Ay! mark the matron well--and laugh not, Harry,
At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard--
I've call'd her like the ear of Dionysius;
I mean that ear-form'd vault, built o'er his dungeon,
To catch the groans and discontented murmurs
Of his poor bondsmen--Even so doth Martha
Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes,
Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city--
She can retail it too, if that her profit
Shall call on her to do so; and retail it
For your advantage, so that you can make
Your profit jump with hers.
The Conspiracy.
We must now introduce to the reader's acquaintance another character,
busy and important far beyond her ostensible situation in society--in
a word, Dame Ursula Suddlechop, wife of Benjamin Suddlechop, the most
renowned barber in all Fleet Street. This dame had her own particular
merits, the principal part of which was (if her own report could be
trusted) an infinite desire to be of service to her fellow-creatures.
Leaving to her thin half-starved partner the boast of having the most
dexterous snap with his fingers of any shaver in London, and the care
of a shop where starved apprentices flayed the faces of those who
were boobies enough to trust them, the dame drove a separate and more
lucrative trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, that it
seemed in many respects to contradict itself.
Its highest and most important duties were of a very secret and
confidential nature, and Dame Ursula Suddlechop was never known to
betray any transaction intrusted to her, unless she had either been
indifferently paid for her service, or that some one found it convenient
to give her a double douceur to make her disgorge the secret; and
these contingencies happened in so few cases, that her character for
trustiness remained as unimpeached as that for honesty and benevolence.
In fact, she was a most admirable matron, and could be useful to the
impassioned and the frail in the rise, progress, and consequences of
their passion. She could contrive an interview for lovers who could show
proper reasons for meeting privately; she could relieve the frail fair
one of the burden of a guilty passion, and perhaps establish the hopeful
offspring of unlicensed love as the heir of some family whose love was
lawful, but where an heir had not followed the union. More than this she
could do, and had been concerned in deeper and dearer secrets. She had
been a pupil of Mrs. Turner, and learned from her the secret of making
the yellow starch, and, it may be, two or three other secrets of more
consequence, though perhaps none that went to the criminal extent of
those whereof her mistress was accused. But all that was deep and dark
in her real character was covered by the show of outward mirth and
good-humour, the hearty laugh and buxom jest with which the dame knew
well how to conciliate the elder part of her neighbours, and the many
petty arts by which she could recommend herself to the younger, those
especially of her own sex.
Dame Ursula was, in appearance, scarce past forty, and her full, but
not overgrown form, and still comely features, although her person was
plumped out, and her face somewhat coloured by good cheer, had a joyous
expression of gaiety and good-humour, which set off the remains of
beauty in the wane. Marriages, births, and christenings were seldom
thought to be performed with sufficient ceremony, for a considerable
distance round her abode, unless Dame Ursley, as they called her, was
present. She could contrive all sorts of pastimes, games, and jests,
which might amuse the large companies which the hospitality of our
ancestors assembled together on such occasions, so that her presence was
literally considered as indispensable in the families of all citizens of
ordinary rank, at such joyous periods. So much also was she supposed to
know of life and its labyrinths, that she was the willing confidant
of half the loving couples in the vicinity, most of whom used to
communicate their secrets to, and receive their counsel from, Dame
Ursley. The rich rewarded her services with rings, owches, or gold
pieces, which she liked still better; and she very generously gave
her assistance to the poor, on the same mixed principles as young
practitioners in medicine assist them, partly from compassion, and
partly to keep her hand in use.
Dame Ursley's reputation in the city was the greater that her practice
had extended beyond Temple Bar, and that she had acquaintances, nay,
patrons and patronesses, among the quality, whose rank, as their members
were much fewer, and the prospect of approaching the courtly sphere much
more difficult, bore a degree of consequence unknown to the present day,
when the toe of the citizen presses so close on the courtier's heel.
Dame Ursley maintained her intercourse with this superior rank of
customers, partly by driving a small trade in perfumes, essences,
pomades, head-gears from France, dishes or ornaments from China, then
already beginning to be fashionable; not to mention drugs of various
descriptions, chiefly for the use of the ladies, and partly by other
services, more or less connected with the esoteric branches of her
profession heretofore alluded to.
Possessing such and so many various modes of thriving, Dame Ursley
was nevertheless so poor, that she might probably have mended her own
circumstances, as well as her husband's, if she had renounced them all,
and set herself quietly down to the care of her own household, and to
assist Benjamin in the concerns of his trade. But Ursula was luxurious
and genial in her habits, and could no more have endured the stinted
economy of Benjamin's board, than she could have reconciled herself to
the bald chat of his conversation.
