It is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere
strength of character and principle, to support itself against the
force of ridicule. Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half
ashamed of his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and
flattered himself 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 as his experience in the highest circles of society,
gave him, in spite of Nigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary
ascendency over him. He sought, therefore, to compromise the matter,
and avoid farther debate, by frankly owning, that, if to return to his
own country were not his choice, 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
than precarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?" said
Lord Dalgarno; "all are either losing or winning. Those who have
wealth, come hither 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 sharers in their spoils."
"I have no ambition of that sort," said Nigel, "and if I had, I must
tell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so. I can
scarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot
blush to 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 your habit
--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor, who
should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the
little word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and then
your goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have
equipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have
bought you thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."
"I do not understand these fashions, my lord," said Nigel, his
displeasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of my
sovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting or
borrowing, 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
you would love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of
old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and
broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong
waters, can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms,
to show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard
of plate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with
the flavour 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 them off?"
"Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, "or to the bridge-
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, when
their blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows.
Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared
not come within a yard of that copper nose. I tell you, there is more
service, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such a
lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old
memorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged
by the Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name
from the figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of
Morton. Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.]
where they cut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve
pennies Scots on the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make
amends, they will eat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if
their bellies were puncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound--
hark, it is clearing its rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That
is another clamorous relic of antiquity, that, were I master, should
soon be at the bottom of the Thames. How the foul fiend can it
interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to know that the
Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father looks our
way--we must not be late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace,
if you will forgive a quibble which would 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 should witness our larded capons, our
mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills
and lochs; but you shall see better cheer to-morrow. Where lodge you?
I will call for you. I must be your guide through the peopled desert,
to certain enchanted lands, which you will scarce discover without
chart and pilot. Where lodge you?"
"I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good deal embarrassed, "at
any hour you please to name."
"O, you would be private," said the young lord; "nay, fear not me--I
will 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
the table 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 latter complimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had
made at Court. "One would have thought ye had brought the apple of
discord in your pouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of
whilk Althea was delivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of
gunpowder, for the king, and the prince, and the duke, have been by
the lugs about ye, and so have many more, that kendna before this
blessed day that there was such a man living on the face of the
earth."
"Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo," said the earl; "they get cold while
you talk." "Troth, and that needsna, my lord," said the knight; "your
lordship's dinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are
turning auld, like oursells, 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 new doublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his
economy, pretending to recognise it as the same which his father had
worn in Edinburgh in the Spanish ambassador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too
much a man of the world to be moved by any thing from such a quarter,
proceeded to crack some nuts with great deliberation, as he replied,
that the doublet was in some sort his father's, as it was likely to
cost him fifty pounds some day soon. Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in
his own way to convey this agreeable intelligence to the earl,
observing, that his son was a better maker of bargains than his
lordship, for he had bought a doublet as rich as that his lordship
wore when the Spanish ambassador was at Holyrood, and it had cost him
but fifty pounds Scots;--"that was no fool'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 when he bought--I _will_ be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir
Mungo, craving your pardon, _are_ a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking
of what concerns you not."
So saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of the
table and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the
hilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until
their joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener
had engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed.
George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legal
documents were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if
they had laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and
received the respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such
an ungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lordship's pleasure
was performed.
"Thou shalt eat before thou goest," said Lord Huntinglen; "and I will
have thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some
colour into these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household,
thou shouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion
as thou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof
is concerned."
Lord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. Lord
Glenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and
interchanged, and thus closed a transaction, of which the principal
party concerned understood little, save that it was under the
management of a zealous and faithful friend, who undertook that the
money should be forthcoming, and the estate released from forfeiture,
by payment of the stipulated sum for which it stood pledged, and that
at the term of Lambmas, and at the hour of noon, and beside the tomb
of the Regent Earl of Murray, in the High Kirk of Saint Giles, at
Edinburgh, being the day and place assigned for such redemption.
[Footnote: As each covenant in those days of accuracy had a special
place nominated for execution, the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray
in Saint Giles's Church was frequently assigned for the purpose.]
When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have
renewed his carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the
deeds he had about him, and the business he had to transact betimes
the next morning, not only refused to return to table, but carried
with him to his barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been
otherwise found more tractable.
When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on the
river, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they had
left--"There live," he said, "the old fashion and the new. The father
is like a noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect and
inactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt,
and fashioned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince if
the metal be as good as the show. God grant it prove so, says an old
friend to the family."
Nothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch,
landing at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, and
retired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a
little elevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality
of Lord Huntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of
them to the buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at
length was shining upon what Richie called "the right side of the
hedge."
CHAPTER XI
You are not for the manner nor the times,
They have their vices now most like to virtues;
You cannot know them apait by any difference,
They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat--
Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride in those coaches,
Or very like four horses in a coach,
As the best men and women.
_Ben Jonson_
On the following morning, while Nigel, his breakfast finished, was
thinking how he should employ the day, there was a little bustle upon
the stairs which attracted his attention, and presently entered Dame
Nelly, blushing like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out--"A young
nobleman, sir--no one less," she added, drawing her hand slightly over
her lips, "would be so saucy--a young nobleman, sir, to wait on you!"
