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

master, who threatened to baton him to death if he brought the city-watch upon them by his ill-timed melody.

“I crave pardon, my lord—I humbly crave pardon—only when I think of that Jen Win, as they call him, I can hardly help humming—'O, do ye ken'—But I crave your honour's pardon, and will be totally dumb, if you command me so.”

“No, sirrah!” said Nigel, “talk on, for I well know you would say and suffer more under pretence of holding your peace, than when you get an unbridled license. How is it, then? What have you to say against Master Heriot?”

It seems more than probable, that in permitting this license, the young lord hoped his attendant would stumble upon the subject of the young lady who had appeared at prayers in a manner so mysterious. But whether this was the case, or whether he merely desired that Moniplies should utter, in a subdued and under tone of voice, those spirits which might otherwise have vented themselves in obstreperous song, it is certain he permitted his attendant to proceed with his story in his own way.

“And therefore,” said the orator, availing himself of his immunity, “I would like to ken what sort of carle this Maister Heriot is. He hath supplied your lordship with wealth of gold, as I can understand; and if he has, I make it for certain he hath had his ain end in it, according to the fashion of the world. Now, had your lordship your own good lands at your guiding, doubtless this person, with most of his craft—goldsmiths they call themselves—I say usurers—wad be glad to exchange so many pounds of African dust, by whilk I understand gold, against so many fair acres, and hundreds of acres, of broad Scottish land.”

“But you know I have no land,” said the young lord, “at least none that can be affected by any debt which I can at present become obliged for—I think you need not have reminded me of that.”

“True, my lord, most true; and, as your lordship says, open to the meanest capacity, without any unnecessary expositions. Now, therefore, my lord, unless Maister George Heriot has something mair to allege as a motive for his liberality, vera different from the possession of your estate—and moreover, as he could gain little by the capture of your body, wherefore should it not be your soul that he is in pursuit of?”

“My soul, you rascal!” said the young lord; “what good should my soul do him?”

“What do I ken about that?” said Moniplies; “they go about roaring and seeking whom they may devour—doubtless, they like the food that they rage so much about—and, my lord, they say,” added Moniplies, drawing up still closer to his master's side, “they say that Master Heriot has one spirit in his house already.”

“How, or what do you mean?” said Nigel; “I will break your head, you drunken knave, if you palter with me any longer.”

“Drunken?” answered his trusty adherent, “and is this the story?—why, how could I but drink your lordship's health on my bare knees, when Master Jenkin began it to me?—hang them that would not—I would have cut the impudent knave's hams with my broadsword, that should make scruple of it, and so have made him kneel when he should have found it difficult to rise again. But touching the spirit,” he proceeded, finding that his master made no answer to his valorous tirade, “your lordship has seen her with your own eyes.”

“I saw no spirit,” said Glenvarloch, but yet breathing thick as one who expects some singular disclosure, “what mean you by a spirit?”

“You saw a young lady come in to prayers, that spoke not a word to any one, only made becks and bows to the old gentleman and lady of the house—ken ye wha she is?”

“No, indeed,” answered Nigel; “some relation of the family, I suppose.”

“Deil a bit—deil a bit,” answered Moniplies, hastily, “not a blood-drop's kin to them, if she had a drop of blood in her body—I tell you but what all human beings allege to be truth, that swell within hue and cry of Lombard Street—that lady, or quean, or whatever you choose to call her, has been dead in the body these many a year, though she haunts them, as we have seen, even at their very devotions.”

“You will allow her to be a good spirit at least,” said Nigel Olifaunt, “since she chooses such a time to visit her friends?”

“For that I kenna, my lord,” answered the superstitious follower; “I ken no spirit that would have faced the right down hammer-blow of Mess John Knox, whom my father stood by in his very warst days, bating a chance time when the Court, which my father supplied with butcher-meat, was against him. But yon divine has another airt from powerful Master Rollock, and Mess David Black, of North Leith, and sic like.—Alack-a-day! wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether sic prayers as the Southron read out of their auld blethering black mess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right red-het prayer warm fraw the heart, may be powerful to drive them away, even as the Evil Spirit was driven by he smell of the fish's liver from the bridal-chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel? As to whilk story, nevertheless, I make scruple to say whether it be truth or not, better men than I am having doubted on that matter.”

“Well, well, well,” said his master, impatiently, “we are now near home, and I have permitted you to speak of this matter for once, that we may have an end to your prying folly, and your idiotical superstitions, for ever. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or informers, take this lady?”

“I can sae naething preceesely as to that,” answered Moniplies; “certain it is her body died and was laid in the grave many a day since, notwithstanding she still wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst Maister Heriot's family, though she hath been seen in other places by them that well knew her. But who she is, I will not warrant to say, or how she becomes attached, like a Highland Brownie, to some peculiar family. They say she has a row of apartments of her own, ante-room, parlour, and bedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own coffin, and the walls, doors, and windows are so chinked up, as to prevent the least blink of daylight from entering; and then she dwells by torchlight—”

“To what purpose, if she be a spirit?” said Nigel Olifaunt.

“How can I tell your lordship?” answered his attendant. “I thank God I know nothing of her likings, or mislikings—only her coffin is there; and I leave your lordship to guess what a live person has to do with a coffin. As little as a ghost with a lantern, I trow.”

“What reason,” repeated Nigel, “can a creature, so young and so beautiful, have already habitually to contemplate her bed of last-long rest?”

“In troth, I kenna, my lord,” answered Moniplies; “but there is the coffin, as they told me who have seen it: it is made of heben-wood, with silver nails, and lined all through with three-piled damask, might serve a princess to rest in.”

“Singular,” said Nigel, whose brain, like that of most active young spirits, was easily caught by the singular and the romantic; “does she not