"Do not call me out of my own name, my dear boy, Jin Vin," answered
Ursula, in a tone betwixt rage and coaxing,--"do not; because I am no
saint, but a poor sinful woman, with no more patience than she needs,
to carry her through a thousand crosses. And if I have done you wrong
by evil counsel, I must mend it and put you right by good advice. And
for the score of pieces that must be made up at settling-day, why,
here is, in a good green purse, as much as will make that matter good;
and we will get old Crosspatch, the tailor, to take a long day for
your clothes; and--"

"Mother, are you serious?" said Jin Vin, unable to trust either his
eyes or his ears.

"In troth am I," said the dame; "and will you call me Mother Midnight
now, Jin Vin?"

"Mother Midnight!" exclaimed Jenkin, hugging the dame in his
transport, and bestowing on her still comely cheek a hearty and not
unacceptable smack, that sounded like the report of a pistol,--"Mother
Midday, rather, that has risen to light me out of my troubles--a
mother more dear than she who bore me; for she, poor soul, only
brought me into a world of sin and sorrow, and your timely aid has
helped me out of the one and the other. "And the good-natured fellow
threw himself back in his chair, and fairly drew his hand across his
eyes.

"You would not have me be made to ride the Skimmington then," said the
dame; "or parade me in a cart, with all the brass basins of the ward
beating the march to Bridewell before me?"

"I would sooner be carted to Tyburn myself," replied the penitent.

"Why, then, sit up like a man, and wipe thine eyes; and, if thou art
pleased with what I have done, I will show thee how thou mayst requite
me in the highest degree."

"How?" said Jenkin Vincent, sitting straight up in his chair.--"You
would have me, then, do you some service for this friendship of
yours?"

"Ay, marry would I," said Dame Ursley; "for you are to know, that
though I am right glad to stead you with it, this gold is not mine,
but was placed in my hands in order to find a trusty agent, for a
certain purpose; and so--But what's the matter with you?--are you fool
enough to be angry because you cannot get a purse of gold for nothing?
I would I knew where such were to come by. I never could find them
lying in my road, I promise you."

"No, no, dame," said poor Jenkin, "it is not for that; for, look you,
I would rather work these ten bones to the knuckles, and live by my
labour; but--" (and here he paused.)

"But what, man?" said Dame Ursley. "You are willing to work for what
you want; and yet, when I offer you gold for the winning, you look on
me as the devil looks over Lincoln."

"It is ill talking of the devil, mother," said Jenkin. "I had him even
now in my head--for, look you, I am at that pass, when they say he
will appear to wretched ruined creatures, and proffer them gold for
the fee-simple of their salvation. But I have been trying these two
days to bring my mind strongly up to the thought, that I will rather
sit down in shame, and sin, and sorrow, as I am like to do, than hold
on in ill courses to get rid of my present straits; and so take care,
Dame Ursula, how you tempt me to break such a good resolution."

"I tempt you to nothing, young man," answered Ursula; "and, as I
perceive you are too wilful to be wise, I will e'en put my purse in my
pocket, and look out for some one that will work my turn with better
will, and more thankfulness. And you may go your own course,--break
your indenture, ruin your father, lose your character, and bid pretty
Mistress Margaret farewell, for ever and a day."

"Stay, stay," said Jenkin "the woman is in as great a hurry as a brown
baker when his oven is overheated. First, let me hear that which you
have to propose to me."

"Why, after all, it is but to get a gentleman of rank and fortune, who
is in trouble, carried in secret down the river, as far as the Isle of
Dogs, or somewhere thereabout, where he may lie concealed until he can
escape aboard. I know thou knowest every place by the river's side as
well as the devil knows an usurer, or the beggar knows his dish."

"A plague of your similes, dame," replied the apprentice; "for the
devil gave me that knowledge, and beggary may be the end on't.--But
what has this gentleman done, that he should need to be under hiding?
No Papist, I hope--no Catesby and Piercy business--no Gunpowder Plot?"

"Fy, fy!--what do you take me for?" said Dame Ursula. "I am as good a
churchwoman as the parson's wife, save that necessary business will
not allow me to go there oftener than on Christmas-day, heaven help
me!--No, no--this is no Popish matter. The gentleman hath but struck
another in the Park--"

"Ha! what?" said Vincent, interrupting her with a start.

"Ay, ay, I see you guess whom I mean. It is even he we have spoken of
so often--just Lord Glenvarloch, and no one else."

Vincent sprung from his seat, and traversed the room with rapid and
disorderly steps.

"There, there it is now--you are always ice or gunpowder. You sit in
the great leathern armchair, as quiet as a rocket hangs upon the frame
in a rejoicing-night till the match be fired, and then, whizz! you are
in the third heaven, beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or
brain.--When you have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across
the room, will you tell me your determination, for time presses? Will
you aid me in this matter, or not?"

"No--no--no--a thousand times no," replied Jenkin. "Have you not
confessed to me, that Margaret loves him?"

"Ay," answered the dame, "that she thinks she does; but that will not
last long."

"And have I not told you but this instant," replied Jenkin, "that it
was this same Glenvarloch that rooked me, at the ordinary, of every
penny I had, and made a knave of me to boot, by gaining more than was
my own?--O that cursed gold, which Shortyard, the mercer, paid me that
morning on accompt, for mending the clock of Saint Stephen's! If I had
not, by ill chance, had that about me, I could but have beggared my
purse, without blemishing my honesty; and, after I had been rooked of
all the rest amongst them, I must needs risk the last five pieces with
that shark among the minnows!"

"Granted," said Dame Ursula. "All this I know; and I own, that as Lord
Glenvarloch was the last you played with, you have a right to charge
your ruin on his head. Moreover, I admit, as already said, that
Margaret has made him your rival. Yet surely, now he is in danger to
lose his hand, it is not a time to remember all this?"

