Yet though thou shouldst be dragg'd in scorn
To yonder ignominious tree,
Thou shall not want one faithful friend
To share the cruel fates' decree.
_Ballad of Jemmy Dawson._
Master George Heriot and his ward, as she might justly be termed, for
his affection to Margaret imposed on him all the cares of a guardian,
were ushered by the yeoman of the guard to the lodging of the
Lieutenant, where they found him seated with his lady. They were
received by both with that decorous civility which Master Heriot's
character and supposed influence demanded, even at the hand of a
punctilious old soldier and courtier like Sir Edward Mansel. Lady Mansel
received Margaret with like courtesy, and informed Master George that
she was now only her guest, and no longer her prisoner.
"She is at liberty," she said, "to return to her friends under your
charge--such is his Majesty's pleasure."
"I am glad of it, madam," answered Heriot, "but only I could have wished
her freedom had taken place before her foolish interview with that
singular young man; and I marvel your ladyship permitted it."
"My good Master Heriot," said Sir Edward, "we act according to the
commands of one better and wiser than ourselves--our orders from his
Majesty must be strictly and literally obeyed; and I need not say that
the wisdom of his Majesty doth more than ensure--"
"I know his Majesty's wisdom well," said Heriot; "yet there is an old
proverb about fire and flax--well, let it pass."
"I see Sir Mungo Malagrowther stalking towards the door of the lodging,"
said the Lady Mansel, "with the gait of a lame crane--it is his second
visit this morning."
"He brought the warrant for discharging Lord Glenvarloch of the charge
of treason," said Sir Edward.
"And from him," said Heriot, "I heard much of what had befallen; for I
came from France only late last evening, and somewhat unexpectedly."
As they spoke, Sir Mungo entered the apartment--saluted the Lieutenant
of the Tower and his lady with ceremonious civility--honoured George
Heriot with a patronising nod of acknowledgment, and accosted Margaret
with--"Hey! my young charge, you have not doffed your masculine attire
yet?"
"She does not mean to lay it aside, Sir Mungo," said Heriot, speaking
loud, "until she has had satisfaction from you, for betraying her
disguise to me, like a false knight--and in very deed, Sir Mungo, I
think when you told me she was rambling about in so strange a dress, you
might have said also that she was under Lady Mansel's protection."
"That was the king's secret, Master Heriot," said Sir Mungo, throwing
himself into a chair with an air of atrabilarious importance; "the other
was a well-meaning hint to yourself, as the girl's friend."
"Yes," replied Heriot, "it was done like yourself--enough told to make
me unhappy about her--not a word which could relieve my uneasiness."
"Sir Mungo will not hear that remark," said the lady; "we must change
the subject.--Is there any news from Court, Sir Mungo? you have been to
Greenwich?"
"You might as well ask me, madam," answered the Knight, "whether there
is any news from hell."
"How, Sir Mungo, how!" said Sir Edward, "measure your words something
better--You speak of the Court of King James."
"Sir Edward, if I spoke of the court of the twelve Kaisers, I would say
it is as confused for the present as the infernal regions. Courtiers of
forty years' standing, and such I may write myself, are as far to seek
in the matter as a minnow in the Maelstrom. Some folk say the king has
frowned on the Prince--some that the Prince has looked grave on the
duke--some that Lord Glenvarloch will be hanged for high treason--and
some that there is matter against Lord Dalgarno that may cost him as
much as his head's worth."
"And what do you, that are a courtier of forty years' standing, think of
it all?" said Sir Edward Mansel.
"Nay, nay, do not ask him, Sir Edward," said the lady, with an
expressive look to her husband.
"Sir Mungo is too witty," added Master Heriot, "to remember that he who
says aught that may be repeated to his own prejudice, does but load a
piece for any of the company to shoot him dead with, at their pleasure
and convenience."
