CHAPTER XXII
Chance will not do the work--Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us towards the port May dash us on the shelves.--The steersman's part is vigilance, Blow it or rough or smooth. _Old Play_.
We left Nigel, whose fortunes we are bound to trace by the engagementcontracted in our title-page, sad and solitary in the mansion ofTrapbois the usurer, having just received a letter instead of a visitfrom his friend the Templar, stating reasons why he could not atthat time come to see him in Alsatia. So that it appeared that hisintercourse with the better and more respectable class of society, was,for the present, entirely cut off. This was a melancholy, and, to aproud mind like that of Nigel, a degrading reflection.
He went to the window of his apartment, and found the street envelopedin one of those thick, dingy, yellow-coloured fogs, which often investthe lower part of London and Westminster. Amid the darkness, dense andpalpable, were seen to wander like phantoms a reveller or two, whom themorning had surprised where the evening left them; and who now, withtottering steps, and by an instinct which intoxication could not whollyovercome, were groping the way to their own homes, to convert day intonight, for the purpose of sleeping off the debauch which had turnednight into day. Although it was broad day in the other parts of thecity, it was scarce dawn yet in Alsatia; and none of the sounds ofindustry or occupation were there heard, which had long before arousedthe slumberers in any other quarter. The prospect was too tiresome anddisagreeable to detain Lord Glenvarloch at his station, so, turning fromthe window, he examined with more interest the furniture and appearanceof the apartment which he tenanted.
Much of it had been in its time rich and curious--there was a hugefour-post bed, with as much carved oak about it as would have made thehead of a man-of-war, and tapestry hangings ample enough to havebeen her sails. There was a huge mirror with a massy frame of giltbrass-work, which was of Venetian manufacture, and must have been wortha considerable sum before it received the tremendous crack, which,traversing it from one corner to the other, bore the same proportion tothe surface that the Nile bears to the map of Egypt. The chairs wereof different forms and shapes, some had been carved, some gilded, somecovered with damasked leather, some with embroidered work, but all weredamaged and worm-eaten. There was a picture of Susanna and the Eldersover the chimney-piece, which might have been accounted a choice piece,had not the rats made free with the chaste fair one's nose, and with thebeard of one of her reverend admirers.
In a word, all that Lord Glenvarloch saw, seemed to have been articlescarried off by appraisement or distress, or bought as pennyworths atsome obscure broker's, and huddled together in the apartment, as in asale-room, without regard to taste or congruity.
The place appeared to Nigel to resemble the houses near the sea-coast,which are too often furnished with the spoils of wrecked vessels, asthis was probably fitted up with the relics of ruined profligates.--"Myown skiff is among the breakers," thought Lord Glenvarloch, "though mywreck will add little to the profits of the spoiler."
He was chiefly interested in the state of the grate, a huge assemblageof rusted iron bars which stood in the chimney, unequally supportedby three brazen feet, moulded into the form of lion's claws, while thefourth, which had been bent by an accident, seemed proudly upliftedas if to paw the ground; or as if the whole article had nourished theambitious purpose of pacing forth into the middle of the apartment, andhad one foot ready raised for the journey. A smile passed over Nigel'sface as this fantastic idea presented itself to his fancy.--"I muststop its march, however," he thought; "for this morning is chill and rawenough to demand some fire."
He called accordingly from the top of a large staircase, with a heavyoaken balustrade, which gave access to his own and other apartments, forthe house was old and of considerable size; but, receiving no answer tohis repeated summons, he was compelled to go in search of some one whomight accommodate him with what he wanted.