"By my faith, but it is, though," said the young citizen. "Lose his
hand, indeed? They may take his head, for what I care. Head and hand
have made me a miserable wretch!"

"Now, were it not better, my prince of flat-caps," said Dame Ursula,
"that matters were squared between you; and that, through means of the
same Scottish lord, who has, as you say, deprived you of your money
and your mistress, you should in a short time recover both?"

"And how can your wisdom come to that conclusion, dame?" said the
apprentice. "My money, indeed, I can conceive--that is, if I comply
with your proposal; but--my pretty Marget!--how serving this lord,
whom she has set her nonsensical head upon, can do me good with her,
is far beyond my conception."

"That is because, in simple phrase," said Dame Ursula, "thou knowest
no more of a woman's heart than doth a Norfolk gosling. Look you, man.
Were I to report to Mistress Margaret that the young lord has
miscarried through thy lack of courtesy in refusing to help him, why,
then, thou wert odious to her for ever. She will loathe thee as she
will loathe the very cook who is to strike off Glenvarloch's hand with
his cleaver--and then she will be yet more fixed in her affections
towards this lord. London will hear of nothing but him--speak of
nothing but him--think of nothing but him, for three weeks at least,
and all that outcry will serve to keep him uppermost in her mind; for
nothing pleases a girl so much as to bear relation to any one who is
the talk of the whole world around her. Then, if he suffer this
sentence of the law, it is a chance if she ever forgets him. I saw
that handsome, proper young gentleman Babington, suffer in the Queen's
time myself, and though I was then but a girl, he was in my head for a
year after he was hanged. But, above all, pardoned or punished,
Glenvarloch will probably remain in London, and his presence will keep
up the silly girl's nonsensical fancy about him. Whereas, if he
escapes--"

"Ay, show me how that is to avail me?" said Jenkin. "If he escapes,"
said the dame, resuming her argument, "he must resign the Court for
years, if not for life; and you know the old saying, 'out of sight,
and out of mind.'"

"True--most true," said Jenkin; "spoken like an oracle, most wise
Ursula." "Ay, ay, I knew you would hear reason at last," said the wily
dame; "and then, when this same lord is off and away for once and for
ever, who, I pray you, is to be pretty pet's confidential person, and
who is to fill up the void in her affections?--why, who but thou, thou
pearl of 'prentices! And then you will have overcome your own
inclinations to comply with hers, and every woman is sensible of that-
-and you will have run some risk, too, in carrying her desires into
effect--and what is it that woman likes better than bravery, and
devotion to her will? Then you have her secret, and she must treat you
with favour and observance, and repose confidence in you, and hold
private intercourse with you, till she weeps with one eye for the
absent lover whom she is never to see again, and blinks with the other
blithely upon him who is in presence; and then if you know not how to
improve the relation in which you stand with her, you are not the
brisk lively lad that all the world takes you for--Said I well?"

"You have spoken like an empress, most mighty Ursula," said Jenkin
Vincent; "and your will shall be obeyed."

"You know Alsatia well?" continued his tutoress.

"Well enough, well enough," replied he with a nod; "I have heard the
dice rattle there in my day, before I must set up for gentleman, and
go among the gallants at the Shavaleer Bojo's, as they call him,--the
worse rookery of the two, though the feathers are the gayest."

"And they will have a respect for thee yonder, I warrant?"

"Ay, ay," replied Vin, "when I am got into my fustian doublet again,
with my bit of a trunnion under my arm, I can walk Alsatia at midnight
as I could do that there Fleet Street in midday--they will not one of
them swagger with the prince of 'prentices, and the king of clubs--
they know I could bring every tall boy in the ward down upon them."

"And you know all the watermen, and so forth?"

"Can converse with every sculler in his own language, from Richmond to
Gravesend, and know all the water-cocks, from John Taylor the Poet to
little Grigg the Grinner, who never pulls but he shows all his teeth
from ear to ear, as if he were grimacing through a horse-collar."

"And you can take any dress or character upon you well, such as a
waterman's, a butcher's, a foot-soldier's," continued Ursula, "or the
like?"

"Not such a mummer as I am within the walls, and thou knowest that
well enough, dame," replied the apprentice. "I can touch the players
themselves, at the Ball and at the Fortune, for presenting any thing
except a gentleman. Take but this d--d skin of frippery off me, which
I think the devil stuck me into, and you shall put me into nothing
else that I will not become as if I were born to it."

"Well, we will talk of your transmutation by and by," said the dame,
"and find you clothes withal, and money besides; for it will take a
good deal to carry the thing handsomely through."

"But where is that money to come from, dame?" said Jenkin; "there is a
question I would fain have answered before I touch it."

"Why, what a fool art thou to ask such a question! Suppose I am
content to advance it to please young madam, what is the harm then?"

"I will suppose no such thing," said Jenkin, hastily; "I know that
you, dame, have no gold to spare, and maybe would not spare it if you
had--so that cock will not crow. It must be from Margaret herself."

"Well, thou suspicious animal, and what if it were?" said Ursula.

"Only this," replied Jenkin, "that I will presently to her, and learn
if she has come fairly by so much ready money; for sooner than connive
at her getting it by any indirection, I would hang myself at once. It
is enough what I have done myself, no need to engage poor Margaret in
such villainy--I'll to her, and tell her of the danger--I will, by
heaven!"

"You are mad to think of it," said Dame Suddlechop, considerably
alarmed--"hear me but a moment. I know not precisely from whom she got
the money; but sure I am that she obtained it at her godfather's."

"Why, Master George Heriot is not returned from France," said Jenkin.