"What!" said the bold Knight, "you think I am afraid of the trepan? Why
now, what if I should say that Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,--the
duke more sail than ballast,--the Prince more pride than prudence,--and
that the king--" The Lady Mansel held up her finger in a warning
manner--"that the king is my very good master, who has given me, for
forty years and more, dog's wages, videlicit, bones and beating.--Why
now, all this is said, and Archie Armstrong [Footnote: The celebrated
Court jester.] says worse than this of the best of them every day."
"The more fool he," said George Heriot; "yet he is not so utterly wrong,
for folly is his best wisdom. But do not you, Sir Mungo, set your wit
against a fool's, though he be a court fool."
"A fool, said you?" replied Sir Mungo, not having fully heard what
Master Heriot said, or not choosing to have it thought so,--"I have
been a fool indeed, to hang on at a close-fisted Court here, when men of
understanding and men of action have been making fortunes in every other
place of Europe. But here a man comes indifferently off unless he gets a
great key to turn," (looking at Sir Edward,) "or can beat tattoo with a
hammer on a pewter plate.--Well, sirs, I must make as much haste back on
mine errand as if I were a fee'd messenger.--Sir Edward and my lady,
I leave my commendations with you--and my good-will with you, Master
Heriot--and for this breaker of bounds, if you will act by my counsel,
some maceration by fasting, and a gentle use of the rod, is the best
cure for her giddy fits."
"If you propose for Greenwich, Sir Mungo," said the Lieutenant, "I can
spare you the labour--the king comes immediately to Whitehall."
"And that must be the reason the council are summoned to meet in such
hurry," said Sir Mungo. "Well--I will, with your permission, go to the
poor lad Glenvarloch, and bestow some comfort on him."
The Lieutenant seemed to look up, and pause for a moment as if in doubt.
"The lad will want a pleasant companion, who can tell him the nature of
the punishment which he is to suffer, and other matters of concernment.
I will not leave him until I show him how absolutely he hath ruined
himself from feather to spur, how deplorable is his present state, and
how small his chance of mending it."
"Well, Sir Mungo," replied the Lieutenant, "if you really think all
this likely to be very consolatory to the party concerned, I will send a
warder to conduct you."
"And I," said George Heriot, "will humbly pray of Lady Mansel, that she
will lend some of her handmaiden's apparel to this giddy-brained girl;
for I shall forfeit my reputation if I walk up Tower Hill with her
in that mad guise--and yet the silly lassie looks not so ill in it
neither."
"I will send my coach with you instantly," said the obliging lady.
"Faith, madam, and if you will honour us by such courtesy, I will gladly
accept it at your hands," said the citizen, "for business presses hard
on me, and the forenoon is already lost, to little purpose."
The coach being ordered accordingly, transported the worthy citizen and
his charge to his mansion in Lombard Street. There he found his presence
was anxiously expected by the Lady Hermione, who had just received an
order to be in readiness to attend upon the Royal Privy Council in the
course of an hour; and upon whom, in her inexperience of business, and
long retirement from society and the world, the intimation had made as
deep an impression as if it had not been the necessary consequence of
the petition which she had presented to the king by Monna Paula. George
Heriot gently blamed her for taking any steps in an affair so important
until his return from France, especially as he had requested her
to remain quiet, in a letter which accompanied the evidence he had
transmitted to her from Paris. She could only plead in answer the
influence which her immediately stirring in the matter was likely to
have on the affair of her kinsman Lord Glenvarloch, for she was ashamed
to acknowledge how much she had been gained on by the eager importunity
of her youthful companion. The motive of Margaret's eagerness was, of
course, the safety of Nigel; but we must leave it to time to show in
what particulars that came to be connected with the petition of the
Lady Hermione. Meanwhile, we return to the visit with which Sir Mungo
Malagrowther favoured the afflicted young nobleman in his place of
captivity.
