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which he did simply and unaffectedly, the citizen only said, "Too much courtesy, my lord duke, is often the reverse of kindness."

"I grieve you should think so, Master Heriot," answered the Duke; "I only meant, by my homage, to claim your protection, sir-your patronage. You are become, I understand, a solicitor of suits-a promoter-an undertaker-a fautor of court suitors of merit and quality, who chance to be pennyless. I trust your bags will bear you out in your new boast." "They will bear me the farther, my lord duke," answered the goldsmith, "that my boast is but small."

"O, you do yourself less than justice, my good Master Heriot," continued the Duke, in the same tone of irony; "you have a marvellous court-faction, to be the son of an Edinburgh tinker. Have the goodness to prefer me to the knowledge of the highborn nobleman who is honoured and advantaged by your patronage."

"That shall be my task," said Lord Huntinglen, with emphasis. "My lord Duke, I desire you to know Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, representative of one of the most ancient and powerful baronial houses in Scotland.-Lord Glenvarloch, I present you to his Grace the Duke of Buckingham, representative of Sir George Villiers, Knight, of Brookesby, in the county of Leicester."

The Duke coloured still more high as he bowed to Lord Glenvarloch scornfully, a courtesy which the other returned haughtily, and with restrained indig. nation. "We know each other, then," said the Duke, after a moment's pause; and as if he had seen something in the young nobleman which merited more serious notice than the bitter raillery with which he had commenced "we know each other-and you know me, my lord, for your enemy."*

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"I thank you for your plainness, my lord duke," replied Nigel; an open enemy is better than a hollow friend."

"For you, my Lord Huntinglen," said the Duke, "methinks you have but now overstepped the limits of the indulgence permitted to you, as the father of the Prince's friend, and my own.'

"By my word, my lord duke,” replied the Earl, "it is easy for any one to outstep boundaries, of the existence of which he was not aware. It is neither to secure my protection nor approbation, that my son keeps such exalted company."

"O, my lord, we know you, and indulge you," said the Duke; "you are one of those who presume for a life-long upon the merit of one good action."

"In faith, my lord, and if it be so," said the old Earl, "I have at least the advantage of such as presume more than I do, without having done any action of merit whatever. But I mean not to quarrel with you, my lord—we can neither be friends nor enemies -you have your path, and I have mine."

Buckingham only replied by throwing on his bonnet, and shaking its lofty plume with a careless and scornful toss of the head. They parted thus; the Duke walking onwards through the apartments, and the others leaving the palace and repairing to Whitehall stairs, where they embarked on board the barge of the citizen.

CHAPTER X.

Bid not thy fortune troll upon the wheels
Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone;
And drown it not, like Egypt's royal harlot,
Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm'd wine cup.
These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres
Into brief yards-bring sterling pounds to farthings,
Credit to infamy; and the poor gull,

pointing out to George Heriot the royal warrant endorsed thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular form? The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand as if to congratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then checked himself, pulled out his barnacles, (a present from old David Ramsay,) and again perused the warrant with the most business-like and critical attention. "It is strictly correct and formal," he said, looking to the Earl of Huntinglen; "and I sincerely rejoice at it,"

"I doubt nothing of its formality," said the Earl; "the King understands business well, and, if he does not practice it often, it is only because indolence obscures parts which are naturally well qualified for the discharge of affairs. But what is next to be done for our young friend, Master Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living at the English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless a sum can be presently raised on this warrant, matters standing as you hastily hinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or whatever it is called, will be foreclosed."

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"It is true," said Heriot, in some embarrassment; "there is a large sum wanted in redemption-yet, if it is not raised, there will be an expiry of the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted." My noble-my worthy friends, who have taken up my cause so undeservedly, so unexpectedly," said Nigel, "do not let me be a burden on your kindness. You have already done too much where nothing was merited."

"Peace, man, peace," said Lord Huntinglen, "and let old Heriot and I puzzle this scent out. He is about to open-hark to him!"

