The Fortunes of Nigel

“Not honestly, perhaps,” said the captain, “but that makes little difference betwixt us.”

“I swear to you,” continued the scrivener “they are in no way at my disposal – they have been delivered to me by tale – I am to pay them over to Lord Dalgarno, whose boy waits for them, and I could not skelder one piece out of them, without risk of hue and cry.”

“Can you not put off the delivery?” said the bravo, his huge hand still fumbling with one of the bags, as if his fingers longed to close on it.

“Impossible,” said the scrivener, “he sets forward to Scotland to-morrow.”

“Ay!” said the bully, after a moment’s thought – “Travels he the north road with such a charge?”

“He is well accompanied,” added the scrivener; “but yet – ”

“But yet – but what?” said the bravo.

“Nay, I meant nothing,” said the scrivener.

“Thou didst – thou hadst the wind of some good thing,” replied Colepepper; “I saw thee pause like a setting dog. Thou wilt say as little, and make as sure a sign, as a well-bred spaniel.”

“All I meant to say, captain, was, that his servants go by Barnet, and he himself, with his page, pass through Enfield Chase; and he spoke to me yesterday of riding a soft pace.”

“Aha! – Comest thou to me there, my boy?”

“And of resting” – continued the scrivener, – “resting a space at Camlet Moat.”

“Why, this is better than cock-fighting!” said the captain.

“I see not how it can advantage you, captain,” said the scrivener. “But, however, they cannot ride fast, for his page rides the sumpter-horse, which carries all that weight,” pointing to the money on the table. “Lord Dalgarno looks sharp to the world’s gear.”

“That horse will be obliged to those who may ease him of his burden,” said the bravo; “and egad, he may be met with. – He hath still that page – that same Lutin – that goblin? Well, the boy hath set game for me ere now. I will be revenged, too, for I owe him a grudge for an old score at the ordinary. Let me see – Black Feltham, and Dick Shakebag – we shall want a fourth – I love to make sure, and the booty will stand parting, besides what I can bucket them out of. Well, scrivener, lend me two pieces. – Bravely done – nobly imparted! Give ye good-den.” And wrapping his disguise closer around him, away he went.

When he had left the room, the scrivener wrung his hands, and exclaimed, “More blood – more blood! I thought to have had done with it, but this time there was no fault with me – none – and then I shall have all the advantage. If this ruffian falls, there is truce with his tugs at my purse-strings; and if Lord Dalgarno dies – as is most likely, for though as much afraid of cold steel as a debtor of a dun, this fellow is a deadly shot from behind a bush, – then am I in a thousand ways safe – safe – safe.”

We willingly drop the curtain over him and his reflections.

CHAPTER XXXV

We are not worst at once – the course of evil
Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
An infant’s hand might stem its breach with clay;
But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy —
Ay, and religion too – shall strive in vain
To turn the headlong torrent.

    Old Play.
The Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a private chamber at Beaujeu’s, where he might be considered as good company; for he had exchanged his serving-man’s cloak and jerkin for a grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but such as might have befitted an older man than himself. He had positively declined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to which his companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be easily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion were not indisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw and pedantic Scotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few pieces, of which he appeared to have acquired considerable command. But not even a succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the little brilliant atoms circulated like motes in the sun’s rays, had the least effect on Richie’s sense of decorum. He retained the gravity of a judge, even while he drank like a fish, partly from his own natural inclination to good liquor, partly in the way of good fellowship towards his guests. When the wine began to make some innovation on their heads, Master Lowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to become yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical than even in the earlier part of the entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up their debauch and join the gamesters.

The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning of the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which was received with cap and knee, and many assurances of – “Kindly welcome, gentlemen.”

“I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen,” said Richie to his companions, – “and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went, or stayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I thank you, however, for having graced my poor collation thus far; and I commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the ordinary neither was, is, nor shall be, an element of mine.”

“Fare thee well, then,” said Lowestoffe, “most sapient and sententious Master Moniplies. May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and may I be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heartily as you have done this day.”

“Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so – but, if you would but hear me speak a few words of admonition respecting this wicked ordinary – ”

“Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie,” said Lowestoffe, “until I have lost all my money,” showing, at the same time, a purse indifferently well provided, “and then the lecture is likely to have some weight.”

“And keep my share of it, Richie,” said the other Templar, showing an almost empty purse, in his turn, “till this be full again, and then I will promise to hear you with some patience.”

“Ay, ay, gallants,” said Richie, “the full and the empty gang a’ ae gate, and that is a grey one – but the time will come.”

