CHAPTER X
Bid not thy fortune troll upon the wheels Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone; And drown it not, like Egypt's royal harlot, Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm'd wine-cup. These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres Into brief yards--bring sterling pounds to farthings, Credit to infamy; and the poor gull, Who might have lived an honour'd, easy life, To ruin, and an unregarded grave. _The Changes._
When they were fairly embarked on the Thames, the earl took from hispocket the Supplication, and, pointing out to George Heriot the royalwarrant indorsed thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular form?The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand as if tocongratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then checked himself, pulled outhis barnacles, (a present from old David Ramsay,) and again perusedthe warrant with the most business-like and critical attention. "Itis strictly correct and formal," he said, looking to the Earl ofHuntinglen; "and I sincerely rejoice at it."
"I doubt nothing of its formality," said the earl; "the king understandsbusiness well, and, if he does not practise it often, it is only becauseindolence obscures parts which are naturally well qualified for thedischarge of affairs. But what is next to be done for our young friend,Master Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living atthe English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless a sum can bepresently raised on this warrant, matters standing as you hastilyhinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or whatever it is called, will beforeclosed."
"It is true," said Heriot, in some embarrassment; "there is a large sumwanted in redemption--yet, if it is not raised, there will be an expiryof the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted."
"My noble--my worthy friends, who have taken up my cause soundeservedly, so unexpectedly," said Nigel, "do not let me be a burdenon your kindness. You have already done too much where nothing wasmerited."
"Peace, man, peace," said Lord Huntinglen, "and let old Heriot and Ipuzzle this scent out. He is about to open--hark to him!"
"My lord," said the citizen, "the Duke of Buckingham sneers at our citymoney-bags; yet they can sometimes open, to prop a falling and a noblehouse."
"We know they can," said Lord Huntinglen--"mind not Buckingham, he is aPeg-a-Ramsay--and now for the remedy."
"I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already," said Heriot, "that theredemption money might be advanced upon such a warrant as the present,and I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to securethe lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom headvances payment."
"Come in his shoes!" replied the earl; "why, what have boots or shoes todo with this matter, my good friend?"
"It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few ofthem," said Heriot.
"Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George," replied LordHuntinglen; "but what means it?"
"Simply this," resumed the citizen; "that the lender of this money willtransact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the estate ofGlenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his right asshall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant uponthe Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. I fear, in thisuncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter security,it will be very difficult to find so large a sum."
"Ho la!" said the Earl of Huntinglen, "halt there! a thoughtstrikes me.--What if the new creditor should admire the estate as ahunting-field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, andshould wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems tome, that on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as wellentitled to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the presentholder of the mortgage."
The citizen laughed. "I will engage," he said, "that the keenestsportsman to whom I may apply on this occasion, shall not have athought beyond the Lord Mayor's Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But yourlordship's caution is reasonable. The creditor must be bound to allowLord Glenvarloch sufficient time to redeem his estate by means ofthe royal warrant, and must wave in his favour the right of instantforeclosure, which may be, I should think, the more easily managed, asthe right of redemption must be exercised in his own name."
"But where shall we find a person in London fit to draw the necessarywritings?" said the earl. "If my old friend Sir John Skene of Halyardshad lived, we should have had his advice; but time presses, and--"
"I know," said Heriot, "an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dwells byTemple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the English and Scottishfashion, and I have trusted him often in matters of weight and ofimportance. I will send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutualdeeds may be executed in your lordship's presence; for, as things stand,there should be no delay." His lordship readily assented; and, as theynow landed upon the private stairs leading down to the river from thegardens of the handsome hotel which he inhabited, the messenger wasdispatched without loss of time.
Nigel, who had sat almost stupefied while these zealous friendsvolunteered for him in arranging the measures by which his fortune wasto be disembarrassed, now made another eager attempt to force uponthem his broken expressions of thanks and gratitude. But he was againsilenced by Lord Huntinglen, who declared he would not hear a word onthat topic, and proposed instead, that they should take a turn in thepleached alley, or sit upon the stone bench which overlooked the Thames,until his son's arrival should give the signal for dinner.
"I desire to introduce Dalgarno and Lord Glenvarloch to each other," hesaid, "as two who will be near neighbours, and I trust will be more kindones than their fathers were formerly. There is but three Scots milesbetwixt the castles, and the turrets of the one are visible from thebattlements of the other."
The old earl was silent for a moment, and appeared to muse upon therecollections which the vicinity of the castles had summoned up.
