The Fortunes of Nigel by Walter Scott (good summer reads txt) 📕

ancient oaks of the forest, when a cavalier and a lady, on foot, although in riding apparel, sauntered slowly up one of the long alleys which were cut through the park for the convenience of the hunters. Their only attendant was a page, who, riding a Spanish jennet, which seemed to bear a heavy cloak-bag, followed them at a respectful distance. The female, attired in all the fantastic finery of the period, with more than the usual quantity of bugles, flounces, and trimmings, and holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and her riding-mask of black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all the little coquetry practised on such occasions, to secure the notice of her companion, who sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to attend to it, and at other times interrupted his train of graver reflections, to reply to her.

“Nay, but, my lord—my lord, you walk so fast, you will leave me behind you.—Nay, I will have hold of your arm, but how to manage with my mask and my fan? Why would you not let me bring my waiting-gentlewoman to follow us, and hold my things? But see, I will put my fan in my girdle, soh!—and now that I have a hand to hold you with, you shall not run away from me.”

“Come on, then,” answered the gallant, “and let us walk apace, since you would not be persuaded to stay with your gentlewoman, as you call her, and with the rest of the baggage.—You may perhaps see that, though, you will not like to see.”

She took hold of his arm accordingly; but as he continued to walk at the same pace, she shortly let go her hold, exclaiming that he had hurt her hand. The cavalier stopped, and looked at the pretty hand and arm which she showed him, with exclamations against his cruelty. “I dare say,” she said, baring her wrist and a part of her arm, “it is all black and blue to the very elbow.”

“I dare say you are a silly little fool,” said the cavalier, carelessly kissing the aggrieved arm; “it is only a pretty incarnate which sets off the blue veins.”

“Nay, my lord, now it is you are silly,” answered the dame; “but I am glad I can make you speak and laugh on any terms this morning. I am sure, if I did insist on following you into the forest, it was all for the sake of diverting you. I am better company than your page, I trow.—And now, tell me, these pretty things with horns, be they not deer?”

“Even such they be, Nelly,” answered her neglectful attendant.

“And what can the great folk do with so many of them, forsooth?”

“They send them to the city, Nell, where wise men make venison pasties of their flesh, and wear their horns for trophies,” answered Lord Dalgarno, whom our reader has already recognised.

“Nay, now you laugh at me, my lord,” answered his companion; “but I know all about venison, whatever you may think. I always tasted it once a year when we dined with Mr. Deputy,” she continued, sadly, as a sense of her degradation stole across a mind bewildered with vanity and folly, “though he would not speak to me now, if we met together in the narrowest lane in the Ward!”

“I warrant he would not,” said Lord Dalgarno, “because thou, Nell, wouldst dash him with a single look; for I trust thou hast more spirit than to throw away words on such a fellow as he?”

“Who, I!” said Dame Nelly. “Nay, I scorn the proud princox too much for that. Do you know, he made all the folk in the Ward stand cap in hand to him, my poor old John Christie and all?” Here her recollection began to overflow at her eyes.

“A plague on your whimpering,” said Dalgarno, somewhat harshly,—“Nay, never look pale for the matter, Nell. I am not angry with you, you simple fool. But what would you have me think, when you are eternally looking back upon your dungeon yonder by the river, which smelt of pitch and old cheese worse than a Welshman does of onions, and all this when I am taking you down to a castle as fine as is in Fairy Land!”

“Shall we be there to-night, my lord?” said Nelly, drying her tears.

“To-night, Nelly?—no, nor this night fortnight.”

“Now, the Lord be with us, and keep us!—But shall we not go by sea, my lord?—I thought everybody came from Scotland by sea. I am sure Lord Glenvarloch and Richie Moniplies came up by sea.”

“There is a wide difference between coming up and going down, Nelly,” answered Lord Dalgarno.

“And so there is, for certain,” said his simple companion. “But yet I think I heard people speaking of going down to Scotland by sea, as well as coming up. Are you well avised of the way?—Do you think it possible we can go by land, my sweet lord?”

“It is but trying, my sweet lady,” said Lord Dalgarno. “Men say England and Scotland are in the same island, so one would hope there may be some road betwixt them by land.”

“I shall never be able to ride so far,” said the lady.

“We will have your saddle stuffed softer,” said the lord. “I tell you that you shall mew your city slough, and change from the caterpillar of a paltry lane into the butterfly of a prince's garden. You shall have as many tires as there are hours in the day—as many handmaidens as there are days in the week—as many menials as there are weeks in the year—and you shall ride a hunting and hawking with a lord, instead of waiting upon an old ship-chandler, who could do nothing but hawk and spit.”

“Ay, but will you make me your lady?” said Dame Nelly.

“Ay, surely—what else?” replied the lord—“My lady-love.”

“Ay, but I mean your lady-wife,” said Nelly.

“Truly, Nell, in that I cannot promise to oblige you. A lady-wife,” continued Dalgarno, “is a very different thing from a lady-love.”

“I heard from Mrs. Suddlechop, whom you lodged me with since I left poor old John Christie, that Lord Glenvarloch is to marry David Ramsay the clockmaker's daughter?”

“There is much betwixt the cup and the lip, Nelly. I wear something about me may break the bans of that hopeful alliance, before the day is much older,” answered Lord Dalgarno.

“Well, but my father was as good a man as old Davy Ramsay, and as well to pass in the world, my lord; and, therefore, why should you not marry me? You have done me harm enough, I trow—wherefore should you not do me this justice?”

“For two good reasons, Nelly. Fate put a husband on you, and the king passed a wife upon me,” answered Lord Dalgarno.

“Ay, my lord,” said Nelly, “but they remain in England, and we go to Scotland.”

“Thy argument is better than thou art aware of,” said Lord Dalgarno. “I have heard Scottish lawyers say the matrimonial tie may be unclasped in our happy country by the gentle hand of the ordinary course of law, whereas