The Fortunes of Nigel by Walter Scott (good summer reads txt) đź“•
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- Author: Walter Scott
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“What, two poor smelts! Marry, plague of your bounty!—But remember, you are as deep in as I.”
“Not so, by Heaven!” answered the scrivener; “I only thought of easing the old man of some papers and a trifle of his gold, and you took his life.”
“Were he living,” answered Colepepper, “he would rather have lost it than his money.—But that is not the question, Master Skurliewhitter—you undid the private bolts of the window when you visited him about some affairs on the day ere he died—so satisfy yourself, that, if I am taken, I will not swing alone. Pity Jack Hempsfield is dead, it spoils the old catch,
'And three merry men, and three merry men, And three merry men are we, As ever did sing three parts in a string, All under the triple tree.'”“For God's sake, speak lower,” said the scrivener; “is this a place or time to make your midnight catches heard?—But how much will serve your turn? I tell you I am but ill provided.”
“You tell me a lie, then,” said the bully—“a most palpable and gross lie.—How much, d'ye say, will serve my turn? Why, one of these bags will do for the present.”
“I swear to you that these bags of money are not at my disposal.”
“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.”
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