Nigel had, according to the fashion of the old world in Scotland,received an education which might, in most particulars, be termedsimple, hardy, and unostentatious; but he had, nevertheless, beenaccustomed to much personal deference, and to the constant attendanceand ministry of one or more domestics. This was the universal custom inScotland, where wages were next to nothing, and where, indeed, a man oftitle or influence might have as many attendants as he pleased, forthe mere expense of food, clothes, and countenance. Nigel was thereforemortified and displeased when he found himself without notice orattendance; and the more dissatisfied, because he was at the same timeangry with himself for suffering such a trifle to trouble him at all,amongst matters of more deep concernment. "There must surely be someservants in so large a house as this," said he, as he wandered over theplace, through which he was conducted by a passage which branchedoff from the gallery. As he went on, he tried the entrance to severalapartments, some of which he found were locked and others unfurnished,all apparently unoccupied; so that at length he returned to thestaircase, and resolved to make his way down to the lower part of thehouse, where he supposed he must at least find the old gentleman, andhis ill-favoured daughter. With this purpose he first made his entranceinto a little low, dark parlour, containing a well-worn leatherneasy-chair, before which stood a pair of slippers, while on the leftside rested a crutch-handled staff; an oaken table stood before it, andsupported a huge desk clamped with iron, and a massive pewter inkstand.Around the apartment were shelves, cabinets, and other places convenientfor depositing papers. A sword, musketoon, and a pair of pistols, hungover the chimney, in ostentatious display, as if to intimate that theproprietor would be prompt in the defence of his premises.
"This must be the usurer's den," thought Nigel; and he was about tocall aloud, when the old man, awakened even by the slightest noise,for avarice seldom sleeps sound, soon was heard from the inner room,speaking in a voice of irritability, rendered more tremulous by hismorning cough.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh--who is there? I say--ugh, ugh--who is there? Why,Martha!--ugh! ugh--Martha Trapbois--here be thieves in the house, andthey will not speak to me--why, Martha!--thieves, thieves--ugh, ugh,ugh!"
Nigel endeavoured to explain, but the idea of thieves had takenpossession of the old man's pineal gland, and he kept coughing andscreaming, and screaming and coughing, until the gracious Martha enteredthe apartment; and, having first outscreamed her father, in orderto convince him that there was no danger, and to assure him that theintruder was their new lodger, and having as often heard her sireejaculate--"Hold him fast--ugh, ugh--hold him fast till I come," she atlength succeeded in silencing his fears and his clamour, and thencoldly and dryly asked Lord Glenvarloch what he wanted in her father'sapartment.
Her lodger had, in the meantime, leisure to contemplate her appearance,which did not by any means improve the idea he had formed of it bycandlelight on the preceding evening. She was dressed in what was calleda Queen Mary's ruff and farthingale; not the falling ruff with which theunfortunate Mary of Scotland is usually painted, but that which, withmore than Spanish stiffness, surrounded the throat, and set offthe morose head, of her fierce namesake, of Smithfield memory. Thisantiquated dress assorted well with the faded complexion, grey eyes,thin lips, and austere visage of the antiquated maiden, which was,moreover, enhanced by a black hood, worn as her head-gear, carefullydisposed so as to prevent any of her hair from escaping to view,probably because the simplicity of the period knew no art of disguisingthe colour with which time had begun to grizzle her tresses. Her figurewas tall, thin, and flat, with skinny arms and hands, and feet of thelarger size, cased in huge high-heeled shoes, which added height toa stature already ungainly. Apparently some art had been used bythe tailor, to conceal a slight defect of shape, occasioned bythe accidental elevation of one shoulder above the other; but thepraiseworthy efforts of the ingenious mechanic, had only succeeded incalling the attention of the observer to his benevolent purpose, withoutdemonstrating that he had been able to
achieve it.
Such was Mrs. Martha Trapbois, whose dry "What were you seeking here,sir?" fell again, and with reiterated sharpness, on the ear of Nigel,as he gazed upon her presence, and compared it internally to one of thefaded and grim figures in the old tapestry which adorned his bedstead.It was, however, necessary to reply, and he answered, that he came insearch of the servants, as he desired to have a fire kindled in hisapartment on account of the rawness of the morning.
"The woman who does our char-work," answered Mistress Martha, "comes ateight o'clock-if you want fire sooner, there are fagots and a bucket ofsea-coal in the stone-closet at the head of the stair--and there is aflint and steel on the upper shelf--you can light fire for yourself ifyou will."
"No--no--no, Martha," ejaculated her father, who, having donned hisrustic tunic, with his hose all ungirt, and his feet slip-shod, hastilycame out of the inner apartment, with his mind probably full of robbers,for he had a naked rapier in his hand, which still looked formidable,though rust had somewhat marred its shine.--What he had heard atentrance about lighting a fire, had changed, however, the current of hisideas. "No--no--no," he cried, and each negative was more emphatic thanits predecessor-"The gentleman shall not have the trouble to put on afire--ugh--ugh. I'll put it on myself, for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on."