It was on the evening of the day on which Lord Nigel Olifaunt dined with
the wealthy goldsmith, that we must introduce Ursula Suddlechop upon
the stage. She had that morning made a long tour to Westminster, was
fatigued, and had assumed a certain large elbow-chair, rendered smooth
by frequent use, placed on one side of her chimney, in which there was
lit a small but bright fire. Here she observed, betwixt sleeping and
waking, the simmering of a pot of well-spiced ale, on the brown surface
of which bobbed a small crab-apple, sufficiently roasted, while a little
mulatto girl watched, still more attentively, the process of dressing
a veal sweetbread, in a silver stewpan which occupied the other side
of the chimney. With these viands, doubtless, Dame Ursula proposed
concluding the well spent day, of which she reckoned the labour over,
and the rest at her own command. She was deceived, however; for just
as the ale, or, to speak technically, the lamb's-wool, was fitted for
drinking, and the little dingy maiden intimated that the sweetbread was
ready to be eaten, the thin cracked voice of Benjamin was heard from the
bottom of the stairs.
"Why, Dame Ursley--why, wife, I say--why, dame--why, love, you are
wanted more than a strop for a blunt razor--why, dame--"
"I would some one would draw a razor across thy windpipe, thou bawling
ass!" said the dame to herself, in the first moment of irritation
against her clamorous helpmate; and then called aloud,--"Why, what is
the matter, Master Suddlechop? I am just going to slip into bed; I have
been daggled to and fro the whole day."
"Nay, sweetheart, it is not me," said the patient Benjamin, "but the
Scots laundry-maid from neighbour Ramsay's, who must speak with you
incontinent."
At the word sweetheart, Dame Ursley cast a wistful look at the mess
which was stewed to a second in the stewpan, and then replied, with
a sigh,--"Bid Scots Jenny come up, Master Suddlechop. I shall be very
happy to hear what she has to say;" then added in a lower tone, "and I
hope she will go to the devil in the flame of a tar-barrel, like many a
Scots witch before her!"
The Scots laundress entered accordingly, and having heard nothing of the
last kind wish of Dame Suddlechop, made her reverence with considerable
respect, and said, her young mistress had returned home unwell, and
wished to see her neighbour, Dame Ursley, directly.
"And why will it not do to-morrow, Jenny, my good woman?" said Dame
Ursley; "for I have been as far as Whitehall to-day already, and I am
well-nigh worn off my feet, my good woman."
"Aweel!" answered Jenny, with great composure, "and if that sae be sae,
I maun take the langer tramp mysell, and maun gae down the waterside for
auld Mother Redcap, at the Hungerford Stairs, that deals in comforting
young creatures, e'en as you do yoursell, hinny; for ane o' ye the bairn
maun see before she sleeps, and that's a' that I ken on't."
So saying, the old emissary, without farther entreaty, turned on her
heel, and was about to retreat, when Dame Ursley exclaimed,--"No, no--if
the sweet child, your mistress, has any necessary occasion for good
advice and kind tendance, you need not go to Mother Redcap, Janet. She
may do very well for skippers' wives, chandlers' daughters, and such
like; but nobody shall wait on pretty Mistress Margaret, the daughter of
his most Sacred Majesty's horologer, excepting and saving myself. And
so I will but take my chopins and my cloak, and put on my muffler,
and cross the street to neighbour Ramsay's in an instant. But tell me
yourself, good Jenny, are you not something tired of your young lady's
frolics and change of mind twenty times a-day?"
"In troth, not I," said the patient drudge, "unless it may be when she
is a wee fashious about washing her laces; but I have been her
keeper since she was a bairn, neighbour Suddlechop, and that makes a
difference."
"Ay," said Dame Ursley, still busied putting on additional defences
against the night air; "and you know for certain that she has two
hundred pounds a-year in good land, at her own free disposal?"
"Left by her grandmother, heaven rest her soul!" said the Scotswoman;
"and to a daintier lassie she could not have bequeathed it."
"Very true, very true, mistress; for, with all her little whims, I have
always said Mistress Margaret Ramsay was the prettiest girl in the ward;
and, Jenny, I warrant the poor child has had no supper?"
Jenny could not say but it was the case, for, her master being out, the
twa 'prentice lads had gone out after shutting shop, to fetch them home,
and she and the other maid had gone out to Sandy MacGivan's, to see a
friend frae Scotland.
