
a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. "Look
at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And
whase handiwork may it be, Geordie?"

"It was wrought, sir," replied the goldsmith, "by the famous Florentine,
Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I
hope it will find a fitter master."

"Francis of France!" said the king; "send Solomon, King of the Jews, to
Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad,
had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he
was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at
Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent
him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune
him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than
Francis of France."

"I trust that such will be his good fortune," said Heriot.

"It is a curious and very artificial sculpture," said the king, in
continuation; "but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there,
is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within
reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught
him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the
smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back."

George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the
king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in
appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed
for.

"Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man," said the king; "there
canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in
luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in
his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to
ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But
a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man?"

The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property,
but that of a distressed countryman.

"Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth,
I warrant?" answered the king. "I ken the tricks of you burrows-town
merchants, man."

"I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity," said Heriot; "the
piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds
sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment."

"A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to
raise them!" said the irritated Monarch. "My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye
are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to
tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many
merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of
my mouth, are sax months in arrear!"

The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what
he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked
the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled.
It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot,
would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure,
and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters;
the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage.

"By my honour," said James, "and that is speaking like an honest and
reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and
that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it,
and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they
return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend
Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the
haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to
the Southland here."

George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that "the wise naturally
follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader."

"Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest," said James;
"for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou
thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned
as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those
we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae
mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en."

"I am sorry to hear this, my liege," said Heriot. "May it please your
Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character?"

"They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed," answered the king.
"I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the
heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane,
just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough
Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was
bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have
served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our
hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our
gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end,
and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to
excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise
you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway."

"Your Majesty," said Heriot, "is their common father, and therefore they
are the bolder to press into your gracious presence."

"I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough," said James; "but one would
think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide
the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can
deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty."

"I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so,"
said Heriot, "were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better
fashions."

"By my halidome," said the king, "ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie,
and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first,
see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing
your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of
the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely
manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the
hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel
enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards
our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having
a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your
pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our
open palm." The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all
the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's
no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord
of Glenvarloch. "What means this, ye fause loon?" said he, reddening and
sputtering; "hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld
present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as
lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae
ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain
pleasure."

"I trust your Majesty," said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, "will
forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the
behalf of a friend?"

"Of a friend!" said the king; "so much the waur--so much the waur, I
tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would
have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have
come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and
petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other."

"Your Majesty, I trust," said Heriot, "will judge me by former
experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption."

"I kenna," said the placable monarch; "the world goes daft, I
think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful
servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof,
man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so
dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but
himself.--Maxwell," (for the usher had re-entered after having carried
off the plate,) "get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In
conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld
fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic
poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged
my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers,
and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were
of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the
dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were
fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's
dowcot and poul

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