This last word was a favourite expression with the old gentleman, whichhe pronounced in a peculiar manner, gasping it out syllable by syllable,and laying a strong emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed, a sortof protecting clause, by which he guarded himself against allinconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering service orcivility of any kind, the which, when hastily snapped at by those towhom they are uttered, give the profferer sometimes room to repent hispromptitude.
"For shame, father," said Martha, "that must not be. Master Grahame willkindle his own fire, or wait till the char-woman comes to do it for him,just as likes him best."
"No, child--no, child. Child Martha, no," reiterated the old miser--"nochar-woman shall ever touch a grate in my house; they put--ugh, ugh--thefaggot uppermost, and so the coal kindles not, and the flame goes upthe chimney, and wood and heat are both thrown away. Now, I will layit properly for the gentleman, for a consideration, so that it shalllast--ugh, ugh--last the whole day." Here his vehemence increased hiscough so violently, that Nigel could only, from a scattered word hereand there, comprehend that it was a recommendation to his daughterto remove the poker and tongs from the stranger's fireside, with anassurance, that, when necessary, his landlord would be in attendance toadjust it himself, "for a consideration."
Martha paid as little attention to the old man's injunctions as apredominant dame gives to those of a henpecked husband. She onlyrepeated, in a deeper and more emphatic tone of censure,--"For shame,father--for shame!" then, turning to her guest, said, with her usualungraciousness of manner--"Master Grahame--it is best to be plain withyou at first. My father is an old, a very old man, and his wits, as youmay see, are somewhat weakened--though I would not advise you to makea bargain with him, else you may find them too sharp for your own. Formyself, I am a lone woman, and, to say truth, care little to see orconverse with any one. If you can be satisfied with house-room, shelter,and safety, it will be your own fault if you have them not, and theyare not always to be found in this unhappy quarter. But, if you seekdeferential observance and attendance, I tell you at once you will notfind them here."
"I am not wont either to thrust myself upon acquaintance, madam, orto give trouble," said the guest; "nevertheless, I shall need theassistance of a domestic to assist me to dress--Perhaps you canrecommend me to such?"
"Yes, to twenty," answered Mistress Martha, "who will pick your pursewhile they tie your points, and cut your throat while they smooth yourpillow."
"I will be his servant, myself," said the old man, whose intellect,for a moment distanced, had again, in some measure, got up withthe conversation. "I will brush his cloak--ugh, ugh--and tie hispoints--ugh, ugh--and clean his shoes--ugh--and run on his errands withspeed and safety--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh--for a consideration."
"Good-morrow to you, sir," said Martha, to Nigel, in a tone of directand positive dismissal. "It cannot be agreeable to a daughter thata stranger should hear her father speak thus. If you be really agentleman, you will retire to your own apartment."
"I will not delay a moment," said Nigel, respectfully, for he wassensible that circumstances palliated the woman's rudeness. "I would butask you, if seriously there can be danger in procuring the assistance ofa serving-man in this place?"
"Young gentleman," said Martha, "you must know little of Whitefriars toask the question. We live alone in this house, and seldom has a strangerentered it; nor should you, to be plain, had my will been consulted.Look at the door--see if that of a castle can be better secured; thewindows of the first floor are grated on the outside, and within, lookto these shutters."
She pulled one of them aside, and showed a ponderous apparatus of boltsand chains for securing the window-shutters, while her father, pressingto her side, seized her gown with a trembling hand, and said, in a lowwhisper, "Show not the trick of locking and undoing them. Show him notthe trick on't, Martha--ugh, ugh--on _no_ consideration." Martha wenton, without paying him any attention.
"And yet, young gentleman, we have been more than once like to find allthese defences too weak to protect our lives; such an evil effect on thewicked generation around us hath been made by the unhappy report of mypoor father's wealth."
"Say nothing of that, housewife," said the miser, his irritabilityincreased by the very supposition of his being wealthy--"Say nothingof that, or I will beat thee, housewife--beat thee with my staff, forfetching and carrying lies that will procure our throats to be cutat last--ugh, ugh.--I am but a poor man," he continued, turning toNigel--"a very poor man, that am willing to do any honest turn uponearth, for a modest consideration."