And she was followed into the little cabin by Lord Dalgarno, gay,
easy, disembarrassed, and apparently as much pleased to rejoin his new
acquaintance as if he had found him in the apartments of a palace.
Nigel, on the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circumstances,)
was discountenanced and mortified at being surprised by so splendid a
gallant in a chamber which, at the moment the elegant and high-dressed
cavalier appeared in it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower,
narrower, darker, and meaner than it had ever shown before. He would
have made some apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno cut him
short--
"Not a word of it," he said, "not a single word--I know why you ride
at anchor here--but I can keep counsel--so pretty a hostess would
recommend worse quarters."
"On my word--on my honour," said Lord Glenvarloch--
"Nay, nay, make no words of the matter," said Lord Dalgarno; "I am no
tell-tale, nor shall I cross your walk; there is game enough in the
forest, thank Heaven, and I can strike a doe for myself."
All this he said in so significant a manner, and the explanation which
he had adopted seemed to put Lord Glenvarloch's gallantry on so
respectable a footing, that Nigel ceased to try to undeceive him; and
less ashamed, perhaps, (for such is human weakness,) of supposed vice
than of real poverty, changed the discourse to something else, and
left poor Dame Nelly's reputation and his own at the mercy of the
young courtier's misconstruction.
He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord Dalgarno had long
since breakfasted, but had just come from playing a set of tennis, he
said, and would willingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess's single
beer. This was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, as the
hostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord Dalgarno profited by
the opportunity to take a second and more attentive view of her, and
then gravely drank to her husband's health, with an almost
imperceptible nod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much honoured,
smoothed her apron down with her hands, and said
"Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their lordships--he was a
kind painstaking man for his family, as was in the alley, or indeed,
as far north as Paul's Chain."
She would have proceeded probably to state the difference betwixt
their ages, as the only alloy to their nuptial happiness; but her
lodger, who had no mind to be farther exposed to his gay friend's
raillery, gave her, contrary to his wont, a signal to leave the room.
Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at Glenvarloch, shook
his head, and repeated the well-known lines--
"'My lord, beware of jealousy--
It is the green-eyed monster which doth make
The meat it feeds on.'
"But come," he said, changing his tone, "I know not why I should worry
you thus--I who have so many follies of my own, when I should rather
make excuse for being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came."
So saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for Lord
Glenvarloch, in spite of his anxious haste to anticipate this act of
courtesy, he proceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity:--
"We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other.
Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish
neighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemies--must either
walk hand-in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose
the hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer."
"How were it possible, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch, "to refuse
what is offered so frankly, even if your father had not been a second
father to me?"--And, as he took Lord Dalgarno's hand, he added--"I
have, I think, lost no time, since, during one day's attendance at
Court, I have made a kind friend and a powerful enemy."
"The friend thanks you," replied Lord Dalgarno, "for your just
opinion; but, my dear Glenvarloch--or rather, for titles are too
formal between us of the better file--what is your Christian name?"
"Nigel," replied Lord Glenvarloch.
"Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other," said his visitor,
"and my lord to the plebeian world around us. But I was about to ask
you whom you suppose your enemy?"
"No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Duke of
Buckingham."
"You dream! What could possess you with such an opinion?" said
Dalgarno.
"He told me so himself," replied Glenvarloch; "and, in so doing, dealt
frankly and honourably with me."
"O, you know him not yet," said his companion; "the duke is moulded of
an hundred noble and fiery qualities, that prompt him, like a generous
horse, to spring aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his
forward course. But he means not what he says in such passing heats--I
can do more with him, I thank Heaven, than most who are around him;
you shall go visit him with me, and you will see how you shall be
received."
"I told you, my lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some
haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence,
declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall
retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make
the slightest advance towards him."
"You would act becomingly in every other case," said Lord Dalgarno,
"but here you are wrong. In the Court horizon Buckingham is Lord of
the Ascendant, and as he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises
the fortune of a suitor. The king would bid you remember your
Phaedrus,
'Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas--'
and so forth. You are the vase of earth; beware of knocking yourself
against the vase of iron."
"The vase of earth," said Glenvarloch, "will avoid the encounter, by
getting ashore out of the current--I mean to go no more to Court."
"O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find your Scottish suit
move ill without it, for there is both patronage and favour necessary
to enforce the sign-manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak
more hereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, whether
you did not wonder to see me here so early?"
"I am surprised that you could find me out in this obscure corner,"
said Lord Glenvarloch.
"My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discovery," replied
Lord Dalgarno; "I have but to say, 'Goblin, I would know where he or
she dwells,' and he guides me thither as if by art magic."
"I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord," said Nigel; "I will
send my servant to seek him."
"Do not concern yourself--he is by this time," said Lord Dalgarno,
"playing at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing with the most blackguard
imps upon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs."
"Are you not afraid," said Lord Glenvarloch, "that in such company his
morals may become depraved?"
"Let his company look to their own," answered Lord Dalgarno, cooly;
"for it will be a company of real fiends in which Lutin cannot teach
more mischief than he can learn: he is, I thank the gods, most
thoroughly versed in evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of
looking after his moralities, for nothing can make them either better
or worse."
