Heriot received part of the Crown Jewels in gage, with orders to employ them, if possible, in raising a still larger sum for the King's private use. mencement of prayers, and retired the moment they were finished.— Nobody seemed to notice either her entrance or her exit. This female lived in the closest seclusion in George Heriot's house; and in that credulous and superstitious age, the circumstance had given rise to conjectures and speculations without number. After prayers, however, George Heriot proposes, on the morrow, to attend Lord Glenvarloch to Court, whither they repair accordingly. The presentation scene is drawn with incredible truth, felicity, and power; but we must refer the reader to the work itself. Lord Glenvarloch is met in the anti-chamber by Lord Huntinglen, with whom his father and family had been for generations at fued, but who, with a rare generosity, not only forgot the ancient and hereditary strife, but seeing an interesting young man like Lord Nigel, in pursuit of his unquestionable rights, promptly steps forward as his friend, presents him to the king, who, after a sort of examination in Latin-more to show off his own scholar-craft, than the ex-alumnus of Leyden-is pleased to express his entire approbation of Glenvarlochides, as he patronymically designs the young lord, and, what is better, at the earnest intercession of Lord Huntinglen, and although, as he candidly confesses, Steenie had got the promise of the estates of Glenvarloch from the Chancellor of Scotland, an order, with the sign-manual affixed, is instantly drawn on the Scottish Exchequer, for the sum due by the crown to the father of Lord Nigel. But just at the moment when the boon had been ap The dinner at the worthy and hospitable citizen's we shall pass over, merely stating, that Lord Glenvarloch met there with several persons, for the first time, who were afterwards destined to exert a powerful influence on his "fortunes." The most prominent of these was Sir Mungo Malagrowther, a misanthrope of the most unrelenting species a libeller of all men, women, and children—and, in short, a person, had he lived in our day, who would have made a first-rate contributor to a certain periodical now in the wane. In the hot-blooded age of which we are speaking, when men wore rapiers, and knew how to use them, Sir Mungo, in the mutilation he had received, had suffered the punishment, sooner or later, inflicted on every lampooner-till disabled for personal encounter, and, of course, like a woman, privileged in transgression, his natural temper goaded him to declare war on the whole human race. Davie Ramsay, the horologer, and his demure, but high-souled daughter, are also of the party at the worthy citizen's, the serenity of which, towards the close of the feast, was somewhat ruffled by a frolic of the Duke of Buckingham's. But honest George was too well accustomed to such freaks on the part of Steenie and Babie Charles, (Buckingham and Prince Charles,) and too well aware of the effectual method of pacifying the favourite, to suffer himself to be materially discomposed by his unceremonious pro-parently secured, and when the star ceedings. When the rest of the company had taken their departure, Heriot, agreeably to the good old fashion of that day-a fashion, we regret to say, which appears to have vanished as irretrievably as the buff jerkin, the hauberk, the coat of mail, and the rapier-detained Lord Glenvarloch to join in the devotions of the family, at which his Lordship discovered a singular apparition, a female of sickly complexion, but of a striking and interesting appearance, who silently took her place among the company at the com of the house of Glenvarloch seemed once more about to rise above the horizon, forwards rushes, unannounced, to the presence-chamber, the domineering and imperious Buckingham, who, meeting Lord Glenvarloch with Lord Huntinglen in the antichamber, boldly announces himself as his enemy, with the reckless nonchalance of an ancient and pampered favourite, secure in the too complete ascendancy he had gained over the mind of his easy and imbecile master. They soon quit the purlieus of Whitehall, however, and Lord Hun tinglen carries home with him to dinner both the young lord, whose friend he had acted at the hour of his utmost need, as well as the grateful and noble-minded goldsmith,-and entertains his guests in that style of profuse and prodigal abundance, which characterised the hospitality of the olden time. As a matter of course, Lord Nigel is introduced to the son of this rough-hewn old baron -who, by the way, is represented as having struck his dagger to the hilt in the body of "the fause traitor Ruthven," when "his fangs" were "about the royal throat." Lord Dalgarno is a gay, bold-faced gallant, as unlike a father as a son can well be, immersed in pleasure, the intimate friend both of Buckingham and Prince Charles, and the constant companion of their revels. Here the plot begins to thicken, Dalgarno is the Iago of the story. He worms himself into the confidence of the unsuspecting and generous youth,-gains an ascendancy over him by that flash rhetoric and easy assurance common among courtiers, gallants, and men of pleasure, in all times and countries,-carries him to places of ambiguous reputation, the resort of bravoes, gamesters, and swindlers,-interposes to prevent the immediate return of Nigel to Scotland, which would have frustrated the designs of Buckingham and Prince Charles, who had still an eye to his lands,-not so much for any