"No," replied Ursula, "but Dame Judith is at home--and the strange
lady, whom they call Master Heriot's ghost--she never goes abroad."

"It is very true, Dame Suddlechop," said Jenkin; "and I believe you
have guessed right--they say that lady has coin at will; and if Marget
can get a handful of fairy-gold, why, she is free to throw it away at
will."

"Ah, Jin Vin," said the dame, reducing her voice almost to a whisper,
"we should not want gold at will neither, could we but read the riddle
of that lady!"

"They may read it that list," said Jenkin, "I'll never pry into what
concerns me not--Master George Heriot is a worthy and brave citizen,
and an honour to London, and has a right to manage his own household
as he likes best.--There was once a talk of rabbling him the fifth of
November before the last, because they said he kept a nunnery in his
house, like old Lady Foljambe; but Master George is well loved among
the 'prentices, and we got so many brisk boys of us together as should
have rabbled the rabble, had they had but the heart to rise."

"Well, let that pass," said Ursula; "and now, tell me how you will
manage to be absent from shop a day or two, for you must think that
this matter will not be ended sooner."

"Why, as to that, I can say nothing," said Jenkin, "I have always
served duly and truly; I have no heart to play truant, and cheat my
master of his time as well as his money."

"Nay, but the point is to get back his money for him," said Ursula,
"which he is not likely to see on other conditions. Could you not ask
leave to go down to your uncle in Essex for two or three days? He may
be ill, you know."

"Why, if I must, I must," said Jenkin, with a heavy sigh; "but I will
not be lightly caught treading these dark and crooked paths again."

"Hush thee, then," said the dame, "and get leave for this very
evening; and come back hither, and I will introduce you to another
implement, who must be employed in the matter.--Stay, stay!--the lad
is mazed--you would not go into your master's shop in that guise,
surely? Your trunk is in the matted chamber, with your 'prentice
things--go and put them on as fast as you can."

"I think I am bewitched," said Jenkin, giving a glance towards his
dress, "or that these fool's trappings have made as great an ass of me
as of many I have seen wear them; but let line once be rid of the
harness, and if you catch me putting it on again, I will give you
leave to sell me to a gipsy, to carry pots, pans, and beggar's
bantlings, all the rest of my life." So saying, he retired to change
his apparel.




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 engagement
contracted in our title-page, sad and solitary in the mansion of
Trapbois the usurer, having just received a letter instead of a visit
from his friend the Templar, stating reasons why he could not at that
time come to see him in Alsatia. So that it appeared that his
intercourse with the better and more respectable class of society,
was, for the present, entirely cut off. This was a melancholy, and, to
a proud mind like that of Nigel, a degrading reflection.

He went to the window of his apartment, and found the street enveloped
in one of those thick, dingy, yellow-coloured fogs, which often invest
the lower part of London and Westminster. Amid the darkness, dense and
palpable, were seen to wander like phantoms a reveller or two, whom
the morning had surprised where the evening left them; and who now,
with tottering steps, and by an instinct which intoxication could not
wholly overcome, were groping the way to their own homes, to convert
day into night, for the purpose of sleeping off the debauch which had
turned night into day. Although it was broad day in the other parts of
the city, it was scarce dawn yet in Alsatia; and none of the sounds of
industry or occupation were there heard, which had long before aroused
the slumberers in any other quarter. The prospect was too tiresome and
disagreeable to detain Lord Glenvarloch at his station, so, turning
from the window, he examined with more interest the furniture and
appearance of the apartment which he tenanted.

Much of it had been in its time rich and curious--there was a huge
four-post bed, with as much carved oak about it as would have made the
head of a man-of-war, and tapestry hangings ample enough to have been
her sails. There was a huge mirror with a massy frame of gilt brass-
work, which was of Venetian manufacture, and must have been worth a
considerable sum before it received the tremendous crack, which,
traversing it from one corner to the other, bore the same proportion
to the surface that the Nile bears to the map of Egypt. The chairs
were of different forms and shapes, some had been carved, some gilded,
some covered with damasked leather, some with embroidered work, but
all were damaged and worm-eaten. There was a picture of Susanna and
the Elders over 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 the beard of one of her reverend admirers.

In a word, all that Lord Glenvarloch saw, seemed to have been articles
carried off by appraisement or distress, or bought as pennyworths at
some obscure broker's, and huddled together in the apartment, as in a
sale-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, as
this was probably fitted up with the relics of ruined profligates.--
"My own skiff is among the breakers," thought Lord Glenvarloch,
"though my wreck will add little to the profits of the spoiler."

He was chiefly interested in the state of the grate, a huge assemblage
of rusted iron bars which stood in the chimney, unequally supported by
three brazen feet, moulded into the form of lion's claws, while the
fourth, which had been bent by an accident, seemed proudly uplifted as
if to paw the ground; or as if the whole article had nourished the
ambitious purpose of pacing forth into the middle of the apartment,
and had one foot ready raised for the journey. A smile passed over
Nigel's face as this fantastic idea presented itself to his fancy.--"I
must stop its march, however," he thought; "for this morning is chill
and raw enough to demand some fire."