"As was very natural, Mrs. Janet," said Dame Ursley, who found her
interest in assenting to all sorts of propositions from all sorts of
persons.
"And so the fire went out, too,"--said Jenny.
"Which was the most natural of the whole," said Dame Suddlechop; "and
so, to cut the matter short, Jenny, I'll carry over the little bit of
supper that I was going to eat. For dinner I have tasted none, and it
may be my young pretty Mistress Marget will eat a morsel with me; for
it is mere emptiness, Mistress Jenny, that often puts these fancies
of illness into young folk's heads." So saying, she put the silver
posset-cup with the ale into Jenny's hands and assuming her mantle with
the alacrity of one determined to sacrifice inclination to duty, she
hid the stewpan under its folds, and commanded Wilsa, the little mulatto
girl, to light them across the street.
"Whither away, so late?" said the barber, whom they passed seated with
his starveling boys round a mess of stockfish and parsnips, in the shop
below.
"If I were to tell you, Gaffer," said the dame, with most contemptuous
coolness, "I do not think you could do my errand, so I will e'en keep it
to myself." Benjamin was too much accustomed to his wife's independent
mode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther; nor did the dame tarry
for farther question, but marched out at the door, telling the eldest of
the boys "to sit up till her return, and look to the house the whilst."
The night was dark and rainy, and although the distance betwixt the two
shops was short, it allowed Dame Ursley leisure enough, while she strode
along with high-tucked petticoats, to embitter it by the following
grumbling reflections--"I wonder what I have done, that I must needs
trudge at every old beldam's bidding, and every young minx's maggot!
I have been marched from Temple Bar to Whitechapel, on the matter of a
pinmaker's wife having pricked her fingers--marry, her husband that made
the weapon might have salved the wound.--And here is this fantastic ape,
pretty Mistress Marget, forsooth--such a beauty as I could make of a
Dutch doll, and as fantastic, and humorous, and conceited, as if she
were a duchess. I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a
marmozet and as stubborn as a mule. I should like to know whether
her little conceited noddle, or her father's old crazy calculating
jolter-pate, breeds most whimsies. But then there's that two hundred
pounds a-year in dirty land, and the father is held a close chuff,
though a fanciful--he is our landlord besides, and she has begged a
late day from him for our rent; so, God help me, I must be
comfortable--besides, the little capricious devil is my only key to get
at Master George Heriot's secret, and it concerns my character to find
that out; and so, ANDIAMOS, as the lingua franca hath it."
Thus pondering, she moved forward with hasty strides until she arrived
at the watchmaker's habitation. The attendant admitted them by means of
a pass-key. Onward glided Dame Ursula, now in glimmer and now in gloom,
not like the lovely Lady Cristabelle through Gothic sculpture and
ancient armour, but creeping and stumbling amongst relics of old
machines, and models of new inventions in various branches of
mechanics with which wrecks of useless ingenuity, either in a broken
or half-finished shape, the apartment of the fanciful though ingenious
mechanist was continually lumbered.
At length they attained, by a very narrow staircase, pretty Mistress
Margaret's apartment, where she, the cynosure of the eyes of every bold
young bachelor in Fleet Street, sat in a posture which hovered between
the discontented and the disconsolate. For her pretty back and shoulders
were rounded into a curve, her round and dimpled chin reposed in the
hollow of her little palm, while the fingers were folded over her mouth;
her elbow rested on a table, and her eyes seemed fixed upon the dying
charcoal, which was expiring in a small grate. She scarce turned her
head when Dame Ursula entered, and when the presence of that estimable
matron was more precisely announced in words by the old Scotswoman,
Mistress Margaret, without changing her posture, muttered some sort of
answer that was wholly unintelligible.
"Go your ways down to the kitchen with Wilsa, good Mistress Jenny," said
Dame Ursula, who was used to all sorts of freaks, on the part of her
patients or clients, whichever they might be termed; "put the stewpan
and the porringer by the fireside, and go down below--I must speak to my
pretty love, Mistress Margaret, by myself--and there is not a bachelor
betwixt this and Bow but will envy me the privilege."
The attendants retired as directed, and Dame Ursula, having availed
herself of the embers of charcoal, to place her stewpan to the best
advantage, drew herself as close as she could to her patient, and began
in a low, soothing, and confidential tone of voice, to inquire what
ailed her pretty flower of neighbours.
"Nothing, dame," said Margaret somewhat pettishly, and changing her
posture so as rather to turn her back upon the kind inquirer.