The Knight, after the usual salutations, and having prefaced his
discourse with a great deal of professed regret for Nigel's situation,
sat down beside him, and composing his grotesque features into the most
lugubrious despondence, began his raven song as follows:--
"I bless God, my lord, that I was the person who had the pleasure to
bring his Majesty's mild message to the Lieutenant, discharging the
higher prosecution against ye, for any thing meditated against his
Majesty's sacred person; for, admit you be prosecuted on the lesser
offence, or breach of privilege of the Palace and its precincts, _usque
ad mutilationem_, even to dismemberation, as it is most likely you will,
yet the loss of a member is nothing to being hanged and drawn quick,
after the fashion of a traitor."
"I should feel the shame of having deserved such a punishment," answered
Nigel, "more than the pain of undergoing it."
"Doubtless, my lord, the having, as you say, deserved it, must be an
excruciation to your own mind," replied his tormentor; "a kind of mental
and metaphysical hanging, drawing, and quartering, which may be in some
measure equipollent with the external application of hemp, iron, fire,
and the like, to the outer man."
"I say, Sir Mungo," repeated Nigel, "and beg you to understand my words,
that I am unconscious of any error, save that of having arms on my
person when I chanced to approach that of my Sovereign."
"Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing," said Sir Mungo. "We
have an old proverb,--Confess, and--so forth. And indeed, as to the
weapons, his Majesty has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever, and
more especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that matter.
[Footnote: Wilson informs us that when Colonel Grey, a Scotsman who
affected the buff dress even in the time of peace, appeared in that
military garb at Court, the king, seeing him with a case of pistols at
his girdle, which he never greatly liked, told him, merrily, "he was
now so fortified, that, if he were but well victualled, he would be
impregnable."--WILSON'S _Life and Reign of James VI._, _apud_ KENNET'S
_History of England_, vol. ii. p. 389. In 1612, the tenth year
of James's reign, there was a rumour abroad that a shipload of
pocket-pistols had been exported from Spain, with a view to a general
massacre of the Protestants. Proclamations were of consequence sent
forth, prohibiting all persons from carrying pistols under a foot long
in the barrel. _Ibid_. p. 690.] I wish you as well through the next,
which is altogether unlikely."
"Surely, Sir Mungo," answered Nigel, "you yourself might say something
in my favour concerning the affair in the Park. None knows better
than you that I was at that moment urged by wrongs of the most heinous
nature, offered to me by Lord Dalgarno, many of which were reported to
me by yourself, much to the inflammation of my passion."
"Alack-a-day!-Alack-a-day!" replied Sir Mungo, "I remember but too well
how much your choler was inflamed, in spite of the various remonstrances
which I made to you respecting the sacred nature of the place. Alas!
alas! you cannot say you leaped into the mire for want of warning."
"I see, Sir Mungo, you are determined to remember nothing which can do
me service," said Nigel.
"Blithely would I do ye service," said the Knight; "and the best whilk I
can think of is, to tell you the process of the punishment to the whilk
you will be indubitably subjected, I having had the good fortune to
behold it performed in the Queen's time, on a chield that had written
a pasquinado. I was then in my Lord Gray's train, who lay leaguer here,
and being always covetous of pleasing and profitable sights, I could not
dispense with being present on the occasion."
"I should be surprised, indeed," said Lord Glenvarloch, "if you had so
far put restraint upon your benevolence, as to stay away from such an
exhibition."
"Hey! was your lordship praying me to be present at your own execution?"
answered the Knight. "Troth, my lord, it will be a painful sight to a
friend, but I will rather punish myself than baulk you. It is a pretty
pageant, in the main--a very pretty pageant. The fallow came on with
such a bold face, it was a pleasure to look on him. He was dressed all
in white, to signify harmlessness and innocence. The thing was done on a
scaffold at Westminster--most likely yours will be at the Charing. There
were the Sheriffs and the Marshal's men, and what not--the executioner,
with his cleaver and mallet, and his man, with a pan of hot charcoal,
and the irons for cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This
man Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might be worth
your lordship's while to have the loon sent to a barber-surgeon's, to
learn some needful scantling of anatomy--it may be for the benefit of
yourself and other unhappy sufferers, and also a kindness to Gregory."