"I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord," said Nigel.
"I wonder where I should find his parents," replied his companion, "to
render an account to them."
"He may be an orphan," said Lord Nigel; "but surely, being a page in
your lordship's family, his parents must be of rank."
"Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them to," replied Lord
Dalgarno, with the same indifference; "they were both hanged, I
believe--at least the gipsies, from whom I bought him five years ago,
intimated as much to me.--You are surprised at this, now. But is it
not better that, instead of a lazy, conceited, whey-faced slip of
gentility, to whom, in your old-world idea of the matter, I was bound
to stand Sir Pedagogue, and see that he washed his hands and face,
said his prayers, learned his acddens, spoke no naughty words, brushed
his hat, and wore his best doublet only on Sunday,--that, instead of
such a Jacky Goodchild, I should have something like this?"
He whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of darted into the
room, almost with the effect of an actual apparition. From his height
he seemed but fifteen, but, from his face, might be two or even three
years older, very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin bronzed
visage, which marked his gipsy descent, and a pair of sparkling black
eyes, which seemed almost to pierce through those whom he looked at.
"There he is," said Lord Dalgarno, "fit for every element--prompt to
execute every command, good, bad, or indifferent--unmatched in his
tribe, as rogue, thief, and liar."
"All which qualities," said the undaunted page, "have each in turn
stood your lordship in stead."
"Out, you imp of Satan!" said his master; "vanish-begone-or my
conjuring rod goes about your ears." The boy turned, and disappeared
as suddenly as he had entered. "You see," said Lord Dalgarno, "that,
in choosing my household, the best regard I can pay to gentle blood is
to exclude it from my service--that very gallows--bird were enough to
corrupt a whole antechamber of pages, though they were descended from
kings and kaisers."
"I can scarce think that a nobleman should need the offices of such an
attendant as your goblin," said Nigel; "you are but jesting with my
inexperience."
"Time will show whether I jest or not, my dear Nigel," replied
Dalgarno; "in the meantime, I have to propose to you to take the
advantage of the flood-tide, to run up the river for pastime; and at
noon I trust you will dine with me."
Nigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much amusement; and his
new friend and he, attended by Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly
resembled, when thus associated, the conjunction of a bear and a
monkey, took possession of Lord Dalgarno's wherry, which, with its
badged watermen, bearing his lordship's crest on their arms, lay in
readiness to receive them. The air was delightful upon the river; and
the lively conversation of Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures
of the little voyage. He could not only give an account of the various
public buildings and noblemen's houses which they passed in ascending
the Thames, but knew how to season his information with abundance of
anecdote, political innuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very
much wit, he was at least completely master of the fashionable tone,
which in that time, as in ours, more than amply supplies any
deficiency of the kind.
It was a style of conversation entirely new to his companion, as was
the world which Lord Dalgarno opened to his observation; and it is no
wonder that Nigel, notwithstanding his natural good sense and high
spirit, admitted, more readily than seemed consistent with either, the
tone of authoritative instruction which his new friend assumed towards
him. There would, indeed, have been some difficulty in making a stand.
To attempt a high and stubborn tone of morality, in answer to the
light strain of Lord Dalgarno's conversation, which kept on the
frontiers between jest and earnest, would have seemed pedantic and
ridiculous; and every attempt which Nigel made to combat his
companion's propositions, by reasoning as jocose as his own, only
showed his inferiority in that gay species of controversy. And it must
be owned, besides, though internally disapproving much of what he
heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young as he was in society, became less
alarmed by the language and manners of his new associate, than in
prudence he ought to have been.
Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, by insisting
upon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or
principles; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously,
that it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in
his propositions, or how far they flowed from a wild and extravagant
spirit of raillery. And, ever and anon, those flashes of spirit and
honour crossed his conversation, which seemed to intimate, that, when
stirred to action by some adequate motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove
something very different from the court-haunting and ease-loving
voluptuary, which he was pleased to represent as his chosen character.
As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch remarked, that the
boat passed the mansion of Lord Huntinglen, and noticed the
circumstance to Lord Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to
have dined there. "Surely no," said the young nobleman, "I have more
mercy on you than to gorge you a second time with raw beef and canary
wine. I propose something better for you, I promise you, than such a
second Scythian festivity. And as for my father, he proposes to dine
to-day with my grave, ancient Earl of Northampton, whilome that
celebrated putter-down of pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard."
"And do you not go with him?" said his companion.
"To what purpose?" said Lord Dalgarno. "To hear his wise lordship
speak musty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses,
that he may give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of
correcting his slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!"
"Nay," said Lord Nigel, "but out of respect, to wait on my lord your
father."
"My lord my father," replied Lord Dalgarno, "has blue-bottles enough
to wait on him, and can well dispense with such a butterfly as myself.
He can lift the cup of sack to his head without my assistance; and,
should the said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men
enough to guide his right honourable lordship to his lordship's right
honourable couch.--Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words were
to sink the boat with us. I love my father--I love him dearly--and I
respect him, too, though I respect not many things; a trustier old
Trojan never belted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what then?