"Nothing, lady-bird!" answered Dame Suddlechop; "and do you use to send
for your friends out of bed at this hour for nothing?"
"It was not I who sent for you, dame," replied the malecontent maiden.
"And who was it, then?" said Ursula; "for if I had not been sent for, I
had not been here at this time of night, I promise you!"
"It was the old Scotch fool Jenny, who did it out of her own head, I
suppose," said Margaret; "for she has been stunning me these two hours
about you and Mother Redcap."
"Me and Mother Redcap!" said Dame Ursula, "an old fool indeed, that
couples folk up so.--But come, come, my sweet little neighbour, Jenny
is no such fool after all; she knows young folks want more and better
advice than her own, and she knows, too, where to find it for them; so
you must take heart of grace, my pretty maiden, and tell me what you are
moping about, and then let Dame Ursula alone for finding out a cure."
"Nay, an ye be so wise, Mother Ursula," replied the girl, "you may guess
what I ail without my telling you."
"Ay, ay, child," answered the complaisant matron, "no one can play
better than I at the good old game of What is my thought like? Now I'll
warrant that little head of yours is running on a new head-tire, a foot
higher than those our city dames wear--or you are all for a trip
to Islington or Ware, and your father is cross and will not
consent--or----"
"Or you are an old fool, Dame Suddlechop," said Margaret, peevishly,
"and must needs trouble yourself about matters you know nothing of."
"Fool as much as you will, mistress," said Dame Ursula, offended in her
turn, "but not so very many years older than yourself, mistress."
"Oh! we are angry, are we?" said the beauty; "and pray, Madam Ursula,
how come you, that are not so many years older than me, to talk about
such nonsense to me, who am so many years younger, and who yet have too
much sense to care about head-gears and Islington?"
"Well, well, young mistress," said the sage counsellor, rising, "I
perceive I can be of no use here; and methinks, since you know your own
matters so much better than other people do, you might dispense with
disturbing folks at midnight to ask their advice."
"Why, now you are angry, mother," said Margaret, detaining her; "this
comes of your coming out at eventide without eating your supper--I
never heard you utter a cross word after you had finished your little
morsel.--Here, Janet, a trencher and salt for Dame Ursula;--and what
have you in that porringer, dame?--Filthy clammy ale, as I would
live--Let Janet fling it out of the window, or keep it for my father's
morning draught; and she shall bring you the pottle of sack that was set
ready for him--good man, he will never find out the difference, for ale
will wash down his dusty calculations quite as well as wine."
"Truly, sweetheart, I am of your opinion," said Dame Ursula, whose
temporary displeasure vanished at once before these preparations for
good cheer; and so, settling herself on the great easy-chair, with
a three-legged table before her, she began to dispatch, with good
appetite, the little delicate dish which she had prepared for herself.
She did not, however, fail in the duties of civility, and earnestly, but
in vain, pressed Mistress Margaret to partake her dainties. The damsel
declined the invitation.
"At least pledge me in a glass of sack," said Dame Ursula; "I have heard
my grandame say, that before the gospellers came in, the old Catholic
father confessors and their penitents always had a cup of sack together
before confession; and you are my penitent."
"I shall drink no sack, I am sure," said Margaret; "and I told you
before, that if you cannot find out what ails me, I shall never have the
heart to tell it."
So saying, she turned away from Dame Ursula once more, and resumed her
musing posture, with her hand on her elbow, and her back, at least one
shoulder, turned towards her confidant.
"Nay, then," said Dame Ursula, "I must exert my skill in good
earnest.--You must give me this pretty hand, and I will tell you by
palmistry, as well as any gipsy of them all, what foot it is you halt
upon."
"As if I halted on any foot at all," said Margaret, something
scornfully, but yielding her left hand to Ursula, and continuing at the
same time her averted position.
"I see brave lines here," said Ursula, "and not ill to read
neither--pleasure and wealth, and merry nights and late mornings to my
Beauty, and such an equipage as shall shake Whitehall. O, have I touched
you there?--and smile you now, my pretty one?--for why should not he be
Lord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, as others have done
before him?"
"Lord Mayor? pshaw!" replied Margaret.
"And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or perhaps you pshaw at my
prophecy; but there is a cross in every one's line of life as well as
in yours, darling. And what though I see a 'prentice's flat cap in this
pretty palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath not its
match in the Ward of Farringdon-Without."
"Whom do you mean, dame?" said Margaret coldly.
"Whom should I mean," said Dame Ursula, "but the prince of 'prentices,
and king of good company, Jenkin Vincent?"