"Does Lord Dalgarno follow the Court to Newmarket next week?" saidHeriot, by way of removing the conversation.
"He proposes so, I think," answered Lord Huntinglen, relapsed intohis reverie for a minute or two, and then addressed Nigel somewhatabruptly--
"My young friend, when you attain possession of your inheritance, as Ihope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followersof the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish yourancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the pooragainst subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, withfewer lights and with less means than we have."
"And yet the advice to keep the country," said Heriot, "comes from anancient and constant ornament of the Court."
"From an old courtier, indeed," said the earl, "and the first of myfamily that could so write himself--my grey beard falls on a cambricruff and a silken doublet--my father's descended upon a buff coat anda breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but Ishould love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring oncemore with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone-archedhall return the hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the bickerand the quaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I should like to seethe broad Tay once more before I die--not even the Thames can match it,in my mind."
"Surely, my lord," said the citizen, "all this might be easily done--itcosts but a moment's resolution, and the journey of some brief days, andyou will be where you desire to be--what is there to prevent you?"
"Habits, Master George, habits," replied the earl, "which to young menare like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken; butwhich hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves ofiron. To go to Scotland for a brief space were but labour in vain; andwhen I think of abiding there, I cannot bring myself to leave my oldmaster, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful, and whose weal andwoe I have shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scottishnoble."
"Has he visited the North?" said Heriot.
"He was there last year and made such a report of the country, that theprince has expressed a lon
ging to see it."
"Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his Highness and the Duke ofBuckingham?" observed the goldsmith.
"He is so," answered the earl,--"I pray it may be for the advantage ofthem all. The prince is just and equitable in his sentiments, thoughcold and stately in his manners, and very obstinate in his most triflingpurposes; and the duke, noble and gallant, and generous and open, isfiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno has none of these faults,and such as he may have of his own, may perchance be corrected by thesociety in which he moves.--See, here he comes."
Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley tothe bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that Nigelhad full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was dressedpoint-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of thetime, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty,with a noble form and fine countenance, in which last could easily betraced the manly features of his father, but softened by a morehabitual air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had evercondescended to assume towards the world in general. In other respects,his address was gallant, free, and unencumbered either by pride orceremony--far remote certainly from the charge either of haughtycoldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly freedhim from the marked faults which he ascribed to the manners of theprince and his favourite Buckingham.
While the old earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch tohis son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked thecountenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aughtof that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his brokenexpostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clashing ofinterests betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothingof this was visible; on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his newacquaintance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes conquestat once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous young man.
It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equallyready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months, andwhile a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained bycircumstances from the conversation of his equals. When, on his father'ssudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had foundhimself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with the detailsof the law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of thepatrimony which should support his hereditary rank. His term of sinceremourning, joined to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart underunexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertaintyattending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young Lord ofGlenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reservedmanner. How he had passed his time in London, the reader is acquaintedwith. But this melancholy and secluded course of life was neitheragreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was genial and sociable.He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the approaches which ayoung man of his own age and rank made towards him; and when he hadexchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by which,as surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognise a mutualwish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two noblemen hadbeen acquainted for some time.
Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of LordHuntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards aman dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed,considering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, hekept his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that hecame in sight of the company to which he was about to be presented.
"Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old lord, who had retainedthe keen appetite and impatience of a Scottish baron even during a longalienation from his native country; "and why does John Cook, with amurrain to him, keep back dinner?"
"I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion,"said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.--Lookup, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead ofbeating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram."
The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action of an automatonwhich suddenly obeys the impulse of a pressed spring. But, strange totell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron's mandate,a business, as Master Heriot's message expressed, of weight andimportance--nay not even the state of depression in which, out of sheerhumility, doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from themoment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had calledany colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow from hasteand toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before;nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hungdown on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it waswhen we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet andhumble desk.
Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous andpuritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to thecompany, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch's ear--
"The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon, Where got'st thou that goose-look?"
Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage to understand aquotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London.Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, "Thatfellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most hypocriticalrogue--and such is my excellent opinion of human nature, that I alwayssuspect the worst. But they seem deep in business. Will you take aturn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member of theserious conclave?"
"With you, my lord, most willingly," said Nigel; and they were turningaway accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belongingto his station, observed, that, "as their business concerned LordGlenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, andwitness to it."