“Nay, it is come already,” said Lowestoffe; “they have set out the hazard table. Since you will peremptorily not go with us, why, farewell, Richie.”

“And farewell, gentlemen,” said Richie, and left the house, into which they had returned.

Moniplies was not many steps from the door, when a person, whom, lost in his reflections on gaming, ordinaries, and the manners of the age, he had not observed, and who had been as negligent on his part, ran full against him; and, when Richie desired to know whether he meant “ony incivility,” replied by a curse on Scotland, and all that belonged to it. A less round reflection on his country would, at any time, have provoked Richie, but more especially when he had a double quart of Canary and better in his pate. He was about to give a very rough answer, and to second his word by action, when a closer view of his antagonist changed his purpose.

“You are the vera lad in the warld,” said Richie, “whom I most wished to meet.”

“And you,” answered the stranger, “or any of your beggarly countrymen, are the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair and false, and an honest man cannot thrive within eyeshot of you.”

“As to our poverty, friend,” replied Richie, “that is as Heaven pleases; but touching our falset, I’ll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in English doublet.”

“I care not whether he does or not,” said the gallant. “Let me go – why keep you hold of my cloak? Let me go, or I will thrust you into the kennel.”

“I believe I could forgie ye, for you did me a good turn once, in plucking me out of it,” said the Scot.

“Beshrew my fingers, then, if they did so,” replied the stranger. “I would your whole country lay there, along with you; and Heaven’s curse blight the hand that helped to raise them! – Why do you stop my way?” he added, fiercely.

“Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin,” said Richie. “Nay, never start about it, man – you see you are known. Alack-a-day! that an honest man’s son should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name!” Jenkin struck his brow violently with his clenched fist.

“Come, come,” said Richie, “this passion availeth nothing. Tell me what gate go you?”

“To the devil!” answered Jin Vin.

“That is a black gate, if you speak according to the letter,” answered Richie; “but if metaphorically, there are worse places in this great city than the Devil Tavern; and I care not if I go thither with you, and bestow a pottle of burnt sack on you – it will correct the crudities of my stomach, and form a gentle preparative for the leg of a cold pullet.”

“I pray you, in good fashion, to let me go,” said Jenkin. “You may mean me kindly, and I wish you to have no wrong at my hand; but I am in the humour to be dangerous to myself, or any one.”

“I will abide the risk,” said the Scot, “if you will but come with me; and here is a place convenient, a howff nearer than the Devil, whilk is but an ill-omened drouthy name for a tavern. This other of the Saint Andrew is a quiet place, where I have ta’en my whetter now and then, when I lodged in the neighbourhood of the Temple with Lord Glenvarloch. – What the deil’s the matter wi’ the man, garr’d him gie sic a spang as that, and almaist brought himself and me on the causeway?”

“Do not name that false Scot’s name to me,” said Jin Vin, “if you would not have me go mad! – I was happy before I saw him – he has been the cause of all the ill that has befallen me – he has made a knave and a madman of me!”

“If you are a knave,” said Richie, “you have met an officer – if you are daft, you have met a keeper; but a gentle officer and a kind keeper. Look you, my gude friend, there has been twenty things said about this same lord, in which there is no more truth than in the leasings of Mahound. The warst they can say of him is, that he is not always so amenable to good advice as I would pray him, you, and every young man to be. Come wi’ me – just come ye wi’ me; and, if a little spell of siller and a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your occasions, all I can say is, you have had the luck to meet one capable of giving you both, and maist willing to bestow them.”

The pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent, who was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for himself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of another. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which Richie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a snug niche, with a reeking pottle of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar betwixt them. Pipes and tobacco were also provided, but were only used by Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding considerably to the gravity and importance of his manner, and affording, as it were, a bland and pleasant accompaniment to the words of wisdom which flowed from his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank them in silence, Richie repeated the question, whither his guest was going when they met so fortunately.

“I told you,” said Jenkin, “I was going to destruction – I mean to the gaming-house. I am resolved to hazard these two or three pieces, to get as much as will pay for a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship lies at Gravesend, bound for America – and so Eastward, ho! – I met one devil in the way already, who would have tempted me from my purpose, but I spurned him from me – you may be another for what I know. – What degree of damnation do you propose for me,” he added wildly, “and what is the price of it?”

“I would have you to know,” answered Richie, “that I deal in no such commodities, whether as buyer or seller. But if you will tell me honestly the cause of your distress, I will do what is in my power to help you out of it, – not being, however, prodigal of promises, until I know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice when he has observed the diagnostics.”