He called accordingly from the top of a large staircase, with a heavy
oaken balustrade, which gave access to his own and other apartments,
for the house was old and of considerable size; but, receiving no
answer to his repeated summons, he was compelled to go in search of
some one who might 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 termed
simple, hardy, and unostentatious; but he had, nevertheless, been
accustomed to much personal deference, and to the constant attendance
and ministry of one or more domestics. This was the universal custom
in Scotland, where wages were next to nothing, and where, indeed, a
man of title or influence might have as many attendants as he pleased,
for the mere expense of food, clothes, and countenance. Nigel was
therefore mortified and displeased when he found himself without
notice or attendance; and the more dissatisfied, because he was at the
same time angry with himself for suffering such a trifle to trouble
him at all, amongst matters of more deep concernment. "There must
surely be some servants in so large a house as this," said he, as he
wandered over the place, through which he was conducted by a passage
which branched off from the gallery. As he went on, he tried the
entrance to several apartments, some of which he found were locked and
others unfurnished, all apparently unoccupied; so that at length he
returned to the staircase, and resolved to make his way down to the
lower part of the house, where he supposed he must at least find the
old gentleman, and his ill-favoured daughter. With this purpose he
first made his entrance into a little low, dark parlour, containing a
well-worn leathern easy-chair, before which stood a pair of slippers,
while on the left side rested a crutch-handled staff; an oaken table
stood before it, and supported a huge desk clamped with iron, and a
massive pewter inkstand. Around the apartment were shelves, cabinets,
and other places convenient for depositing papers. A sword, musketoon,
and a pair of pistols, hung over the chimney, in ostentatious display,
as if to intimate that the proprietor would be prompt in the defence
of his premises.

"This must be the usurer's den," thought Nigel; and he was about to
call 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 his
morning 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, and
they will not speak to me--why, Martha!--thieves, thieves--ugh, ugh,
ugh!"

Nigel endeavoured to explain, but the idea of thieves had taken
possession of the old man's pineal gland, and he kept coughing and
screaming, and screaming and coughing, until the gracious Martha
entered the apartment; and, having first outscreamed her father, in
order to convince him that there was no danger, and to assure him that
the intruder was their new lodger, and having as often heard her sire
ejaculate--"Hold him fast--ugh, ugh--hold him fast till I come," she
at length succeeded in silencing his fears and his clamour, and then
coldly and dryly asked Lord Glenvarloch what he wanted in her father's
apartment.

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 by candlelight on the preceding evening. She was dressed in what
was called a Queen Mary's ruff and farthingale; not the falling ruff
with which the unfortunate Mary of Scotland is usually painted, but
that which, with more than Spanish stiffness, surrounded the throat,
and set off the morose head, of her fierce namesake, of Smithfield
memory. This antiquated 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,
carefully disposed so as to prevent any of her hair from escaping to
view, probably because the simplicity of the period knew no art of
disguising the colour with which time had begun to grizzle her
tresses. Her figure was tall, thin, and flat, with skinny arms and
hands, and feet of the larger size, cased in huge high-heeled shoes,
which added height to a stature already ungainly. Apparently some art
had been used by the tailor, to conceal a slight defect of shape,
occasioned by the accidental elevation of one shoulder above the
other; but the praiseworthy efforts of the ingenious mechanic, had
only succeeded in calling the attention of the observer to his
benevolent purpose, without demonstrating 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
the faded and grim figures in the old tapestry which adorned his
bedstead. It was, however, necessary to reply, and he answered, that
he came in search of the servants, as he desired to have a fire
kindled in his apartment on account of the rawness of the morning.

"The woman who does our char-work," answered Mistress Martha, "comes
at eight o'clock-if you want fire sooner, there are fagots and a
bucket of sea-coal in the stone-closet at the head of the stair--and
there is a flint and steel on the upper shelf--you can light fire for
yourself if you will."

"No--no--no, Martha," ejaculated her father, who, having donned his
rustic tunic, with his hose all ungirt, and his feet slip-shod,
hastily came 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 at entrance about lighting a fire, had changed, however, the
current of his ideas. "No--no--no," he cried, and each negative was
more emphatic than its predecessor-"The gentleman shall not have the
trouble to put on a fire--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,
which he pronounced in a peculiar manner, gasping it out syllable by
syllable, and laying a strong emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed,
a sort of protecting clause, by which he guarded himself against all
inconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering service or
civility of any kind, the which, when hastily snapped at by those to
whom they are uttered, give the profferer sometimes room to repent his
promptitude.

"For shame, father," said Martha, "that must not be. Master Grahame
will kindle 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--
"no char-woman shall ever touch a grate in my house; they put--ugh,
ugh--the faggot uppermost, and so the coal kindles not, and the flame
goes up the chimney, and wood and heat are both thrown away. Now, I
will lay it properly for the gentleman, for a consideration, so that
it shall last--ugh, ugh--last the whole day." Here his vehemence
increased his cough so violently, that Nigel could only, from a
scattered word here and there, comprehend that it was a recommendation
to his daughter to remove the poker and tongs from the stranger's
fireside, with an assurance, that, when necessary, his landlord would
be in attendance to adjust it himself, "for a consideration."

Martha paid as little attention to the old man's injunctions as a
predominant dame gives to those of a henpecked husband. She only
repeated, in a deeper and more emphatic tone of censure,--"For shame,
father--for shame!" then, turning to her guest, said, with her usual
ungraciousness of manner--"Master Grahame--it is best to be plain with
you at first. My father is an old, a very old man, and his wits, as
you may see, are somewhat weakened--though I would not advise you to
make a bargain with him, else you may find them too sharp for your
own. For myself, I am a lone woman, and, to say truth, care little to
see or converse 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 they are not always to be found in this unhappy quarter. But, if
you seek deferential observance and attendance, I tell you at once you
will not find them here."

"I am not wont either to thrust myself upon acquaintance, madam, or to
give trouble," said the guest; "nevertheless, I shall need the
assistance of a domestic to assist me to dress--Perhaps you can
recommend me to such?"

"Yes, to twenty," answered Mistress Martha, "who will pick your purse
while they tie your points, and cut your throat while they smooth your
pillow."