"My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, my best friend,Master Heriot," said the young nobleman, "I shall understand nothingthe better for cumbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and canonly say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare not takethe helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already guidedmy course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven. Whatever yourecommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the import of thedeeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation from Master Heriot, ifhe will bestow so much trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learnedwords and law terms from this person of skill."
"He is right," said Lord Huntinglen; "our young friend is right, inconfiding these matters to you and me, Master George Heriot--he has notmisplaced his confidence."
Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two young noblemen, whohad now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, "He hathnot, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and trulysays--but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it behovesevery man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon as he hathany that are worth attending to."
When he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with thescrivener, to look into various papers, and to direct in what mannerwritings should be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient securityto those who were to advance the money, and at the same time preservethe right of the young nobleman to redeem the family estate, provided heshould obtain the means of doing so, by the expected reimbursement fromthe Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is needless to enter into thosedetails. But it is not unimportant to mention, as an illustration ofcharacter, that Heriot went into the most minute legal details with aprecision which showed that experience had made him master even of theintricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the Earl of Huntinglen,though far less acquainted with technical detail, suffered no step ofthe business to pass over, until he had attained a general but distinctidea of its import and its propriety.
They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevolent intentionstowards the young Lord Glenvarl
och, by the skill and eager zeal of thescrivener, whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of business, themost important which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and theparticulars of which were moreover agitated in his presence between anactual earl, and one whose wealth and character might entitle him to bean alderman of his ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn.
While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earleven forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, inhis anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions, andthat all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him toengross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on theterrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which LordDalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most likely tointerest his new friend.
These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and LordDalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel proposed aninstant return to Scotland.
"You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings--it is needlessto mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit--against thehighest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall.Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you--ask each other,who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so far in a single day?They augur, in whispers to each other, how high and how far you may pushyour fortune--and all that you design to make of it, is, to return toScotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your handshaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin,though your relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale,eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon agalloway, and be called my right honourable and maist worthy lord!"
"There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," saidLord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot shouldsucceed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yetI trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me, and toteach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personalsacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity thesituation in which they are placed by Providence."
Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter duringthis speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty andso resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigelalong with him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to joinin a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but almostimpertinent.
He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a tone qualified toallay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth: "This is all well, my lord; but howam I to understand your merriment?" Lord Dalgarno only answered him withredoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord Glenvarloch'scloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground, in the extremityof his convulsion.
At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half angry, at becoming thusthe subject of his new acquaintance's ridicule, and was only restrainedfrom expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense of theobligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno recovered himself, andspoke in a half-broken voice, his eyes still running with tears: "Icrave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch--ten thousand times do Icrave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, accompaniedby your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what would have madeany court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon oncefrom the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame me. Why, my liefestand dearest lord, you, a young and handsome fellow, with high birth, atitle, and the name of an estate, so well received by the king at yourfirst starting, as makes your further progress scarce matter of doubt,if you know how to improve it--for the king has already said you are a'braw lad, and well studied in the more humane letters'--you, too, whomall the women, and the very marked beauties of the Court, desire to see,because you came from Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained ahard-contested suit in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince,an eye of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards onthe table when the game is in your very hand, running back to thefrozen north, and marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed,fair-skinned bony wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sortof Lot's wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shutyourself up in your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall neversurvive the idea!"
It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from merestrength of character and principle, to support itself against the forceof ridicule. Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half ashamedof his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and flatteredhimself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a rigid moral patriot,in presence of a young man whose current fluency of language, as well ashis experience in the highest circles of society, gave him, in spite ofNigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary ascendency over him. Hesought, therefore, to compromise the matter, and avoid farther debate,by frankly owning, that, if to return to his own country were not hischoice, it was at least a matter of necessity. "His affairs," he said,"were unsettled, his income precarious."
"And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose income is less thanprecarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?" said LordDalgarno; "all are either losing or winning. Those who have wealth, comehither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who, like you and I,dear Glenvarloch, have little or none, have every chance to be sharersin their spoils."
"I have no ambition of that sort," said Nigel, "and if I had, I musttell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so. I canscarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot blushto say so, to the friendship of yonder good man."
"I will not laugh again, if I can help it," said Lord Dalgarno."But, Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for yourhabit--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor,who should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of thelittle word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and thenyour goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should haveequipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have boughtyou thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."
"I do not understand these fashions, my lord," said Nigel, hisdispleasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of mysovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting orborrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires."