He belongs to the old world, I to the new. He has his follies, I have
mine; and the less either of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the
greater will be the honour and respect--that, I think, is the proper
phrase--I say the _respect_ in which we shall hold each other. Being
apart, each of us is himself, such as nature and circumstances have
made him; but, couple us up too closely together, you will be sure to
have in your leash either an old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps
both the one and t'other."
As he spoke thus, the boat put into the landing-place at Blackfriars.
Lord Dalgarno sprung ashore, and, flinging his cloak and rapier to his
page, recommended to his companion to do the like. "We are coming
among a press of gallants," he said; "and, if we walked thus muffled,
we shall look like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps him close in his
cloak, to conceal the defects of his doublet."
"I have known many an honest man do that, if it please your lordship,"
said Richie Moniplies, who had been watching for an opportunity to
intrude himself on the conversation, and probably remembered what had
been his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a very
recent period.
Lord Dalgarno stared at him, as if surprised at his assurance; but
immediately answered, "You may have known many things, friend; but, in
the meanwhile, you do not know what principally concerns your master,
namely, how to carry his cloak, so as to show to advantage the gold-
laced seams, and the lining of sables. See how Lutin holds the sword,
with his cloak cast partly over it, yet so as to set off the embossed
hilt, and the silver work of the mounting.--Give your familiar your
sword, Nigel," he continued, addressing Lord Glenvarloch, "that he may
practise a lesson in an art so necessary."
"Is it altogether prudent," said Nigel, unclasping his weapon, and
giving it to Richie, "to walk entirely unarmed?"
"And wherefore not?" said his companion. "You are thinking now of Auld
Reekie, as my father fondly calls your good Scottish capital, where
there is such bandying of private feuds and public factions, that a
man of any note shall not cross your High Street twice, without
endangering his life thrice. Here, sir, no brawling in the street is
permitted. Your bull-headed citizen takes up the case so soon as the
sword is drawn, and clubs is the word."
"And a hard word it is," said Richie, "as my brain-pan kens at this
blessed moment."
"Were I your master, sirrah," said Lord Dalgarno, "I would make your
brain-pan, as you call it, boil over, were you to speak a word in my
presence before you were spoken to."
Richie murmured some indistinct answer, but took the hint, and ranked
himself behind his master along with Lutin, who failed not to expose
his new companion to the ridicule of the passers-by, by mimicking, as
often as he could do so unobserved by Richie, his stiff and upright
stalking gait and discontented physiognomy.
"And tell me now, my dear Malcolm," said Nigel, "where we are bending
our course, and whether we shall dine at an apartment of yours?"
"An apartment of mine--yes, surely," answered Lord Dalgarno, "you
shall dine at an apartment of mine, and an apartment of yours, and of
twenty gallants besides; and where the board shall present better
cheer, better wine, and better attendance, than if our whole united
exhibitions went to maintain it. We are going to the most noted
ordinary of London."
"That is, in common language, an inn, or a tavern," said Nigel.
"An inn, or a tavern, my most green and simple friend!" exclaimed Lord
Dalgarno. "No, no--these are places where greasy citizens take pipe
and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their
most unhappy victims--where Templars crack jests as empty as their
nuts, and where small gentry imbibe such thin potations, that they get
dropsies instead of getting drunk. An ordinary is a late-invented
institution, sacred to Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble
gallants of the time meet with the first and most ethereal wits of the
age,--where the wine is the very soul of the choicest grape, refined
as the genius of the poet, and ancient and generous as the blood of
the nobles. And then the fare is something beyond your ordinary gross
terrestrial food! Sea and land are ransacked to supply it; and the
invention of six ingenious cooks kept eternally upon the rack to make
their art hold pace with, and if possible enhance, the exquisite
quality of the materials."
"By all which rhapsody," said Lord Glenvarloch, "I can only
understand, as I did before, that we are going to a choice tavern,
where we shall be handsomely entertained, on paying probably as
handsome a reckoning."
"Reckoning!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno in the same tone as before,
"perish the peasantly phrase! What profanation! Monsieur le Chevalier
de Beaujeu, pink of Paris and flower of Gascony--he who can tell the
age of his wine by the bare smell, who distils his sauces in an
alembic by the aid of Lully's philosophy--who carves with such
exquisite precision, that he gives to noble, knight and squire, the
portion of the pheasant which exactly accords with his rank--nay, he
who shall divide a becafico into twelve parts with such scrupulous
exactness, that of twelve guests not one shall have the advantage of
the other in a hair's breadth, or the twentieth part of a drachm, yet
you talk of him and of a reckoning in the same breath! Why, man, he is
the well-known and general referee in all matters affecting the
mysteries of Passage, Hazard, In and In, Penneeck, and Verquire, and
what not--why, Beaujeu is King of the Card-pack, and Duke of the Dice-
box--HE call a reckoning like a green-aproned, red-nosed son of the
vulgar spigot! O, my dearest Nigel, what a word you have spoken, and
of what a person! That you know him not, is your only apology for such
blasphemy; and yet I scarce hold it adequate, for to have been a day
in London and not to know Beaujeu, is a crime of its own kind. But you
_shall_ know him this blessed moment, and shall learn to hold yourself
in horror for the enormities you have uttered."