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My lord," said the citizen, "the Duke of Buckingham sneers at our city money-bags; yet they can sometimes open, to prop a falling and a noble house." "We know they can," said Lord Huntinglen"mind not Buckingham, he is a Peg-a-Ramsay-and now for the remedy."

"I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already," said Heriot, "that the redemption money might be advanced upon such a warrant as the present, and I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure the lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom he advances payment."

"Come in his shoes!" replied the Earl; "Why, what have boots or shoes to do with this matter my good friend?"

"It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few of them," said Heriot.

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Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George," replied Lord Huntinglen; "but what means it

"Simply this," resumed the citizen; "that the lender of this money will transact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his right as shall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant upon the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. I fear, in this uncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter security, it will be very difficult to find so large a sum."

Ho la!" said the Earl of Huntinglen, "Halt there! a thought strikes me.-What if the new creditor should admire the estate as a hunting-field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and should wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to me, that on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as well entitled to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the present holder of the mortgage."

The citizen laughed. "I will engage," he said, Who might have lived an honour'd, easy life, "that the keenest sportsman to whom I may apply To ruin, and an unregarded grave.-The Changes. on this occasion, shall not have a thought beyond WHEN they were fairly embarked on the Thames, the Earl took from his pocket the Supplication, and, Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, "The King." Bucking * Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ham replied, It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom know that I, who made you, can, and will unmake you.' Cohe was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince ventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an un-up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and reasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Con- fury, flung from him, saying, You shall not keep it long; and stable On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his "the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, Who made you word."-WELDON'S Court of King James and Charles.

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL.

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abiding there, I cannot bring myself to leave my old
Master, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful,
and whose weal and wo I have shared for so many
years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scottish noble."
"Has he visited the north?" said Heriot.
"He was there last year, and made such a report
ing to see it."
of the country, that the Prince has expressed a long-

ness, and the Duke of Buckingham ?" observed the
Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his High-
goldsmith.

My young friend, when you attain possession of your inheritance, as I hope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with fewer lights and with less means than we have."

And yet the advice to keep the country," said Heriot, "comes from an ancient and constant ornament of the Court."

"From an old courtier, indeed," said the Earl," and the first of my family that could so write himself my gray beard falls on a cambric ruff, and a silken doublet-my father's descended upon a buff coat and a breastplate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stonearched hall return the hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the bicker and the guaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I should like to see the broad Tay once more before I die-not even the Thames can match it, in my mind."

ba Surely, my lord," said the citizen, "all this might be easily done-it costs but a moment's resolution, and the journey of some brief days, and you will be where you desire to be what is there to prevent you?" Habits, Master George, habits," replied the Earl, which to young men are like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken; but which hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves of iron. To go to Scotland for a brief

ther end of the alley to the bench on which his father Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farleisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He and his guests were seated, so that Nigel had full was dressed point-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of the time, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty, with a noble form and fine countenance, in which last could easily be traced the manly features of his father, but softened by a more habitual air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old Earl had ever condescended to assume towards the world in general. In other respects, his address was gallant, free, and unencumtainly from the charge either of haughty coldness or bered either by pride or ceremony-far remote cerfreed him from the marked faults which he ascribed forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly to the manners of the Prince and his favourite Buckingham.

ance Lord Glenvarloch to his son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked the While the old Earl presented his young acquaintcould detect aught of that secret dislike which the countenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he King had, in one of his broken expostulations, seemed betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothing of this was visible; on the contrary, Lord to intimate, as arising from a clashing of interests frankness and courtesy which makes conquest at once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous Dalgarno received his new acquaintance with the open young man.

dress met equally ready and cheerful acceptation from It need hardly be told that his open and friendly adNigel Olifaunt. For many months, and while a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been rehis equals. When, on his father's sudden death, he strained by circumstances from the conversation of left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had found the details of the law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of the patrimony which should suphimself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with port his hereditary rank. His term of sincere mourning, joined to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart under unexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty attending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young Lord of Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reserved manner. How he had passed his time in London, the reader is acquainted with. But this melancholy and secluded course of life was neither agreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was genial sure, the approaches which a young man of his own and sociable. He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleaage and rank made towards him; and when he had exchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by which, as surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognise a mutual wish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two noblemen had been acquainted for some time.