"I will be his servant, myself," said the old man, whose intellect,
for a moment distanced, had again, in some measure, got up with the
conversation. "I will brush his cloak--ugh, ugh--and tie his points--
ugh, ugh--and clean his shoes--ugh--and run on his errands with speed
and safety--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh--for a consideration."

"Good-morrow to you, sir," said Martha, to Nigel, in a tone of direct
and positive dismissal. "It cannot be agreeable to a daughter that a
stranger should hear her father speak thus. If you be really a
gentleman, you will retire to your own apartment."

"I will not delay a moment," said Nigel, respectfully, for he was
sensible that circumstances palliated the woman's rudeness. "I would
but ask you, if seriously there can be danger in procuring the
assistance of a serving-man in this place?"

"Young gentleman," said Martha, "you must know little of Whitefriars
to ask the question. We live alone in this house, and seldom has a
stranger entered 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; the windows of the first floor are grated on the outside, and
within, look to these shutters."

She pulled one of them aside, and showed a ponderous apparatus of
bolts and chains for securing the window-shutters, while her father,
pressing to her side, seized her gown with a trembling hand, and said,
in a low whisper, "Show not the trick of locking and undoing them.
Show him not the trick on't, Martha--ugh, ugh--on _no_ consideration."
Martha went on, without paying him any attention.

"And yet, young gentleman, we have been more than once like to find
all these defences too weak to protect our lives; such an evil effect
on the wicked generation around us hath been made by the unhappy
report of my poor father's wealth."

"Say nothing of that, housewife," said the miser, his irritability
increased by the very supposition of his being wealthy--"Say nothing
of that, or I will beat thee, housewife--beat thee with my staff, for
fetching and carrying lies that will procure our throats to be cut at
last--ugh, ugh.--I am but a poor man," he continued, turning to Nigel-
-"a very poor man, that am willing to do any honest turn upon earth,
for a modest consideration."

"I therefore warn you of the life you must lead, young gentleman,"
said Martha; "the poor woman who does the char-work will assist you so
far as in 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--I
will 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 any
score, especially from my father, for, dotard as he seems, he will
make an ass of you. Last, and best of all, stay here not an instant
longer than you can help it. Farewell, sir."

"A gnarled tree may bear good fruit, and a harsh nature may give good
counsel," thought the Lord of Glenvarloch, as he retreated to his own
apartment, where the same reflection occurred to him again and again,
while, unable as yet to reconcile himself to the thoughts of becoming
his own fire-maker, he walked up and down his bedroom, to warm himself
by exercise.

At length his meditations arranged themselves in the following
soliloquy--by which expression I beg leave to observe once for all,
that I do not mean that Nigel literally said aloud with his bodily
organs, the words which follow in inverted commas, (while pacing the
room by himself,) but that I myself choose to present to my dearest
reader the picture of my hero's mind, his reflections and resolutions,
in the form of a speech, rather than in that of a narrative. In other
words, I have put his thoughts into language; and this I conceive to
be the purpose of the soliloquy upon the stage as well as in the
closet, being at once the most natural, and perhaps the only way of
communicating to the spectator what is supposed to be passing in the
bosom of the scenic personage. There are no such soliloquies in
nature, it is true, but unless they were received as a conventional
medium of communication betwixt the poet and the audience, we should
reduce dramatic authors to the recipe of Master Puff, who makes Lord
Burleigh intimate a long train of political reasoning to the audience,
by one comprehensive shake of his noddle. In narrative, no doubt, the
writer has the alternative of telling that his personages thought so
and so, inferred thus and thus, and arrived at such and such a
conclusion; but the soliloquy is a more concise and spirited mode of
communicating the same information; and therefore thus communed, or
thus might have communed, the Lord of Glenvarloch with his own 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 am ashamed of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long
habit had led me to 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 of throwing my own burden on others, to render me, since I
came to this city, a mere victim of those events, which I have never
even attempted to influence--a thing never acting, but perpetually
acted upon--protected by one friend, deceived by another; but in the
advantage which I received from the one, and the evil I have sustained
from the other, as passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without
oar or rudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a
courtier, because Heriot so advised it--a gamester, because Dalgarno
so contrived it--an Alsatian, because Lowestoffe so willed it.
Whatever of good or bad has befallen me, has arisen out of the agency
of others, not from my own. My father's son must no longer hold this
facile and puerile course. Live or die, sink or swim, Nigel Olifaunt,
from this moment, shall owe his safety, success, and honour, to his
own exertions, or shall fall with the credit of having at least
exerted his own free agency. I will write it down in my tablets, in
her very words,--'The wise man is his own best assistant.'"

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
into the room, to try if she could gain a small gratification by
waiting on the stranger. She readily undertook to get Lord
Glenvarloch's breakfast, and as there was an eating-house at the next
door, she succeeded in a shorter time than Nigel had augured.

As his solitary meal was finished, one of the Temple porters, or
inferior officers, was announced, as seeking Master Grahame, on the
part of his friend, Master Lowestoffe; and, being admitted by the old
woman to his apartment, he delivered to Nigel a small mail-trunk, with
the clothes he had desired should be sent to him, and then, with more
mystery, put into his hand a casket, or strong-boy, which he carefully
concealed beneath his cloak. "I am glad to be rid on't," said the
fellow, as he placed it on the table.

"Why, it is surely not so very heavy," answered Nigel, "and you are a
stout young man."

"Ay, sir," replied the fellow; "but Samson himself would not have
carried such a matter safely through Alsatia, had the lads of the Huff
known what it was. Please to look into it, sir, and see all is right--
I am an honest fellow, and it comes safe out of my hands. How long it
may remain so afterwards, will depend on your own care. I would not my
good name were to suffer by any after-clap."