"Well, but mark you," said Nigel, "this worthy chevalier keeps not all
this good cheer at his own cost, does he?"
"No, no," answered Lord Dalgarno; "there is a sort of ceremony which
my chevalier's friends and intimates understand, but with which you
have no business at present. There is, as majesty might say, a
_symbolum_ to be disbursed--in other words, a mutual exchange of
courtesies take place betwixt Beaujeu and his guests. He makes them a
free present of the dinner and wine, as often as they choose to
consult their own felicity by frequenting his house at the hour of
noon, and they, in gratitude, make the chevalier a present of a
Jacobus. Then you must know, that, besides Comus and Bacchus, that
princess of sublunary affairs, the Diva Fortuna, is frequently
worshipped at Beaujeu's, and he, as officiating high-priest, hath, as
in reason he should, a considerable advantage from a share of the
sacrifice."
"In other words," said Lord Glenvarloch, "this man keeps a gaming-
house."
"A house in which you may certainly game," said Lord Dalgarno, "as you
may in your own chamber if you have a mind; nay, I remember old Tom
Tally played a hand at put for a wager with Quinze le Va, the
Frenchman, during morning prayers in St. Paul's; the morning was
misty, and the parson drowsy, and the whole audience consisted of
themselves and a blind woman, and so they escaped detection."
"For all this, Malcolm," said the young lord, gravely, "I cannot dine
with you to-day, at this same ordinary."
"And wherefore, in the name of heaven, should you draw back from your
word?" said Lord Dalgarno.
"I do not retract my word, Malcolm; but I am bound, by an early
promise to my father, never to enter the doors of a gaming-house."
"I tell you this is none," said Lord Dalgarno; "it is but, in plain
terms, an eating-house, arranged on civiller terms, and frequented by
better company, than others in this town; and if some of them do amuse
themselves with cards and hazard, they are men of honour, and who play
as such, and for no more than they can well afford to lose. It was
not, and could not be, such houses that your father desired you to
avoid. Besides, he might as well have made you swear you would never
take accommodation of an inn, tavern, eating-house, or place of public
reception of any kind; for there is no such place of public resort but
where your eyes may be contaminated by the sight of a pack of pieces
of painted pasteboard, and your ears profaned by the rattle of those
little spotted cubes of ivory. The difference is, that where we go, we
may happen to see persons of quality amusing themselves with a game;
and in the ordinary houses you will meet bullies and sharpers, who
will strive either to cheat or to swagger you out of your money."
"I am sure you would not willingly lead me to do what is wrong," said
Nigel; "but my father had a horror for games of chance, religious I
believe, as well as prudential. He judged from I know not what
circumstance, a fallacious one I should hope, that I should have a
propensity to such courses, and I have told you the promise which he
exacted from me."
"Now, by my honour," said Dalgarno, "what you have said affords the
strongest reason for my insisting that you go with me. A man who would
shun any danger, should first become acquainted with its real bearing
and extent, and that in the company of a confidential guide and guard.
Do you think I myself game? Good faith, my father's oaks grow too far
from London, and stand too fast rooted in the rocks of Perthshire, for
me to troll them down with a die, though I have seen whole forests go
down like nine-pins. No, no--these are sports for the wealthy
Southron, not for the poor Scottish noble. The place is an eating-
house, and as such you and I will use it. If others use it to game in,
it is their fault, but neither that of the house nor ours."
Unsatisfied with this reasoning, Nigel still insisted upon the promise
he had given to his father, until his companion appeared rather
displeased, and disposed to impute to him injurious and unhandsome
suspicions. Lord Glenvarloch could not stand this change of tone. He
recollected that much was due from him to Lord Dalgarno, on account of
his father's ready and efficient friendship, and something also on
account of the frank manner in which the young man himself had offered
him his intimacy. He had no reason to doubt his assurances, that the
house where they were about to dine did not fall under the description
of places which his father's prohibition referred; and finally, he was
strong in his own resolution to resist every temptation to join in
games of chance. He therefore pacified Lord Dalgarno, by intimating
his willingness to go along with him; and, the good-humour of the
young courtier instantaneously returning, he again ran on in a
grotesque and rodomontade account of the host, Monsieur de Beaujeu,
which he did not conclude until they had reached the temple of
hospitality over which that eminent professor presided.
CHAPTER XII
----This is the very barn-yard,
Where muster daily the prime cocks o' the game,
Ruffle their pinions, crow till they are hoarse,
And spar about a barleycorn. Here too chickens,
The callow, unfledged brood of forward folly,
Learn first to rear the crest, and aim the spur,
And tune their note like full-plumed Chanticleer.
_The Bear-Garden._
The Ordinary, now an ignoble sound, was in the days of James, a new
institution, as fashionable among the youth of that age as the first-
rate modern club-houses are amongst those of the present day. It
differed chiefly, in being open to all whom good clothes and good
assurance combined to introduce there. The company usually dined
together at an hour fixed, and the manager of the establishment
presided as master of the ceremonies.