value they attached to them, as because Lord Glenvarloch had succeeded in his suit in opposition to their views and interests; and while he main tains towards Lord Glenvarloch the exterior of the most ardent friendship, he is secrectly sapping his credit, calumniating and aspersing his character, and injuring his reputation in the estimation of his royal master and of the world. So skilfully had this web of wiles been woven, so imperceptibly had Lord Nigel been won from the right way, to the haunts of dissipation, in order that his ruin might be accelerated with double velocity, and so dangerous is it to disregard the sacred injunction that commands us to shun even the appearance of evil, that the reputation of the young lord had been almost irretricvably ruined, before he was aware that his good name had moulted a feather. The first hint of his unhappy plight came from the faithful, but mulish and self-conceited Moniplies, who stuck to his master like his native carduus benedictus, while friendless and in poverty; but who, now that Lord Nigel's finances had improved, and that he, abandoning his humble retreat in Christie's the ship-chandler, had possessed himself of more elegant and spacious apartments, suddenly appeared before his master, to announce his intention of immediately quitting his service, and returning to his native country. His master was thunderstruck with the announcement-but we must give the lecture bestowed by Moniplies on his master, in the inimitably graphic words of our author. Among other qualities, singular enough in a serving-man, it exemplifies that "familiarity" which Colonel Stewart eulogises so loudly, and which appears to have existed in the olden time between master and servant. "Adversity, my lord, should never have parted us," said Richie; "methinks, had the warst come to warst, I could have starved as gallantly as your lordship, or more so, being in some sort used to it; for, though I was bred at a flesher's stall, I have not through my life had a constant intimacy with collops." "Now, what is the meaning of all this trash ?" said Nigel; "or has it no other end than to provoke my patience? You know well enough, that had I twenty serving-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood by me in my distress the most valued of them all. But it is totally out of reason to plague me with your solemn capricios." "My lord," said Richie, "in declaring your trust in me, you have done what is honourable to yourself, if I may with bumility say so much, and in no way undeserved on my side. Nevertheless, we must part." "Body of me, man, why ?" said Lord Nigel ; "what reason can there be for it, we are mutually satisfied ?" if 66 "My lord," said Richie Moniplies, your lordship's occupations are such as I cannot own or countenance by my presence." "How now, sirrah!" said his master, angrily. "Under favour, my lord," replied Ins domestic, “it is unequal dealing to be equally offended by my speech and by 1 silence. If you can hear with patience the grounds of my departure, it may be, for aught I know, the better for you here and hereafter-if not, let me have my licence of departure in silence, and so no more about it." "Go to, sir!" said Nigel; "speak out your mind-only remember to whom you speak it." "Weel, weel, my lord-I speak it with humility, (never did Richie look with more starched dignity than when he uttered the word;) but do you think this diceing, and card-shuffling, and haunting of taverns and play-houses, suits your lordship-for I am sure it does not suit me?" "Why, you are not turned precisian or puritan, fool?" said Lord Glenvarloch laughing, though, betwixt resentment and shame, it cost him some trouble to do so. "My lord,” replied the follower, “I ken the purport of your query. I am, it may be, a little of a precisian, and I wish to heaven I was mair worthy of the name but let that be a pass-over. I have stretched the duties of a serving-man as far as my northern conscience will permit. I can give my gude word to my master, or to my native country, when I am in a foreign land, even though I should leave downright truth a wee bit behind me. Ay, and I will take or give a slash with ony man that speaks to the derogation of either. But this chambering, diceing, and play-haunting, is not my element-1 cannot draw breath in it-and when I hear of your lordship winning the siller that some poor creature may full sairly miss by my saul, if it wad serve your necessity, rather than you gained it from him, I wad tak' a jump over the hedge with your lordship, and cry, Stand!' to the first grazier we met that was coming. from Smithfield with the price of his Essex calves in his leathern pouch!" · "You are a simpleton," said Nigel, who felt, however, much consciencestruck; "I never play but for small sums. "Ay, my lord,". replied the unyielding domestic," and still with reverenceit is even sae much the waur. If you played with your equals, there might be like sin, but there wad be mair warldly honour in it. Your lordship kens, or may ken, by experience of your ain, whilk is not as yet mony weeks auld, that small sums can ill be missed by those that have nane larger; and I maun e'en be plain with you, that men notice it of your lordship, that ye play wi' nane but the misguided creatures that can but afford to lose bare stakes." “No man dare say so!" replied Nigel, very angrily. "I play with whom I VOL. X. please, but I will only play for what stake I please." "That is just what they say, my lord,” said the unmerciful