one of Lord Huntinglen's attendants came down the
Just as this tacit intercourse had been established

alley, marshalling onwards a man dressed in black | papers, and to direct in what manner writings should buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed, con- be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient sesidering that, according to his sense of reverence and curity to those who were to advance the money, and propriety, he kept his body bent and parallel to the at the same time preserve the right of the young horizon from the moment that he came in sight of nobleman to redeem the family estate, provided he the company to which he was about to be presented. should obtain the means of doing so, by the expected "Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old reimbursement from the Scottish Exchequer, or Lord, who had retained the keen appetite and impa- otherwise. It is needless to enter into those details. tience of a Scottish Baron even during a long aliena- But it is not unimportant to mention, as an illustration from his native country; "and why does John tion of character, that Heriot went into the most Cook, with a murrain to him, keep back dinner?" minute legal details with a precision which showed "I believe we are ourselves responsible for this per- that experience had made him master even of the son's intrusion," said George Heriot; "this is the intricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the scrivener whom we desired to see.-Look up, man, Earl of Huntinglen, though far less acquainted with and see us in the face as an honest man should, in-technical detail, suffered no step of the business to stead of bearing thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram."

pass over, until he had attained a general but distinct idea of its import and its propriety.

The scrivener did look up accordingly, with the ac- They seemed to be admirably seconded in their betion of an automaton which suddenly obeys the im- nevolent intentions towards the young Lord Glenpulse of a pressed spring. But, strange to tell, not varloch, by the skill and eager zeal of the scrivener, even the haste he had made to attend his patron's whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of busimandate, a business, as Master Heriot's message ex-ness, the most important which Andrew had ever pressed, of weight and importance-nay, not even the transacted in his life, and the particulars of which state of depression in which, out of sheer humility were moreover agitated in his presence between an doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from actual Earl, and one whose wealth and character the moment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of might entitle him to be alderman of his ward, if not Huntinglen, had called any colour into his counte- to be lord mayor, in his turn. nance. The drops stood on his brow from haste and toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before; nay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hung down on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was when we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet and humble desk.

While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good Earl, even forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, in his anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions, and that all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him to engross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on the terrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which Lord Dalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most likely to interest his new

Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous and puritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to the company, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarioch's ear-friend. "The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon, Where got'st thou that goose-look?"

Nigel was too little acquainted with the English stage, to understand a quotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London. Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, "That fellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most hypocritical rogue and such is my excellent opinion of human nature, that I always suspect the worst. But they seem deep in business. Will you take a turn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member of the serious conclave?".

"With you, my lord, most willingly," said Nigel; and they were turning away accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belonging to his station, observed, that, as their business concerned Lord Glenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, and witness to it."

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My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;and, my best friend, Master Heriot," said the young nobleman, "I shall understand nothing the better for cumbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and can only say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare not take the helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already guided my course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven. Whatever you recommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the import of the deeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation from Master Heriot, if he will bestow so much trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learned words and law terms from this person of skill.",

"He is right," said Lord Huntinglen; "our young friend is right, in confiding these matters to you and me. Master George Heriot-he has not misplaced his confidence."

Master George Heriot cast a long look after the two young noblemen, who had now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, "He hath not, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and truly says-but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it behooves every man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon as he hath any that are worth attending to."

When he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with the scrivener, to look into various

These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a court life; and Lord Dalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel proposed an instant return to Scotland. "You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings-it is needless to mince it with the extraordinary success of your suit-against the highest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall. Men think of-talk of you-fix their eyes on you-ask each other, who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so far in a single day? They augur in whispers to each other, how high and how far you may push your fortune-and all that you design to make of it, is, to return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin, though your relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale, eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon a galloway, and be called my right honourable and maist worthy lord!"

