The Fortunes of Nigel

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI

You are not for the manner nor the times,
They have their vices now most like to virtues;
You cannot know them apait by any difference,
They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat —
Sleep i’ the self-same beds, ride in those coaches,
Or very like four horses in a coach,
As the best men and women.

    Ben Jonson
On the following morning, while Nigel, his breakfast finished, was thinking how he should employ the day, there was a little bustle upon the stairs which attracted his attention, and presently entered Dame Nelly, blushing like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out – “A young nobleman, sir – no one less,” she added, drawing her hand slightly over her lips, “would be so saucy – a young nobleman, sir, to wait on you!”

And she was followed into the little cabin by Lord Dalgarno, gay, easy, disembarrassed, and apparently as much pleased to rejoin his new acquaintance as if he had found him in the apartments of a palace. Nigel, on the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circumstances,) was discountenanced and mortified at being surprised by so splendid a gallant in a chamber which, at the moment the elegant and high-dressed cavalier appeared in it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower, narrower, darker, and meaner than it had ever shown before. He would have made some apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno cut him short —

“Not a word of it,” he said, “not a single word – I know why you ride at anchor here – but I can keep counsel – so pretty a hostess would recommend worse quarters.”

“On my word – on my honour,” said Lord Glenvarloch —

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

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

He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord Dalgarno had long since breakfasted, but had just come from playing a set of tennis, he said, and would willingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess’s single beer. This was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, as the hostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord Dalgarno profited by the opportunity to take a second and more attentive view of her, and then gravely drank to her husband’s health, with an almost imperceptible nod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much honoured, smoothed her apron down with her hands, and said

“Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their lordships – he was a kind painstaking man for his family, as was in the alley, or indeed, as far north as Paul’s Chain.”

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

Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at Glenvarloch, shook his head, and repeated the well-known lines —

“‘My lord, beware of jealousy – It is the green-eyed monster which doth make the meat it feeds on.’

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

So saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for Lord Glenvarloch, in spite of his anxious haste to anticipate this act of courtesy, he proceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity: —

“We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other. Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish neighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemies – must either walk hand-in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose the hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer.”

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

“The friend thanks you,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “for your just opinion; but, my dear Glenvarloch – or rather, for titles are too formal between us of the better file – what is your Christian name?”

“Nigel,” replied Lord Glenvarloch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas – ’

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

“The vase of earth,” said Glenvarloch, “will avoid the encounter, by getting ashore out of the current – I mean to go no more to Court.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He may be an orphan,” said Lord Nigel; “but surely, being a page in your lordship’s family, his parents must be of rank.”

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

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

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

“All which qualities,” said the undaunted page, “have each in turn stood your lordship in stead.”