"Out, woman--Jenkin Vincent?--a clown--a Cockney!" exclaimed the
indignant damsel.
"Ay, sets the wind in that quarter, Beauty!" quoth the dame; "why, it
has changed something since we spoke together last, for then I would
have sworn it blew fairer for poor Jin Vin; and the poor lad dotes on
you too, and would rather see your eyes than the first glimpse of the
sun on the great holiday on May-day."
"I would my eyes had the power of the sun to blind his, then," said
Margaret, "to teach the drudge his place."
"Nay," said Dame Ursula, "there be some who say that Frank Tunstall
is as proper a lad as Jin Vin, and of surety he is third cousin to
a knighthood, and come of a good house; and so mayhap you may be for
northward ho!"
"Maybe I may"--answered Margaret, "but not with my father's 'prentice--I
thank you, Dame Ursula."
"Nay, then, the devil may guess your thoughts for me," said Dame Ursula;
"this comes of trying to shoe a filly that is eternally wincing and
shifting ground!"
"Hear me, then," said Margaret, "and mind what I say.--This day I dined
abroad--"
"I can tell you where," answered her counsellor,--"with your godfather
the rich goldsmith--ay, you see I know something--nay, I could tell you,
as I would, with whom, too."
"Indeed!" said Margaret, turning suddenly round with an accent of strong
surprise, and colouring up to the eyes.
"With old Sir Mungo Malagrowther," said the oracular dame,--"he was
trimmed in my Benjamin's shop in his way to the city."
"Pshaw! the frightful old mouldy skeleton!" said the damsel.
"Indeed you say true, my dear," replied the confidant,--"it is a shame
to him to be out of Saint Pancras's charnel-house, for I know no
other place he is fit for, the foul-mouthed old railer. He said to my
husband--"
"Somewhat which signifies nothing to our purpose, I dare say,"
interrupted Margaret. "I must speak, then.--There dined with us a
nobleman--"
"A nobleman! the maiden's mad!" said Dame Ursula.
"There dined with us, I say," continued Margaret, without regarding the
interruption, "a nobleman--a Scottish nobleman."
"Now Our Lady keep her!" said the confidant, "she is quite
frantic!--heard ever any one of a watchmaker's daughter falling in love
with a nobleman--and a Scots nobleman, to make the matter complete,
who are all as proud as Lucifer, and as poor as Job?--A Scots nobleman,
quotha? I had lief you told me of a Jew pedlar. I would have you think
how all this is to end, pretty one, before you jump in the dark."
"That is nothing to you, Ursula--it is your assistance," said Mistress
Margaret, "and not your advice, that I am desirous to have, and you know
I can make it worth your while."
"O, it is not for the sake of lucre, Mistress Margaret," answered
the obliging dame; "but truly I would have you listen to some
advice--bethink you of your own condition."
"My father's calling is mechanical," said Margaret, "but our blood is
not so. I have heard my father say that we are descended, at a distance
indeed, from the great Earls of Dalwolsey." [Footnote: The head of the
ancient and distinguished house of Ramsay, and to whom, as their chief,
the individuals of that name look as their origin and source of gentry.
Allan Ramsay, the pastoral poet, in the same manner, makes
"Dalhousie of an auld descent,
My chief, my stoup, my ornament."]
"Ay, ay," said Dame Ursula; "even so--I never knew a Scot of you but was
descended, as ye call it, from some great house or other; and a piteous
descent it often is--and as for the distance you speak of, it is so
great as to put you out of sight of each other. Yet do not toss your
pretty head so scornfully, but tell me the name of this lordly northern
gallant, and we will try what can be done in the matter."
"It is Lord Glenvarloch, whom they call Lord Nigel Olifaunt," said
Margaret in a low voice, and turning away to hide her blushes.
"Marry, Heaven forefend!" exclaimed Dame Suddlechop; "this is the very
devil, and something worse!"
"How mean you?" said the damsel, surprised at the vivacity of her
exclamation.
"Why, know ye not," said the dame, "what powerful enemies he has at
Court? know ye not--But blisters on my tongue, it runs too fast for my
wit--enough to say, that you had better make your bridal-bed under a
falling house, than think of young Glenvarloch."
"He IS unfortunate then?" said Margaret; "I knew it--I divined it--there
was sorrow in his voice when he said even what was gay--there was a
touch of misfortune in his melancholy smile--he had not thus clung to my
thoughts had I seen him in all the mid-day glare of prosperity."