To satisfy the scruples of the messenger, Lord Glenvarloch opened the
casket in his presence, and saw that his small stock of money, with
two or three valuable papers which it contained, and particularly the
original sign-manual which the king had granted in his favour, were in
the 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, in order to send a line to Master Lowestoffe, declaring
that his property had reached him in safety. He added some grateful
acknowledgments for Lowestoffe's services, and, just as he was sealing
and delivering his billet to the messenger, his aged landlord entered
the apartment. His threadbare suit of black clothes was now somewhat
better arranged than they had been in the dishabille of his first
appearance, and his nerves and intellects seemed to be less fluttered;
for, without much coughing or hesitation, he invited Nigel to partake
of a morning draught of wholesome single ale, which he brought in a
large leathern tankard, or black-jack, carried in the one hand, while
the other stirred it round with 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 his
own apartment; which, indeed, he was the more entitled to maintain,
considering the cold reception he had that morning met with when
straying from its precincts into those of his landlord. But the open
casket contained matter, or rather metal, so attractive to old
Trapbois, that he remained fixed, like a setting-dog at a dead point,
his nose advanced, and one hand expanded like the lifted forepaw, by
which that sagacious quadruped sometimes indicates that it is a hare
which he has in the wind. Nigel was about to break the charm which had
thus arrested old Trapbois, by shutting the lid of the casket, when
his attention was withdrawn from him by the question of the messenger,
who, holding out the letter, asked whether he was to leave it at Mr.
Lowestoffe's chambers 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 in
lavender, because, they say, his own kind heart led him to scald his
fingers with another man's broth."

Nigel hastily snatched back the letter, broke the seal, joined to the
contents his earnest entreaty that he might be instantly acquainted
with the cause of his confinement, and added, that, if it arose out of
his own unhappy affair, it would be of a brief duration, since he had,
even before hearing of a reason which so peremptorily demanded that he
should surrender himself, adopted the resolution to do so, as the
manliest and most proper course which his ill fortune and imprudence
had left in his own power. He therefore conjured Mr. Lowestoffe to
have no delicacy upon this score, but, since his surrender was what he
had determined upon as a sacrifice due to his own character, that he
would have the frankness to mention in what manner it could be best
arranged, so as to extricate him, Lowestoffe, from the restraint to
which the writer could not but fear his friend had been subjected, on
account of the generous interest which he had taken in his concerns.
The letter concluded, that the writer would suffer twenty-four hours
to elapse in expectation of hearing from him, and, at the end of that
period, was determined to put his purpose in execution. He delivered
the billet to the messenger, and, enforcing his request with a piece
of money, urged him, without a moment'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 half
the consideration."

The man who heard this attempt to take his duty and perquisites over
his head, lost no time in pocketing the money, and departed on his
errand as fast as he could.

"Master Trapbois," said Nigel, addressing the old man somewhat
impatiently, "had you any particular commands for me?"

"I--I--came to see if you rested well," answered the old man; "and--if
I could do anything to serve you, on any consideration."

"Sir, I thank you," said Lord Glenvarloch--I thank you;" and, ere he
could 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--the door hath
been left a-latch!"

The door of the chamber opened wide, and in strutted the portly bulk
of the military hero whom Nigel had on the preceding evening in vain
endeavoured to recognise.




CHAPTER XXIII


SWASH-BUCKLER. Bilboe's the word--
PIERROT. It hath been spoke too often,
The spell hath lost its charm--I tell thee, friend,
The meanest cur that trots the street, will turn,
 And snarl against your proffer'd bastinado.
SWASH-BUCKLER. 'Tis art shall do it, then--I will dose the mongrels--
Or, in plain terms, I'll use the private knife
'Stead of the brandish'd falchion.
                                _Old Play_.

The noble Captain Colepepper or Peppercull, for he was known by both
these names, and some others besides; had a martial and a swashing
exterior, which, on the present occasion, was rendered yet more
peculiar, by a patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek.
The sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and shone with
grease,--his buff gloves had huge tops, which reached almost to the
elbow; his sword-belt of the same materials extended its breadth from
his haunchbone to his small ribs, and supported on the one side his
large black-hilted back-sword, on the other a dagger of like
proportions He paid his compliments to Nigel with that air of
predetermined effrontery, which announces that it will not be repelled
by any coldness of reception, asked Trapbois how he did, by the
familiar title of old Peter Pillory, and then, seizing upon the black-
jack, emptied it off at a draught, to the health of the last and
youngest freeman of Alsatia, the noble and loving master Nigel
Grahame.

When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began
to criticise the liquor which it had lately contained.--"Sufficient
single beer, old Pillory--and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a
nutshell of malt to a butt of Thames--as dead as a corpse, too, and
yet it went hissing down my throat--bubbling, by Jove, like water upon
hot iron.--You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith,
we had a carouse to your honour--we heard _butt_ ring hollow ere we
parted; we were as loving as inkle-weavers--we fought, too, to finish
off the gawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about me, you see--a
note of the sermon or so, which should have been addressed to my ear,
but missed its mark, and reached my left eye. The man of God bears my
sign-manual too, but the Duke made us friends again, and it cost me
more sack than I could carry, and all the Rhenish to boot, to pledge
the seer in the way of love and reconciliation--But, Caracco! 'tis a
vile old canting slave for all that, whom I will one day beat out of
his devil's livery into all the colours of the rainbow.--Basta!--Said
I well, old Trapbois? Where is thy daughter, man?--what says she to my
suit?--'tis an honest one--wilt have a soldier for thy son-in-law, old
Pillory, to mingle the soul of martial honour with thy thieving,
miching, petty-larceny blood, as men put bold brandy into muddy ale?"

"My daughter receives not company so early, noble captain," said the
usurer, and concluded his speech with a dry, emphatical "ugh, ugh."