Richie, whose natural love of lecturing, as well as his bluntness of feeling, prevented him from having any idea of the pain which he was inflicting on his master; "these are even their own very words. It was but yesterday your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, to win from yonder young hafflins gentleman with the crimson velvet doublet, and the cock's feather in his beaver-him I mean who fought with the ranting captain-a matter of five pounds, or thereby. I saw him come through the hall; and if he was not cleaned out of cross and pell, I never saw a ruined man in my life." "Hark you, sirrah," said his master, "I have borne with you thus far, for certain reasons; but abuse my good nature no farther-and since you must needs go, why go a God's name, and here is to pay your journey." So saying, he put gold into his hand, which Richie told over, piece by piece, with the utmost accuracy. "Is it all right-or are they wanting in weight-or what the devil keeps you, when your hurry was so great five minutes since ?" said the young lord, now thoroughly nettled at the presumptuous precision with which Richie dealt forth his canons of morality. "The tale of coin is complete," said Richie, with the most imperturbable gravity;" and for the weight, though they are sae scrupulous in this town as make mouths at a piece that is a wee bit light, or that has been cracked within the ring, my sooth, they will jump at them in Edinburgh like a cock at a grossart. Gold pieces are not so plenty there, the mair the pity!" "The more is your folly, then," said Nigel, whose anger was only momentary, "that leave the land where there is enough of them." "My lord," said Richie, "to be round with you, the grace of God is better than gold pieces. When Goblin, as you call yonder Monsieur Lutin-and you might as well call him Gibbet, since that is what he is like to end in-shall recommend a page to you, ye will hear little such doctrine as you have heard from me. And if they were my last words," he said, raising his voice, "I would say you are misled, and are forsaking the paths which your. honourable father trode in; and, what is more, you are going-still under correction-to the devil with a dish-clout,. for ye are laughed at by them that lead you into these disordered bye-paths." 4 B "Laughed at!" said Nigel, who, like others of his age, was more sensible to ridicule than to reason" who dares laugh at me ?" "My lord, as sure as I live by breadnay, more, as I am a true man-and I think your lordship never found Richie's tongue bearing aught but the truth-unless that your lordship's credit, my country's profit, or, it may be, some sma' occasion of my ain, made it unnecessary to promulgate the hail veritie-I say then, as I am a true man, when I saw that puir creature come through the ha', at that ordinary, whilk is accurst (Heaven forgive me for swearing) of God and man, with his teeth set, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet drawn over his brows like a desperate man, Goblin said to me, there goes a dunghill chicken, that your master has plucked clean enough; it will be long ere his lordship ruffle a feather with a cock of the game.' And so, my lord, to speak it out, the lackies and the gallants, and more especially your sworn brother, Lord Dalgarno, call you the sparrow-hawk. I had some thought to have cracked Lutin's pate for the speech, but, after a', the controversy was not worth it." "Do they use such terms of me?" said Lord Nigel. "Death and the devil!" "And the devil's dam, my lord," answered Richie; "they are all three busy in London—and, besides, Lutin and his master laughed at you, my lord, for let ting it be thought that I shame to speak it-that ye were over well with the wife of the decent honest man whose house you but now left, as not sufficient for your new bravery, whereas they saidthe licentious scoffers-that you pretend ed to such favour when you had not courage enough for so fair a quarrel, and that the sparrow-hawk was too cravencrested to fly at the wife of a cheese monger." About the same time, his lordship receives an anonymous letter, to the very tune of Moniplies' valedictory lecture, and which, while he would fain persuade himself to treat with indignant contempt-as anonymous slander deserves-served to give a strange confirmation to the frank and honest expostulation of the faithful and true-hearted Scot. In a mood of mind not the most enviable, hovering between doubt and belief-as the spirit of the Supreme Being is represented, in Scripture, lingering, after creation, on the confines of light and darkness-he sallied forth into the Park, and, to his utter mortification and dismay, encountered the veteran misanthrope Malagrowther, who confirmed all that his fears foreboded, and the anonymous epistle distinctly averred. At this inauspicious moment, the prince, with his train, consisting of Buckingham, Dalgarno, and others, made their entrance into the Park by a postern gate. The prince, as he passed Glenvarloch, saluted him in a cold, distant, and formal manner, which, to his now agitated mind, spoke volumes. When the party had passed, the malicious knight renewed his conversation, adding fuel to the fire that already preyed on the vitals of the unhappy Lord Glenvarloch. In a little time, the royal party return by the same route, and, in answer to his obeisance, the prince darts at him a frown, and Lord Dalgarno never so much as turns his eyes in the direction of his friend. By a short cut, however, Lord Glenvarloch gets in