The Fortunes of Nigel

“Under your favour,” said Heriot, detaining him, “you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you.”

The word shop sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily – “Damage, sir? – so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting!”

“Leave me alone for that,” said the citizen: “you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication – I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king’s hand – I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him – but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause.”

“Sir,” said the young nobleman, “your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger.”

“We are, I trust, no longer such,” said the goldsmith; “and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot.”

“You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot,” said Lord Nigel.

“I do not fear that,” replied the goldsmith; “and I am glad to see you smile, my lord – methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request – that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland’s sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation – Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen – and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so.”

“I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot,” said Nigel, “but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant – I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present.”

“My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther,” said Master George. “I – I owed your father some monies; and – nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story – and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life – it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled.”

“And if they are never favourably settled?” said Nigel.

“Then, my lord,” returned the citizen, “the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret.”

“Master Heriot,” said the Lord Nigel, “your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually.”

“I will convince you, my lord,” said the goldsmith, “that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me.”

He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man’s forms of transacting business.

“Bear with me,” he said, “my good lord, – we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul’s, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now – and, body of me,” he said, looking out at the window, “yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands; – it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal’s; – his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel – and there is the end of a city-fortune.”

“I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot,” said the Lord Nigel.

“I hope it will, my lord,” said the old man, with a smile; “but,” to use honest John Bunyan’s phrase – ‘therewithal the water stood in his eyes,’ “it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who ives – Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day! – But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie. – I wish you good-morrow, my lord.”

“One orphan has cause to thank you already,” said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape.

As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master.

“Our way of business, sir,” she said, “takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum.”

“All business must be minded, dame,” said the goldsmith. “Make my remembrances – George Heriot, of Lombard Street’s remembrances – to your goodman. I have dealt with him – he is just and punctual – true to time and engagements; – be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught.”

“And so he is a real lord after all?” said the good dame. “I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then?”

“He will, dame,” answered Heriot, “to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country.”

“Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then,” said the good dame; “and that’s the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say.”

“Let him not hear you say so, dame,” replied the citizen.

“Who, I, sir?” answered she; “no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too.”

“Let your husband come to me, good dame,” said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. “The proverb says, ‘House goes mad when women gad;’ and let his lordship’s own man wait upon his master in his chamber – it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow.”

“Good-morrow to your worship,” said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, “Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do.”

CHAPTER V

Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain ‘tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath’d talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears ‘tis glorious sport. Skelton Skeltonizeth.

It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber.

As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer.

“I’ll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee,” muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud, – “I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald’s, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand.”

There is something so sharp and aigre in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, “Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o’ pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi’ me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine.”

Heriot laughed, and replied, “Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch?”

“The young Lord of Glenvarloch!” said the old mechanist; “wi’ aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years – he was twa years before me at the humanity classes – he is a sweet youth.”

“That was his father – his father – his father! – you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are,” answered the goldsmith. “A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel.”

“His son!” said Ramsay; “maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch – few gallants care to be without them now-a-days.”

“He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know,” said his friend; “but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep’s-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon.”

“She had the more credit by her cookery,” answered David, now fully awake; “a sheep’s-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying.”

“Well,” answered Master George, “but as there will be no sheep’s-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie.”

“That will I – I will be true as a chronometer,” said Ramsay.

“I will not trust you, though,” replied Heriot. – “Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord.”

Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent.

“Umph!” repeated Master George – who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline – “what does umph mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah?”

“Sure, Master George Heriot,” said the apprentice, touching his cap, “I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation.”

“Why, no,” said Master George; “she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt. – And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever.”

“We can keep their steel in order with good handbats,” said Jenkin; “and never trouble your servants for the matter.”

“Or, if need be,” said Tunstall, “we have swords as well as the Templars.”

“Fie upon it – fie upon it, young man,” said the citizen; – “An apprentice with a sword! – Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather.”