"What, upon no con-si-de-ra-ti-on?" said the captain; and wherefore
not, old Truepenny? she has not much time to lose in driving her
bargain, methinks."

"Captain," said Trapbois, "I was upon some little business with our
noble friend here, Master Nigel Green--ugh, ugh, ugh--"

"And you would have me gone, I warrant you?" answered the bully; "but
patience, old Pillory, thine hour is not yet come, man--You see," he
said, pointing to the casket, "that noble Master Grahame, whom you
call Green, has got the _decuses_ and the _smelt_."

Which you would willingly rid him of, ha! ha!--ugh, ugh," answered the
usurer, "if you knew how--but, lack-a-day! thou art one of those that
come out for wool, and art sure to go home shorn. Why now, but that I
am sworn against laying of wagers, I would risk some consideration
that this honest guest of mine sends thee home penniless, if thou
darest venture with him--ugh, ugh--at any game which gentlemen play
at."

"Marry, thou hast me on the hip there, thou old miserly cony-catcher!"
answered the captain, taking a bale of dice from the sleeve of his
coat; "I must always keep company with these damnable doctors, and
they have made me every baby's cully, and purged my purse into an
atrophy; but never mind, it passes the time as well as aught else--How
say you, Master Grahame?"

The fellow paused; but even the extremity of his impudence could
scarcely hardly withstand the cold look of utter contempt with which
Nigel received his proposal, returning it with a simple, "I only play
where I know my company, and never in the morning."

"Cards may be more agreeable," said Captain Colepepper; "and, for
knowing your company, here is honest old Pillory will tell you Jack
Colepepper plays as truly on the square as e'er a man that trowled a
die--Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles, topping,
knapping, slurring, stabbing, and a hundred ways of rooking besides;
but broil me like a rasher of bacon, if I could ever learn the trick
on 'em!"

"You have got the vocabulary perfect, sir, at the least," said Nigel,
in the same cold tone.

"Yes, by mine honour have I," returned the Hector; "they are phrases
that a gentleman learns about town.--But perhaps you would like a set
at tennis, or a game at balloon--we have an indifferent good court
hard by here, and a set of as gentleman-like blades as ever banged
leather against brick and mortar."

"I beg to be excused at present," said Lord Glenvarloch; "and to be
plain, among the valuable privileges your society has conferred on me,
I hope I may reckon that of being private in my own apartment when I
have a mind."

"Your humble servant, sir," said the captain; "and I thank you for
your civility--Jack Colepepper can have enough of company, and thrusts
himself on no one.--But perhaps you will like to make a match at
skittles?"

"I am by no means that way disposed," replied the young nobleman,

"Or to leap a flea--run a snail--match a wherry, eh?"

"No--I will do none of these," answered Nigel.

Here the old man, who had been watching with his little peery eyes,
pulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, and whispered, "Do not vapour
him the huff, it will not pass--let the trout play, he will rise to
the hook presently."

But the bully, confiding in his own strength, and probably mistaking
for timidity the patient scorn with which Nigel received his
proposals, incited also by the open casket, began to assume a louder
and more threatening tone. He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed
a look of professional ferocity, and continued, "In Alsatia, look ye,
a man must be neighbourly and companionable. Zouns! sir, we would slit
any nose that was turned up at us honest fellows.--Ay, sir, we would
slit it up to the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life
but musk, ambergris, and court-scented water.--Rabbit me, I am a
soldier, and care no more for a lord than a lamplighter!"

"Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?" said Nigel, calmly, having in truth
no desire to engage himself in a discreditable broil in such a place,
and with such a character.

"Quarrel, sir?" said the captain; "I am not seeking a quarrel, though
I care not how soon I find one. Only I wish you to understand you must
be neighbourly, that's all. What if we should go over the water to the
garden, and see a bull hanked this fine morning--'sdeath, will you do
nothing?"

"Something I am strangely tempted to do at this moment," said Nigel.

"Videlicet," said Colepepper, with a swaggering air, "let us hear the
temptation."

"I am tempted to throw you headlong from the window, unless you
presently make the best of your way down stairs."

"Throw me from the window?--hell and furies!" exclaimed the captain;
"I have confronted twenty crooked sabres at Buda with my single
rapier, and shall a chitty-faced, beggarly Scots lordling, speak of me
and a window in the same breath?--Stand off, old Pillory, let me make
Scotch collops of him--he dies the death!"

"For the love of Heaven, gentlemen," exclaimed the old miser, throwing
himself between them, "do not break the peace on any consideration!
Noble guest, forbear the captain--he is a very Hector of Troy--Trusty
Hector, forbear my guest, he is like to prove a very Achilles-ugh-ugh-
---"

Here he was interrupted by his asthma, but, nevertheless, continued to
interpose his person between Colepepper (who had unsheathed his
whinyard, and was making vain passes at his antagonist) and Nigel, who
had stepped back to take his sword, and now held it undrawn in his
left hand.

"Make an end of this foolery, you scoundrel!" said Nigel--"Do you come
hither to vent your noisy oaths and your bottled-up valour on me? You
seem to know me, and I am half ashamed to say I have at length been
able to recollect you--remember the garden behind the ordinary,--you
dastardly ruffian, and the speed with which fifty men saw you run from
a drawn sword.--Get you gone, sir, and do not put me to the vile
labour of cudgelling such a cowardly rascal down stairs."

The bully's countenance grew dark as night at this unexpected
recognition; for he had undoubtedly thought himself secure in his
change of dress, and his black patch, from being discovered by a
person who had seen him but once. He set his teeth, clenched his
hands, and it seemed as if he was seeking for a moment's courage to
fly upon his antagonist. But his heart failed, he sheathed his sword,
turned his back in gloomy silence, and spoke not until he reached the
door, when, turning round, he said, with a deep oath, "If I be not
avenged of you for this insolence ere many days go by, I would the
gallows had my body and the devil my spirit!"