advance of the party accosts Dalgarno-taxes him with his matchless perfidy-challenges him to instant combat-is reminded of the privileges of the Park, in which all such encounters were forbidden, under pain of mutilation-disregards every consideration of prudence, in the full tide of passion and resentment-and inflicts a blow, with the flat of his sword, on Lord Dalgarno, who had refused to fight. When he had time to cool, Lord Glenvarloch felt that he had exposed himself to the vengeance of one of the most merciless of human tribunals, the Star Chamber. It was nesafety; the means, however, he had cessary, therefore, to provide for his not yet thought of. What he could not effect for himself, however, is accomplished by the intrepidity of a young Templar, called Lowestoffe, who procures him a disguise, and gets him safely conveyed to Whitefriars, at that time known by the flash name of Alsatia, and a sort of sanctuary for bravoes, swindlers, and broken men, unless against a writ issued by the Lord Chief Justice, or the Lords of the Privy-Courcil. Here he remains for some time, safely lodged in the house of a miser, who, being possessed of an immense sum of money, is murdered, but not robbed,-one of the assas sins being slain by the hand of Lord Glenvarloch, while the other was compelled to fly without the anticipated booty. To remain longer here was impossible; and the poor but generous Templar had been thrown in prison for the part he had acted in the business. What his lordship could not do for himself is done by love. Dame Suddlechops, the spouse of barbersurgeon Suddlechops, and one of those useful matrons who accommodate young ladies, suffering from the tender passion in more ways than oneat the instigation of the fair daughter of the horologer to his Sacred Majesty, who, ever since the dinner at Heriot's, had been desperately in love with Lord Glenvarloch, and who had contrived (what will not a woman in love contrive!) to discover the hapless plight of the young Scotch nc bleman-had employed the redoubted apprentice (Jin Vin, viz.) of the said horologer to disguise himself-to feign that he was commissioned by the Templar-to certiorate the young lord in sanctuary, that a warrant of the Lord Chief Justice was about to be issued against him-to prepare a wherry to convey his lordship secretly down the river, to a vessel bound for Scotland, and ready to receive him. The boat was ready at the appointed time, and Lord Glenvarloch, known in Alsatia only as Mr Nigel Grahame, embarked with the daughter of the murdered miser, Mrs Martha Trapbois, who had thrown herself and her gold on the protection of her lodger,-being naturally anxious to escape from the den of iniquity where her miserable father met his end. Encumbered with his protegée, he embarked, and bethought him to send her to the house of his former landlord, the ship-chandler; but the unfortunate female arrived at an hour the most unpropitious. The ship chandler had been in high altercation with a stiff, starched-looking Scot, and received the recommendatory note of Lord Glenvarloch, as a man does a tradesman's bill who has not a guinea in his pocket; he threw it with contempt in the mud, whence it was picked up by the careful Scot, who had so far the advantage. of his antagonist, that, in the war of words, he had not suffered his temper to be ruffled. This worthy son of Caledo nia proved to be no other than our friend Richie the serving-man, to whose care we must, for the present, commit Mrs Trapbois, and her (we fear we must say) ill-gotten wealth. Nigel, as he glided down the river, after disembarking Mrs Martha, naturally fell into deep musings on his singular and wayward destiny. In this mood of mind, he formed the hazardous resolution of landing at Greenwich, where James and his Court were then occupied, as usual, with the diversion of hunting, and of throwing himself at once on the royal clemency; a resolution, which, in spite of all the remonstrances of his singular waterman, he resolved to carry into effect. He lands accordingly, and, having reconnoitred a little, contrives to throw himself in the king's way, just as he came in at the death of a noble stag; his attendants having purposely fallen behind, that the poor king, the worst horseman, as well as the worst soldier in his dominions, might be cheated into a fancy that he had outstripped them in the chase. James did not at first recognise Glenvarlochides, but the moment he did so, he set up such a howl of treason and murder-as loud, no doubt, as that which alarmed the worthy citizens of Perth from the garret-window of Gowrie-house-that his attendants were up in a trice: and Glenvarlochides being found armed, was committed close prisoner to the Tower. When the king had had time to recover from his fright, he discovered that he was not wounded, or in any way hurt: and his courtiers being of opinion that no injury was intended his royal person, the charge of treason was departed from, and it was resolved to proceed against the unhappy young nobleman for the outrage committed in the Park on the person of Lord Dalgarno. Lord Nigel had not been long in the Tower, when he was favoured with a companion--not of his own seeking, certainly--a young lad, to appearance, of the most delicate complexion-and who, by no persuasion, could be induced to reveal his name, or the offence of which he had been accused. Fortune had not yet done her worst, however, and another, not fellow prisoner, but visitor, was introduced in the shape of John Chris |