Monsieur le Chevalier, (as he qualified himself,) Saint Priest de
Beaujeu, was a sharp, thin Gascon, about sixty years old, banished
from his own country, as he said, on account of an affair of honour,
in which he had the misfortune to kill his antagonist, though the best
swordsman in the south of France. His pretensions to quality were
supported by a feathered hat, a long rapier, and a suit of embroidered
taffeta, not much the worse for wear, in the extreme fashion of the
Parisian court, and fluttering like a Maypole with many knots of
ribbon, of which it was computed he bore at least five hundred yards
about his person. But, notwithstanding this profusion of decoration,
there were many who thought Monsieur le Chevalier so admirably
calculated for his present situation, that nature could never have
meant to place him an inch above it. It was, however, part of the
amusement of the place, for Lord Dalgarno and other young men of
quality to treat Monsieur de Beaujeu with a great deal of mock
ceremony, which being observed by the herd of more ordinary and simple
gulls, they paid him, in clumsy imitation, much real deference. The
Gascon's natural forwardness being much enhanced by these
circumstances, he was often guilty of presuming beyond the limits of
his situation, and of course had sometimes the mortification to be
disagreeably driven back into them.
When Nigel entered the mansion of this eminent person, which had been
but of late the residence of a great Baron of Queen Elizabeth's court,
who had retired to his manors in the country on the death of that
princess, he was surprised at the extent of the accommodation which it
afforded, and the number of guests who were already assembled.
Feathers waved, spurs jingled, lace and embroidery glanced everywhere;
and at first sight, at least, it certainly made good Lord Dalgarno's
encomium, who represented the company as composed almost entirely of
youth of the first quality. A more close review was not quite so
favourable. Several individuals might be discovered who were not
exactly at their ease in the splendid dresses which they wore, and
who, therefore, might be supposed not habitually familiar with such
finery. Again, there were others, whose dress, though on a general
view it did not seem inferior to that of the rest of the company,
displayed, on being observed more closely, some of these petty
expedients, by which vanity endeavours to disguise poverty.
Nigel had very little time to make such observations, for the entrance
of Lord Dalgarno created an immediate bustle and sensation among the
company, as his name passed from one mouth to another. Some stood
forward to gaze, others stood back to make way--those of his own rank
hastened to welcome him--those of inferior degree endeavoured to catch
some point of his gesture, or of his dress, to be worn and practised
upon a future occasion, as the newest and most authentic fashion.
The _genius loci_, the Chevalier himself, was not the last to welcome
this prime stay and ornament of his establishment. He came shuffling
forward with a hundred apish _conges_ and _chers milors_, to express
his happiness at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.--"I hope you do bring
back the sun with you, _Milor_--You did carry away the sun and moon
from your pauvre Chevalier when you leave him for so long. Pardieu, I
believe you take them away in your pockets."
"That must have been because you left me nothing else in them,
Chevalier," answered Lord Dalgarno; but Monsieur le Chevalier, I pray
you to know my countryman and friend, Lord Glenvarloch!"
"Ah, ha! tres honore--Je m'en souviens,--oui. J'ai connu autrefois un
Milor Kenfarloque en Ecosse. Yes, I have memory of him--le pere de
milor apparemment-we were vera intimate when I was at Oly Root with
Monsieur de la Motte--I did often play at tennis vit Milor Kenfarloque
at L'Abbaie d'Oly Root--il etoit meme plus fort que moi--Ah le
beaucoup de revers qu'il avoit!--I have memory, too that he was among
the pretty girls--ah, un vrai diable dechaine--Aha! I have memory--"
"Better have no more memory of the late Lord Glenvarloch," said Lord
Dalgarno, interrupting the Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived
that the encomium which he was about to pass on the deceased was
likely to be as disagreeable to the son as it was totally undeserved
by the father, who, far from being either a gamester or libertine, as
the Chevalier's reminiscences falsely represented him, was, on the
contrary, strict and severe in his course of life, almost to the
extent of rigour.
"You have the reason, milor," answered the Chevalier, "you have the
right--Qu'est ce que nous avons a faire avec le temps passe?--the time
passed did belong to our fathers--our ancetres--very well--the time
present is to us--they have their pretty tombs with their memories and
armorials, all in brass and marbre--we have the petits plats exquis,
and the soupe-a-Chevalier, which I will cause to mount up
immediately."
So saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his attendants in
motion to place dinner on the table. Dalgarno laughed, and, observing
his young friend looked grave, said to him, in a tone of reproach-Why,
what!-you are not gull enough to be angry with such an ass as that?"
"I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes," said Lord
Glenvarloch; "but I confess I was moved to hear such a fellow mention
my father's name--and you, too, who told me this was no gaming-house,
talked to him of having left it with emptied pockets."
"Pshaw, man!" said Lord Dalgarno, "I spoke but according to the trick
of the time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he
would be held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will
see whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better than his
conversation."