"I therefore warn you of the life you must lead, young gentleman," saidMartha; "the poor woman who does the char-work will assist you so far asin her power, but the wise man is his own best servant and assistant."
"It is a lesson you have taught me, madam, and I thank you for it--Iwill assuredly study it at leisure."
"You will do well," said Martha; "and as you seem thankful for advice,I, though I am no professed counsellor of others, will give you more.Make no intimacy with any one in Whitefriars--borrow no money, on anyscore, especially from my father, for, dotard as he seems, he will makean ass of you. Last, and best of all, stay here not an instant longerthan you can help it. Farewell, sir."
"A gnarled tree may bear good fruit, and a harsh nature may give goodcounsel," thought the Lord of Glenvarloch, as he retreated to his ownapartment, where the same reflection occurred to him again and again,while, unable as yet to reconcile himself to the thoughts of becominghis own fire-maker, he walked up and down his bedroom, to warm himselfby exercise.
At length his meditations arranged themselves in the followingsoliloquy--by which expression I beg leave to observe once for all, thatI do not mean that Nigel literally said aloud with his bodily organs,the words which follow in inverted commas, (while pacing the room byhimself,) but that I myself choose to present to my dearest reader thepicture of my hero's mind, his reflections and resolutions, in the formof a speech, rather than in that of a narrative. In other words, I haveput his thoughts into language; and this I conceive to be the purpose ofthe soliloquy upon the stage as well as in the closet, being at once themost natural, and perhaps the only way of communicating to the spectatorwhat is supposed to be passing in the bosom of the scenic personage.There are no such soliloquies in nature, it is true, but unless theywere received as a conventional medium of communication betwixt the poetand the audience, we should reduce dramatic authors to the recipe ofMaster Puff, who makes Lord Burleigh intimate a long train of politicalreasoning to the audience, by one comprehensive shake of his noddle. Innarrative, no doubt, the writer has the alternative of telling that hispersonages thought so and so, inferred thus and thu
s, and arrived atsuch and such a conclusion; but the soliloquy is a more concise andspirited mode of communicating the same information; and therefore thuscommuned, or thus might have communed, the Lord of Glenvarloch with hisown mind.
"She is right, and has taught me a lesson I will profit by. I have been,through my whole life, one who leant upon others for that assistance,which it is more truly noble to derive from my own exertions. I amashamed of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long habit had led meto annex to the want of a servant's assistance--I am ashamed of that;but far, far more am I ashamed to have suffered the same habit ofthrowing my own burden on others, to render me, since I came to thiscity, a mere victim of those events, which I have never evenattempted to influence--a thing never acting, but perpetually actedupon--protected by one friend, deceived by another; but in the advantagewhich I received from the one, and the evil I have sustained from theother, as passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without oar orrudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a courtier, becauseHeriot so advised it--a gamester, because Dalgarno so contrived it--anAlsatian, because Lowestoffe so willed it. Whatever of good or bad hasbefallen me, has arisen out of the agency of others, not from my own. Myfather's son must no longer hold this facile and puerile course. Liveor die, sink or swim, Nigel Olifaunt, from this moment, shall owe hissafety, success, and honour, to his own exertions, or shall fall withthe credit of having at least exerted his own free agency. I will writeit down in my tablets, in her very words,--'The wise man is his own bestassistant.'"
He had just put his tablets in his pocket when the old charwoman, who,to add to her efficiency, was sadly crippled by rheumatism, hobbled intothe room, to try if she could gain a small gratification by waiting onthe stranger. She readily undertook to get Lord Glenvarloch's breakfast,and as there was an eating-house at the next door, she succeeded in ashorter time than Nigel had augured.
As his solitary meal was finished, one of the Temple porters, orinferior officers, was announced, as seeking Master Grahame, on the partof his friend, Master Lowestoffe; and, being admitted by the old womanto his apartment, he delivered to Nigel a small mail-trunk, with theclothes he had desired should be sent to him, and then, with moremystery, put into his hand a casket, or strong-boy, which he carefullyconcealed beneath his cloak. "I am glad to be rid on't," said thefellow, as he placed it on the table.
"Why, it is surely not so very heavy," answered Nigel, "and you are astout young man."