"Which my rank requires!" said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last words;"that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it. I fancy youwould love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score ofold blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers andbroadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong waters,can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms, toshow whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard ofplate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with theflavour of onions and genievre--pah!"
"The poor knaves!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "they have served your father,it may be, in the wars. What would become of them were he to turn themoff?"
"Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, "or to thebridge-end, to sell switches. The king is a better man than my father,and you see those who have served in HIS wars do so every day; or, whentheir blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows.Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven darednot come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is moreservice, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and sucha lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these oldmemorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged bythe Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name fromthe figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of Morton.Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.] where theycut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Scotson the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make amends, they wil
leat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if their bellies werepuncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound--hark, it is clearingits rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That is another clamorousrelic of antiquity, that, were I master, should soon be at the bottomof the Thames. How the foul fiend can it interest the peasants andmechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sittingdown to dinner? But my father looks our way--we must not be late for thegrace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble whichwould have made his Majesty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and,having been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you shouldwitness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis,as large as Highland hills and lochs; but you shall see better cheerto-morrow. Where lodge you? I will call for you. I must be your guidethrough the peopled desert, to certain enchanted lands, which you willscarce discover without chart and pilot. Where lodge you?"
"I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good deal embarrassed, "atany hour you please to name."
"O, you would be private," said the young lord; "nay, fear not me--Iwill be no intruder. But we have attained this huge larder of flesh,fowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it."
They had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the mansion, where thetable was superabundantly loaded, and where the number of attendants,to a certain extent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young nobleman.The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the party. The lattercomplimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had made at Court."One would have thought ye had brought the apple of discord in yourpouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of whilk Althea wasdelivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of gunpowder, for theking, and the prince, and the duke, have been by the lugs about ye, andso have many more, that kendna before this blessed day that there wassuch a man living on the face of the earth."
"Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo," said the earl; "they get cold whileyou talk."
"Troth, and that needsna, my lord," said the knight; "your lordship'sdinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are turning auld, likeoursells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen and the ha'."
With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo remained satisfied,until the dishes were removed, when, fixing his eyes on the brave newdoublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his economy, pretendingto recognise it as the same which his father had worn in Edinburgh inthe Spanish ambassador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too much a man of theworld to be moved by any thing from such a quarter, proceeded to cracksome nuts with great deliberation, as he replied, that the doublet wasin some sort his father's, as it was likely to cost him fifty poundssome day soon. Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in his own way to conveythis agreeable intelligence to the earl, observing, that his son was abetter maker of bargains than his lordship, for he had bought a doubletas rich as that his lordship wore when the Spanish ambassador was atHolyrood, and it had cost him but fifty pounds Scots;--"that was nofool's bargain, my lord."
"Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo," answered the earl, calmly;"and a fool's bargain it is, in all the tenses. Dalgarno WAS a fool whenhe bought--I _will_ be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir Mungo, cravingyour pardon, _are_ a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking of what concernsyou not."
So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of thetable and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased thehilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, untiltheir joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivenerhad engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed.
George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legaldocuments were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if theyhad laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and receivedthe respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such anungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lordship's pleasure wasperformed.
"Thou shalt eat before thou goest," said Lord Huntinglen; "and I willhave thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some colourinto these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household, thoushouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion asthou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof isconcerned."
Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. LordGlenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and interchanged,and thus closed a transaction, of which the principal party concernedunderstood little, save that it was under the management of a zealousand faithful friend, who undertook that the money should be forthcoming,and the estate released from forfeiture, by payment of the stipulatedsum for which it stood pledged, and that at the term of Lambmas, and atthe 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 placeassigned for such redemption. [Footnote: As each covenant in those daysof accuracy had a special place nominated for execution, the tomb of theRegent Earl of Murray in Saint Giles's Church was frequently assignedfor the purpose.]
When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have renewedhis carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the deeds hehad about him, and the business he had to transact betimes the nextmorning, not only refused to return to table, but carried with him tohis barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been otherwisefound more tractable.
When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on theriver, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they hadleft--"There live," he said, "the old fashion and the new. The fatheris like a noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect andinactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt,and fashioned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince ifthe metal be as good as the show. God grant it prove so, says an oldfriend to the family."
Nothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch,landing at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, andretired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a littleelevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality of LordHuntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of them tothe buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at length wasshining upon what Richie called "the right side of the hedge."