"Romances have cracked her brain!" said Dame Ursula; "she is a castaway
girl--utterly distraught--loves a Scots lord--and likes him the better
for being unfortunate! Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I
cannot aid you in--it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair
above my condition, and beyond my management;--but I will keep your
counsel."
"You will not be so base as to desert me, after having drawn my secret
from me?" said Margaret, indignantly; "if you do, I know how to have my
revenge; and if you do not, I will reward you well. Remember the house
your husband dwells in is my father's property."
"I remember it but too well, Mistress Margaret," said Ursula, after
a moment's reflection, "and I would serve you in any thing in my
condition; but to meddle with such high matters--I shall never forget
poor Mistress Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her!--she had
the ill-luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset and Overbury, and so
the great earl and his lady slipt their necks out of the collar, and
left her and some half-dozen others to suffer in their stead. I shall
never forget the sight of her standing on the scaffold with the ruff
round her pretty neck, all done up with the yellow starch which I had so
often helped her to make, and that was so soon to give place to a rough
hempen cord. Such a sight, sweetheart, will make one loath to meddle
with matters that are too hot or heavy for their handling."
"Out, you fool!" answered Mistress Margaret; "am I one to speak to you
about such criminal practices as that wretch died for? All I desire of
you is, to get me precise knowledge of what affair brings this young
nobleman to Court."
"And when you have his secret," said Ursula, "what will it avail you,
sweetheart?--and yet I would do your errand, if you could do as much for
me."
"And what is it you would have of me?" said Mistress Margaret.
"What you have been angry with me for asking before," answered Dame
Ursula. "I want to have some light about the story of your godfather's
ghost, that is only seen at prayers."
"Not for the world," said Mistress Margaret, "will I be a spy on my kind
godfather's secrets--No, Ursula--that I will never pry into, which he
desires to keep hidden. But thou knowest that I have a fortune, of my
own, which must at no distant day come under my own management--think of
some other recompense."
"Ay, that I well know," said the counsellor--"it is that two hundred
per year, with your father's indulgence, that makes you so wilful,
sweetheart."
"It may be so,"--said Margaret Ramsay; "meanwhile, do you serve me
truly, and here is a ring of value in pledge, that when my fortune is in
my own hand, I will redeem the token with fifty broad pieces of gold."
"Fifty broad pieces of gold!" repeated the dame; "and this ring,
which is a right fair one, in token you fail not of your word!--Well,
sweetheart, if I must put my throat in peril, I am sure I cannot risk it
for a friend more generous than you; and I would not think of more than
the pleasure of serving you, only Benjamin gets more idle every day, and
our family----"
"Say no more of it," said Margaret; "we understand each other. And now,
tell me what you know of this young man's affairs, which made you so
unwilling to meddle with them?"
"Of that I can say no great matter as yet," answered Dame Ursula; "only
I know, the most powerful among his own countrymen are against him, and
also the most powerful at the Court here. But I will learn more of it;
for it will be a dim print that I will not read for your sake, pretty
Mistress Margaret. Know you where this gallant dwells?"
"I heard by accident," said Margaret, as if ashamed of the minute
particularity of her memory upon such an occasion,--"he lodges,
I think--at one Christie's--if I mistake not--at Paul's Wharf--a
ship-chandler's."
"A proper lodging for a young baron!--Well, but cheer you up, Mistress
Margaret--If he has come up a caterpillar, like some of his countrymen,
he may cast his slough like them, and come out a butterfly.--So I drink
good-night, and sweet dreams to you, in another parting cup of sack;
and you shall hear tidings of me within four-and-twenty hours. And, once
more, I commend you to your pillow, my pearl of pearls, and Marguerite
of Marguerites!"
So saying, she kissed the reluctant cheek of her young friend, or
patroness, and took her departure with the light and stealthy pace of
one accustomed to accommodate her footsteps to the purposes of dispatch
and secrecy.
Margaret Ramsay looked after her for some time, in anxious silence. "I
did ill," she at length murmured, "to let her wring this out of me; but
she is artful, bold and serviceable--and I think faithful--or, if not,
she will be true at least to her interest, and that I can command. I
would I had not spoken, however--I have begun a hopeless work. For what
has he said to me, to warrant my meddling in his fortunes?--Nothing but
words of the most ordinary import--mere table-talk, and terms of course.
Yet who knows"--she said, and then broke off, looking at the glass the
while, which, as it reflected back a face of great beauty, probably
suggested to her mind a more favourable conclusion of the sentence than
she cared to trust her tongue withal.