Dinner was announced accordingly, and the two friends, being seated in
the most honourable station at the board, were ceremoniously attended
to by the Chevalier, who did the honours of his table to them and to
the other guests, and seasoned the whole with his agreeable
conversation. The dinner was really excellent, in that piquant style
of cookery which the French had already introduced, and which the
home-bred young men of England, when they aspired to the rank of
connoisseurs and persons of taste, were under the necessity of
admiring. The wine was also of the first quality, and circulated in
great variety, and no less abundance. The conversation among so many
young men was, of course, light, lively, and amusing; and Nigel, whose
mind had been long depressed by anxiety and misfortune, naturally
found himself at ease, and his spirits raised and animated.
Some of the company had real wit, and could use it both politely and
to advantage; others were coxcombs, and were laughed at without
discovering it; and, again, others were originals, who seemed to have
no objection that the company should be amused with their folly
instead of their wit. And almost all the rest who played any prominent
part in the conversation had either the real tone of good society
which belonged to the period, or the jargon which often passes current
for it.
In short, the company and conversation was so agreeable, that Nigel's
rigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and
he listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de
Beaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the "curieux
and Futile," chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of
cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which
he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in
commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one
whom he had known in his youth, "Maitre de Cuisine to the Marechal
Strozzi--tres bon gentilhomme pourtant;" who had maintained his
master's table with twelve covers every day during the long and severe
blockade of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on
it than the quarter of a carrion-horse now and then, and the grass and
weeds that grew on the ramparts. "Despardieux c'dtoit un homme
superbe! With one tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a
soupe for twenty guests--an haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti
des plus excellens; but his coupe de maitre was when the rendition--
what you call the surrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me
damme, he made out of the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five
couverts; that the English and Scottish officers and nobility, who had
the honour to dine with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell
what the devil any of them were made upon at all.
The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such
genial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table,
who had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own
credit, or that of the ordinary, to make innovations.
"You speak of the siege of Leith," said a tall, raw-boned man, with
thick mustaches turned up with a military twist, a broad buff belt, a
long rapier, and other outward symbols of the honoured profession,
which lives by killing other people--"you talk of the siege of Leith,
and I have seen the place--a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a
plain wall, or rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every
angle. Uds daggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been
twenty-four hours, not to say so many months, before it, without
carrying the place and all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure
storm, they would have deserved no better grace than the Provost-
Marshal gives when his noose is reeved."
"Saar," said the Chevalier, "Monsieur le Capitaine, I vas not at the
siege of the petit Leyth, and I know not what you say about the
cockloft; but I will say for Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he
understood the grande guerre, and was grand capitaine--plus grand--
that is more great, it may be, than some of the capitaines of
Angleterre, who do speak very loud--tenez, Monsieur, car c'est a
vous!"
"O Monsieur." answered the swordsman, "we know the Frenchman will
fight well behind his barrier of stone, or when he is armed with back,
breast, and pot."
"Pot!" exclaimed the Chevalier, "what do you mean by pot--do you mean
to insult me among my noble guests? Saar, I have done my duty as a
pauvre gentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at Courtrai and
Yvry, and, ventre saint gris! we had neither pot nor marmite, but did
always charge in our shirt."
"Which refutes another base scandal," said Lord Dalgarno, laughing,
"alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms."
"Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord," said the
captain, from the bottom of the table." Craving your lordship's
pardon, I do know something of these same gens-d'armes."
"We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your
modesty at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge
was acquired," answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously.
"I need not speak of it, my lord," said the man of war; "the world
knows it--all perhaps, but the men of mohair--the poor sneaking
citizens of London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts
for hunger, ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses to
relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once
to come near that cuckoo's nest of theirs!"
"A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!" said a gallant
who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid
and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it--"I will not
brook to hear that repeated."
"What!" said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of
broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand,
and twirling with the other his huge mustaches; "will you quarrel for
your city?"
"Ay, marry will I," replied the other. "I am a citizen, I care not who
knows it; and he who shall speak a word in dispraise of the city, is
an ass and a peremptory gull, and I will break his pate, to teach him
sense and manners."
The company, who probably had their reasons for not valuing the
captain's courage at the high rate which he himself put upon it, were
much entertained at the manner in which the quarrel was taken up by
the indignant citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, "Well run,
Bow-bell!"--"Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul's!"--"Sound a charge
there, or the soldier will mistake his signals, and retreat when he
should advance."
"You mistake me, gentlemen," said the captain, looking round with an
air of dignity. "I will but inquire whether this cavaliero citizen is
of rank and degree fitted to measure swords with a man of action;
(for, conceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can
match myself without loss of reputation;) and in that case he shall
soon hear from me honourably, by way of cartel."
"You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of cudgel," said the
citizen, starting up, and taking his sword, which he had laid in a
corner. "Follow me."
"It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the rules of the
sword," said the captain; "and I do nominate the Maze, in Tothill-
Fields, for place--two gentlemen, who shall be indifferent judges, for
witnesses;--and for time--let me say this day fortnight, at daybreak."
"And I," said the citizen, "do nominate the bowling-alley behind the
house for place, the present good company for witnesses, and for time
the present moment."