So saying, and with a look where determined spite and malice made his
features savagely fierce, though they could not overcome his fear, he
turned and left the house. Nigel followed him as far as the gallery at
the head of the staircase, with the purpose of seeing him depart, and
ere he returned was met by Mistress Martha Trapbois, whom the noise of
the quarrel had summoned from her own apartment. He could not resist
saying to her in his natural displeasure--"I would, madam, you could
teach your father and his friends the lesson which you had the
goodness to bestow on me this morning, and prevail on them to leave me
the unmolested privacy of my own apartment."

"If you came hither for quiet or retirement, young man," answered she,
"you have been advised to an evil retreat. You might seek mercy in the
Star-Chamber, or holiness in hell, with better success than quiet in
Alsatia. But my father shall trouble you no longer."

So saying, she entered the apartment, and, fixing her eyes on the
casket, she said with emphasis--"If you display such a loadstone, it
will draw many a steel knife to your throat."

While Nigel hastily shut the casket, she addressed her father,
upbraiding him, with small reverence, for keeping company with the
cowardly, hectoring, murdering villain, John Colepepper.

"Ay, ay, child," said the old man, with the cunning leer which
intimated perfect satisfaction with his own superior address--"I know-
-I know--ugh--but I'll crossbite him--I know them all, and I can
manage them--ay, ay--I have the trick on't--ugh-ugh."

"_You_ manage, father!" said the austere damsel; "you will manage to
have your throat cut, and that ere long. You cannot hide from them
your gains and your gold as formerly."

"My gains, wench? my gold?" said the usurer; "alack-a-day, few of
these and hard got--few and hard got."

"This will not serve you, father, any longer," said she, "and had not
served you thus long, but that Bully Colepepper had contrived a
cheaper way of plundering your house, even by means of my miserable
self.--But why do I speak to him of all this," she said, checking
herself, and shrugging her shoulders with an expression of pity which
did not fall much short of scorn. "He hears me not--he thinks not of
me.--Is it not strange that the love of gathering gold should survive
the care to preserve both property and life?"

"Your father," said Lord Glenvarloch, who could not help respecting
the strong sense and feeling shown by this poor woman, even amidst all
her rudeness and severity, "your father seems to have his faculties
sufficiently alert when he is in the exercise of his ordinary pursuits
and functions. I wonder he is not sensible of the weight of your
arguments."

"Nature made him a man senseless of danger, and that insensibility is
the best thing I have derived from him," said she; "age has left him
shrewdness enough to tread his old beaten paths, but not to seek new
courses. The old blind horse will long continue to go its rounds in
the mill, when it would stumble in the open meadow."

"Daughter!--why, wench--why, housewife!" said the old man, awakening
out of some dream, in which he had been sneering and chuckling in
imagination, probably over a successful piece of roguery,--"go to
chamber, wench--go to chamber--draw bolts and chain--look sharp to
door--let none in or out but worshipful Master Grahame--I must take my
cloak, and go to Duke Hildebrod--ay, ay, time has been, my own warrant
was enough; but the lower we lie, the more are we under the wind."

And, with his wonted chorus of muttering and coughing, the old man
left the apartment. His daughter stood for a moment looking after him,
with her usual expression of discontent and sorrow.

"You ought to persuade your father," said Nigel, "to leave this evil
neighbourhood, if you are in reality apprehensive for his safety."

"He would be safe in no other quarter," said the daughter; "I would
rather the old man were dead than publicly dishonoured. In other
quarters he would be pelted and pursued, like an owl which ventures
into sunshine. Here he was safe, while his comrades could avail
themselves of his talents; he is now squeezed and fleeced by them on
every pretence. They consider him as a vessel on the strand, from
which each may snatch a prey; and the very jealousy which they
entertain respecting him as a common property, may perhaps induce them
to guard him from more private and daring assaults."

"Still, methinks, you ought to leave this place," answered Nigel,
"since you might find a safe retreat in some distant country."

"In Scotland, doubtless," said she, looking at him with a sharp and
suspicious eye, "and enrich strangers with our rescued wealth--Ha!
young man?"

"Madam, if you knew me," said Lord Glenvarloch, "you would spare the
suspicion implied in your words."

"Who shall assure me of that?" said Martha, sharply. "They say you are
a brawler and a gamester, and I know how far these are to be trusted
by the unhappy."

"They do me wrong, by Heaven!" said Lord Glenvarloch.

"It may be so," said Martha; "I am little interested in the degree of
your vice or your folly; but it is plain, that the one or the other
has conducted you hither, and that your best hope of peace, safety,
and happiness, is to be gone, with the least possible delay, from a
place which is always a sty for swine, and often a shambles." So
saying, she left the apartment.

There was something in the ungracious manner of this female, amounting
almost to contempt of him she spoke to--an indignity to which
Glenvarloch, notwithstanding his poverty, had not as yet been
personally exposed, and which, therefore, gave him a transitory
feeling of painful surprise. Neither did the dark hints which Martha
threw out concerning the danger of his place of refuge, sound by any
means agreeably to his ears. The bravest man, placed in a situation in
which he is surrounded by suspicious persons, and removed from all
counsel and assistance, except those afforded by a valiant heart and a
strong arm, experiences a sinking of the spirit, a consciousness of
abandonment, which for a moment chills his blood, and depresses his
natural gallantry of disposition.

But, if sad reflections arose in Nigel's mind, he had not time to
indulge them; and, if he saw little prospect of finding friends in
Alsatia, he found that he was not likely to be solitary for lack of
visitors.