"I will not take the trouble," said Nigel.--"If the laws will demand my
hand, the executioner may get it off as he best can. If the king leaves
it where it is, it may chance to do him better service."
"Vera noble--vera grand, indeed, my lord," said Sir Mungo; "it is
pleasant to see a brave man suffer. This fallow whom I spoke of--This
Tubbs, or Stubbs, or whatever the plebeian was called, came forward as
bold as an emperor, and said to the people, 'Good friends, I come
to leave here the hand of a true Englishman,' and clapped it on
the dressing-block with as much ease as if he had laid it on his
sweetheart's shoulder; whereupon Derrick the hangman, adjusting, d'ye
mind me, the edge of his cleaver on the very joint, hit it with the
mallet with such force, that the hand flew off as far from the owner as
a gauntlet which the challenger casts down in the tilt-yard. Well, sir,
Stubbs, or Tubbs, lost no whit of countenance, until the fallow clapped
the hissing-hot iron on his raw stump. My lord, it fizzed like a rasher
of bacon, and the fallow set up an elritch screech, which made some
think his courage was abated; but not a whit, for he plucked off his
hat with his left hand, and waved it, crying, 'God save the Queen, and
confound all evil counsellors!' The people gave him three cheers, which
he deserved for his stout heart; and, truly, I hope to see your lordship
suffer with the same magnanimity."
"I thank you, Sir Mungo," said Nigel, who had not been able to forbear
some natural feelings of an unpleasant nature during this lively
detail,--"I have no doubt the exhibition will be a very engaging one
to you and the other spectators, whatever it may prove to the party
principally concerned."
"Vera engaging," answered Sir Mungo, "vera interesting--vera interesting
indeed, though not altogether so much so as an execution for high
treason. I saw Digby, the Winters, Fawkes, and the rest of the gunpowder
gang, suffer for that treason, whilk was a vera grand spectacle, as well
in regard to their sufferings, as to their constancy in enduring."
"I am the more obliged to your goodness, Sir Mungo," replied Nigel,
"that has induced you, although you have lost the sight, to congratulate
me on my escape from the hazard of making the same edifying appearance."
"As you say, my lord," answered Sir Mungo, "the loss is chiefly
in appearance. Nature has been very bountiful to us, and has given
duplicates of some organs, that we may endure the loss of one of them,
should some such circumstance chance in our pilgrimage. See my poor
dexter, abridged to one thumb, one finger, and a stump,--by the blow of
my adversary's weapon, however, and not by any carnificial knife. Weel,
sir, this poor maimed hand doth me, in some sort, as much service as
ever; and, admit yours to be taken off by the wrist, you have still your
left hand for your service, and are better off than the little Dutch
dwarf here about town, who threads a needle, limns, writes, and tosses a
pike, merely by means of his feet, without ever a hand to help him."
"Well, Sir Mungo," said Lord Glenvarloch, "this is all no doubt very
consolatory; but I hope the king will spare my hand to fight for him
in battle, where, notwithstanding all your kind encouragement, I could
spend my blood much more cheerfully than on a scaffold."
"It is even a sad truth," replied Sir Mungo, "that your lordship was
but too like to have died on a scaffold--not a soul to speak for you but
that deluded lassie Maggie Ramsay."
"Whom mean you?" said Nigel, with more interest than he had hitherto
shown in the Knight's communications.
"Nay, who should I mean, but that travestied lassie whom we dined with
when we honoured Heriot the goldsmith? Ye ken best how you have made
interest with her, but I saw her on her knees to the king for you. She
was committed to my charge, to bring her up hither in honour and safety.
Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the
wild blood out of her--a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches,
and not so much as married yet!"
"Hark ye, Sir Mungo Malagrowther," answered Nigel, "I would have you
talk of that young person with fitting respect."
"With all the respect that befits your lordship's paramour, and Davy
Ramsay's daughter, I shall certainly speak of her, my lord," said Sir
Mungo, assuming a dry tone of irony.