So saying, he cast on his beaver, struck the soldier across the
shoulders with his sheathed sword, and ran down stairs. The captain
showed no instant alacrity to follow him; yet, at last, roused by the
laugh and sneer around him, he assured the company, that what he did
he would do deliberately, and, assuming his hat, which he put on with
the air of Ancient Pistol, he descended the stairs to the place of
combat, where his more prompt adversary was already stationed, with
his sword unsheathed. Of the company, all of whom seemed highly
delighted with the approaching fray, some ran to the windows which
overlooked the bowling-alley, and others followed the combatants down
stairs. Nigel could not help asking Dalgarno whether he would not
interfere to prevent mischief.
"It would be a crime against the public interest," answered his
friend; "there can no mischief happen between two such originals,
which will not be a positive benefit to society, and particularly to
the Chevalier's establishment, as he calls it. I have been as sick of
that captain's buff belt, and red doublet, for this month past, as
e'er I was of aught; and now I hope this bold linendraper will cudgel
the ass out of that filthy lion's hide. See, Nigel, see the gallant
citizen has ta'en his ground about a bowl's-cast forward, in the midst
of the alley--the very model of a hog in armour. Behold how he prances
with his manly foot, and brandishes his blade, much as if he were
about to measure forth cambric with it. See, they bring on the
reluctant soldado, and plant him opposite to his fiery antagonist,
twelve paces still dividing them--Lo, the captain draws his tool, but,
like a good general, looks over his shoulder to secure his retreat, in
case the worse come on't. Behold the valiant shop-keeper stoops his
head, confident, doubtless, in the civic helmet with which his spouse
has fortified his skull--Why, this is the rarest of sport. By Heaven,
he will run a tilt at him, like a ram."
It was even as Lord Dalgarno had anticipated; for the citizen, who
seemed quite serious in his zeal for combat, perceiving that the man
of war did not advance towards him, rushed onwards with as much good
fortune as courage, beat down the captain's guard, and, pressing on,
thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body of his
antagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his length on the ground.
A score of voices cried to the conqueror, as he stood fixed in
astonishment at his own feat, "Away, away with you!--fly, fly--fly by
the back door!--get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the
Bankside, while we keep off the mob and the constables." And the
conqueror, leaving his vanquished foeman on the ground, fled
accordingly, with all speed.
"By Heaven," said Lord Dalgarno, "I could never have believed that the
fellow would have stood to receive a thrust--he has certainly been
arrested by positive terror, and lost the use of his limbs. See, they
are raising him."
Stiff and stark seemed the corpse of the swordsman, as one or two of
the guests raised him from the ground; but, when they began to open
his waistcoat to search for the wound which nowhere existed, the man
of war collected, his scattered spirits; and, conscious that the
ordinary was no longer a stage on which to display his valour, took to
his heels as fast as he could run, pursued by the laughter and shouts
of the company.
"By my honour," said Lord Dalgarno, "he takes the same course with his
conqueror. I trust in heaven he will overtake him, and then the
valiant citizen will suppose himself haunted by the ghost of him he
has slain."
"Despardieux, milor," said the Chevalier, "if he had stayed one
moment, he should have had a _torchon_--what you call a dishclout,
pinned to him for a piece of shroud, to show he be de ghost of one
grand fanfaron."
"In the meanwhile," said Lord Dalgarno, "you will oblige us, Monsieur
le Chevalier, as well as maintain your own honoured reputation, by
letting your drawers receive the man-at-arms with a cudgel, in case he
should venture to come way again."
"Ventre saint gris, milor," said the Chevalier, "leave that to me.--
Begar, the maid shall throw the wash-sud upon the grand poltron!"
When they had laughed sufficiently at this ludicrous occurrence, the
party began to divide themselves into little knots--some took
possession of the alley, late the scene of combat, and put the field
to its proper use of a bowling-ground, and it soon resounded with all
the terms of the game, as "run, run-rub, rub--hold bias, you infernal
trundling timber!" thus making good the saying, that three things are
thrown away in a bowling-green, namely, time, money, and oaths. In the
house, many of the gentlemen betook themselves to cards or dice, and
parties were formed at Ombre, at Basset, at Gleek, at Primero, and
other games then in fashion; while the dice were used at various
games, both with and without the tables, as Hazard, In-and-in,
Passage, and so forth. The play, however, did not appear to be
extravagantly deep; it was certainly conducted with great decorum and
fairness; nor did there appear any thing to lead the young Scotsman in
the least to doubt his companion's assurance, that the place was
frequented by men of rank and quality, and that the recreations they
adopted were conducted upon honourable principles.
Lord Dalgarno neither had proposed play to his friend, nor joined in
the amusement himself, but sauntered from one table to another,
remarking the luck of the different players, as well as their capacity
to avail themselves of it, and exchanging conversation with the
highest and most respectable of the guests. At length, as if tired of
what in modern phrase would have been termed lounging, he suddenly
remembered that Burbage was to act Shakespeare's King Richard, at the
Fortune, that afternoon, and that he could not give a stranger in
London, like Lord Glenvarloch, a higher entertainment than to carry
him to that exhibition; "unless, indeed," he added, in a whisper,
"there is paternal interdiction of the theatre as well as of the
ordinary."