"There is no great gayety, in the prospect before me, I confess," said Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet I trust to do something for my vassals, as my ancestors before me, and to teach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personal sacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity the situation in which they are placed by Providence."

Lord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter during this speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty and so resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel along with him, and, despite of himself, he could not forbear to join in a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but almost impertinent.

He soon recollected himself, however; and said, in a tone qualified to allay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth, "This is all well, my lord; but how am I to understand your merriment?" Lord Dalgarno only answered him with redoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord Glenvarloch's cloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground, in the ex. tremity of his convulsion.

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL.

At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half of old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, [CHAP. X. angry, at becoming thus the subject of his new with bucklers and broadswords, which their hands, acquaintance's ridicule, and was only restrained trembling betwixt age and strong waters, can make from expressing his resentment against the son by a no use of as many huge silver badges on their arms, sense of the obligations he owed the father, Lord to show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth Dalgarno recovered himself, and spoke in a half- a court cupboard of plate-rogues fit for nothing but broken voice, his eyes still running with tears. "I to fill our antechambers with the flavour of onions crave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch-ten and genievre-pah !" thousand times do I crave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, accompanied by your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what would have made any court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon once from the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame me. Why, my liefest and dearest lord, you, a young and handsome fellow, with high birth, a title, and the name of an estate, so well received by the King at your first starting, as makes your farther progress scarce matter of doubt, if you know how to improve it-for the King has already said you are a 'braw lad, and well studied in the more humane letters'-you, too, whom all the women, and the very marked beauties of the court, desire to see, because you came from Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a hard-contested suit in England-you, I say, with a person, like a prince, an eye of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on the table when the game is in your very hand, running back to the frozen north, and marrying-let me see a tall, stalking, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, bony wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort of Lot's wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut yourself up in your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!-Swouns, I shall never survive the idea!"

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"or to the bridge-end, to sell switches. The King is "Why, let them go to the hospital," said Dalgarno, 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, where they cut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Scots on the persons 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 metinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father chanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Hunlooks 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?"

deal embarrassed," at any hour you please to name." "I will meet you in Paul's," said Nigel, a good

"Nay, fear not me-I will be no intruder. But we "O, you would be private," said the young lord; have attained this huge larder of flesh, fowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it."

knight; "your lordship's dinners seldom scald one's
mouth-the serving-men are turning, auld, like our-
Troth, and that needsa, my lord," said the
the ha'."
sells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen and

remained satisfied, until the dishes were removed,
With this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo
when fixing his eyes on the brave new doublet of
Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his econo-
my, pretending to recognise it as the same which his

in them by the celebrated James Douglas Earl of Morton.
The cruel civil wars waged by the Scottish barons during
sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.
the minority of James VI., had this name from the figure made

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CHAP. XI.]

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL.

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, n all the tenses. Dalgarno was a fool when he ought-I will be a fool when I pay and you, Sir Mungo, craving your pardon, are a fool in præsenti, 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.

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CHAPTER XI.

You are not for the manner nor the times.

They have their vices now most like to virtues;
You cannot know them apart 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 break-
fast finished, was thinking how he should employ
the day, there was a little bustle upon the stairs
which attracted his attention, and presently entered
A young nobleman, sir-no one less,"
Dame Nelly, blushing like scarlet, and scarce able to
bring out-
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 highdressed 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 wordI 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 All this he said in so significant a manner, and the Heaven, and I can strike a doe for myself." 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

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 transanction, 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 Edin-young courtier's misconstruction. burgh, being the day and place assigned for such redemption.

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."

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 health, with an almost imperceptible nod to Lord of her, and then gravely drank to her husband's 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, pains-taking 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, then looked at Glenvarloch, shook his head, and repeated the well

"My lord, beware of jealousy

It is the green-eyed monster which doth make
The meat it feeds on."

why I should worry you thus-I who have so many
But come," he said, changing his tone, "I know not

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