Nigel was greatly disposed to have made a serious quarrel of it, but
with Sir Mungo such an affair would have been ridiculous; he smothered
his resentment, therefore, and conjured him to tell what he had heard
and seen respecting this young person.
"Simply, that I was in the ante-room when she had audience, and heard
the king say, to my great perplexity, '_Pulchra sane puella;_' and
Maxwell, who hath but indifferent Latin ears, thought that his Majesty
called on him by his own name of Sawney, and thrust into the presence,
and there I saw our Sovereign James, with his own hand, raising up the
lassie, who, as I said heretofore, was travestied in man's attire. I
should have had my own thoughts of it, but our gracious Master is auld,
and was nae great gillravager amang the queans even in his youth; and
he was comforting her in his own way and saying,--'Ye needna greet about
it, my bonnie woman, Glenvarlochides shall have fair play; and, indeed,
when the hurry was off our spirits, we could not believe that he had
any design on our person. And touching his other offences, we will look
wisely and closely into the matter.' So I got charge to take the young
fence-louper to the Tower here, and deliver her to the charge of Lady
Mansel; and his Majesty charged me to say not a word to her about your
offences, for, said he, the poor thing is breaking her heart for him."
"And on this you have charitably founded the opinion to the prejudice
of this young lady, which you have now thought proper to express?" said
Lord Glenvarloch.
"In honest truth, my lord," replied Sir Mungo, "what opinion would you
have me form of a wench who gets into male habiliments, and goes on
her knees to the king for a wild young nobleman? I wot not what the
fashionable word may be, for the phrase changes, though the custom
abides. But truly I must needs think this young leddy--if you call
Watchie Ramsay's daughter a young leddy--demeans herself more like a
leddy of pleasure than a leddy of honour."
"You do her egregious wrong, Sir Mungo," said Nigel; "or rather you have
been misled by appearances."
"So will all the world be misled, my lord," replied the satirist,
"unless you were doing that to disabuse them which your father's son
will hardly judge it fit to do."
"And what may that be, I pray you?"
"E'en marry the lass--make her Leddy Glenvarloch.--Ay, ay, ye may
start--but it's the course you are driving on. Rather marry than do
worse, if the worst be not done already."
"Sir Mungo," said Nigel, "I pray you to forbear this subject, and rather
return to that of the mutilation, upon which it pleased you to enlarge a
short while since."
"I have not time at present," said Sir Mungo, hearing the clock strike
four; "but so soon as you shall have received sentence, my lord, you may
rely on my giving you the fullest detail of the whole solemnity; and I
give you my word, as a knight and a gentleman, that I will myself attend
you on the scaffold, whoever may cast sour looks on me for doing so. I
bear a heart, to stand by a friend in the worst of times."
So saying, he wished Lord Glenvarloch farewell; who felt as heartily
rejoiced at his departure, though it may be a bold word, as any person
who had ever undergone his society.
But, when left to his own reflections, Nigel could not help feeling
solitude nearly as irksome as the company of Sir Mungo Malagrowther. The
total wreck of his fortune,--which seemed now to be rendered unavoidable
by the loss of the royal warrant, that had afforded him the means of
redeeming his paternal estate,--was an unexpected and additional blow.
When he had seen the warrant he could not precisely remember; but was
inclined to think, it was in the casket when he took out money to pay
the miser for his lodgings at Whitefriars. Since then, the casket had
been almost constantly under his own eye, except during the short time
he was separated from his baggage by the arrest in Greenwich Park. It
might, indeed, have been taken out at that time, for he had no reason
to think either his person or his property was in the hands of those who
wished him well; but, on the other hand, the locks of the strong-box had
sustained no violence that he could observe, and, being of a particular
and complicated construction, he thought they could scarce be opened
without an instrument made on purpose, adapted to their peculiarities,
and for this there had been no time. But, speculate as he would on the
matter, it was clear that this important document was gone, and probable
that it had passed into no friendly hands. "Let it be so," said Nigel
to himself; "I am scarcely worse off respecting my prospects of fortune,
than when I first reached this accursed city. But to be hampered with
cruel accusations, and stained with foul suspicions-to be the object
of pity of the most degrading kind to yonder honest citizen, and of the
malignity of that envious and atrabilarious courtier, who can endure
the good fortune and good qualities of another no more than the mole
can brook sunshine--this is indeed a deplorable reflection; and the
consequences must stick to my future life, and impede whatever my head,
or my hand, if it is left me, might be able to execute in my favour."