"Ay, sir," replied the fellow; "but Samson himself would not havecarried such a matter safely through Alsatia, had the lads of the Huffknown what it was. Please to look into it, sir, and see all is right--Iam an honest fellow, and it comes safe out of my hands. How long it mayremain so afterwards, will depend on your own care. I would not my goodname were to suffer by any after-clap."
To satisfy the scruples of the messenger, Lord Glenvarloch opened thecasket in his presence, and saw that his small stock of money, withtwo or three valuable papers which it contained, and particularly theoriginal sign-manual which the king had granted in his favour, were inthe same order in which he had left them. At the man's further instance,he availed himself of the writing materials which were in the casket, inorder to send a line to Master Lowestoffe, declaring that his propertyhad reached him in safety. He added some grateful acknowledgments forLowestoffe's services, and, just as he was sealing and delivering hisbillet to the messenger, his aged landlord entered the apartment. Histhreadbare suit of black clothes was now somewhat better arranged thanthey had been in the dishabille of his first appearance, and his nervesand intellects seemed to be less fluttered; for, without much coughingor hesitation, he invited Nigel to partake of a morning draught ofwholesome single ale, which he brought in a large leathern tankard, orblack-jack, carried in the one hand, while the other stirred it roundwith a sprig of rosemary, to give it, as the old man said, a flavour.
Nigel declined the courteous proffer, and intimated by his manner,while he did so, that he desired no intrusion on the privacy of hisown apartment; which, indeed, he was the more entitled to maintain,considering the cold reception he had that morning met with whenstraying from its precincts into those of his landlord. But the opencasket contained matter, or rather metal, so attractive to old Trapbois,that he remained fixed, like a setting-dog at a dead point, his noseadvanced, and one hand expanded like the lifted forepaw, by which thatsagacious quadruped sometimes indicates that it is a hare which he hasin the wind. Nigel was about to break the charm which had thus arrestedold Trapbois, by shutting the lid of the casket, when his attention waswithdrawn from him by the question of the messenger, who, holdingout the letter, asked whether he was to leave it at Mr. Lowestoffe'schambers in the Temple, or carry it to the Marshalsea?
"The Marshalsea?" repeated Lord Glenvarloch; "what of the Marshalsea?"
"Why, sir," said the man, "the poor gentleman is laid up there inlavender, because, they say, his own kind heart led him to scald hisfingers with another man's broth."
Nigel hastily snatched back the letter, broke the seal, joined to thecontents his earnest entreaty that he might be instantly acquainted withthe cause of his confinement, and added, that, if it arose out of hisown unhappy affair, it would be of a brief duration, since he had, evenbefore hearing of a reason which so peremptorily demanded that he shouldsurrender himself, adopted the resolution to do so, as the manliest andmost proper course which his ill fortune and imprudence had left in hisown power. He therefore conjured Mr. Lowestoffe to have no delicacy uponthis score, but, since his surrender was what he had determined upon asa sacrifice due to his own character, that he would have the franknessto mention in what manner it could be best arranged, so as to extricatehim, Lowestoffe, from the restraint to which the writer could not butfear his friend had been subjected, on account of the generous interestwhich he had taken in his concerns. The letter concluded, that thewriter would suffer twenty-four hours to elapse in expectation ofhearing from him, and, at the end of that period, was determined to puthis purpose in execution. He delivered the billet to the messenger,and, enforcing his request with a piece of money, urged him, without amoment's delay, to convey it to the hands of Master Lowestoffe.
"I--I--I--will carry it to him myself," said the old usurer, "for halfthe consideration."
The man who heard this attempt to take his duty and perquisites over hishead, lost no time in pocketing the money, and departed on his errand asfast as he could.
"Master Trapbois," said Nigel, addressing the old man somewhatimpatiently, "had you any particular commands for me?"
"I--I--came to see if you rested well," answered the old man; "and--if Icould do anything to serve you, on any consideration."
"Sir, I thank you," said Lord Glenvarloch--"I thank you;" and, ere hecould say more, a heavy footstep was heard on the stair.
"My God!" exclaimed the old man, starting up--"Why,Dorothy--char-woman--why, daughter,--draw bolt, I say, housewives--thedoor hath been left a-latch!"
The door of the chamber opened wide, and in strutted the portly bulkof the military hero whom Nigel had on the preceding evening in vainendeavoured to recognise.