The feeling, that he is the object of general dislike and dereliction,
seems to be one of the most unendurably painful to which a human being
can be subjected. The most atrocious criminals, whose nerves have not
shrunk from perpetrating the most horrid cruelty, endure more from the
consciousness that no man will sympathise with their sufferings, than
from apprehension of the personal agony of their impending punishment;
and are known often to attempt to palliate their enormities, and
sometimes altogether to deny what is established by the clearest proof,
rather than to leave life under the general ban of humanity. It was no
wonder that Nigel, labouring under the sense of general, though unjust
suspicion, should, while pondering on so painful a theme, recollect that
one, at least, had not only believed him innocent, but hazarded herself,
with all her feeble power, to interpose in his behalf.
"Poor girl!" he repeated; "poor, rash, but generous maiden! your fate is
that of her in Scottish story, who thrust her arm into the staple of
the door, to oppose it as a bar against the assassins who threatened the
murder of her sovereign. The deed of devotion was useless; save to give
an immortal name to her by whom it was done, and whose blood flows, it
is said, in the veins of my house."
I cannot explain to the reader, whether the recollection of this
historical deed of devotion, and the lively effect which the comparison,
a little overstrained perhaps, was likely to produce in favour of
Margaret Ramsay, was not qualified by the concomitant ideas of ancestry
and ancient descent with which that recollection was mingled. But the
contending feelings suggested a new train of ideas.--"Ancestry," he
thought, "and ancient descent, what are they to me?--My patrimony
alienated--my title become a reproach--for what can be so absurd as
titled beggary?--my character subjected to suspicion,--I will not remain
in this country; and should I, at leaving it, procure the society of one
so lovely, so brave, and so faithful, who should say that I derogated
from the rank which I am virtually renouncing?"
There was something romantic and pleasing, as he pursued this picture of
an attached and faithful pair, becoming all the world to each other,
and stemming the tide of fate arm in arm; and to be linked thus with a
creature so beautiful, and who had taken such devoted and disinterested
concern in his fortunes, formed itself into such a vision as romantic
youth loves best to dwell upon.
Suddenly his dream was painfully dispelled, by the recollection, that
its very basis rested upon the most selfish ingratitude on his own part.
Lord of his castle and his towers, his forests and fields, his fair
patrimony and noble name, his mind would have rejected, as a sort of
impossibility, the idea of elevating to his rank the daughter of a
mechanic; but, when degraded from his nobility, and plunged into poverty
and difficulties, he was ashamed to feel himself not unwilling, that
this poor girl, in the blindness of her affection, should abandon
all the better prospects of her own settled condition, to embrace the
precarious and doubtful course which he himself was condemned to. The
generosity of Nigel's mind recoiled from the selfishness of the plan of
happiness which he projected; and he made a strong effort to expel from
his thoughts for the rest of the evening this fascinating female, or, at
least, not to permit them to dwell upon the perilous circumstance, that
she was at present the only creature living who seemed to consider him
as an object of kindness.
He could not, however, succeed in banishing her from his slumbers, when,
after having spent a weary day, he betook himself to a perturbed couch.
The form of Margaret mingled with the wild mass of dreams which his late
adventures had suggested; and even when, copying the lively narrative of
Sir Mungo, fancy presented to him the blood bubbling and hissing on
the heated iron, Margaret stood behind him like a spirit of light, to
breathe healing on the wound. At length nature was exhausted by these
fantastic creations, and Nigel slept, and slept soundly, until awakened
in the morning by the sound of a well-known voice, which had often
broken his slumbers about the same hour.