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

smile you now, my pretty one?—for why should not he be Lord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, as others have done before him?”

“Lord Mayor? pshaw!” replied Margaret.

“And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or perhaps you pshaw at my prophecy; but there is a cross in every one's line of life as well as in yours, darling. And what though I see a 'prentice's flat cap in this pretty palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath not its match in the Ward of Farringdon-Without.”

“Whom do you mean, dame?” said Margaret coldly.

“Whom should I mean,” said Dame Ursula, “but the prince of 'prentices, and king of good company, Jenkin Vincent?”

“Out, woman—Jenkin Vincent?—a clown—a Cockney!” exclaimed the indignant damsel.

“Ay, sets the wind in that quarter, Beauty!” quoth the dame; “why, it has changed something since we spoke together last, for then I would have sworn it blew fairer for poor Jin Vin; and the poor lad dotes on you too, and would rather see your eyes than the first glimpse of the sun on the great holiday on May-day.”

“I would my eyes had the power of the sun to blind his, then,” said Margaret, “to teach the drudge his place.”

“Nay,” said Dame Ursula, “there be some who say that Frank Tunstall is as proper a lad as Jin Vin, and of surety he is third cousin to a knighthood, and come of a good house; and so mayhap you may be for northward ho!”

“Maybe I may”—answered Margaret, “but not with my father's 'prentice—I thank you, Dame Ursula.”

“Nay, then, the devil may guess your thoughts for me,” said Dame Ursula; “this comes of trying to shoe a filly that is eternally wincing and shifting ground!”

“Hear me, then,” said Margaret, “and mind what I say.—This day I dined abroad—”

“I can tell you where,” answered her counsellor,—“with your godfather the rich goldsmith—ay, you see I know something—nay, I could tell you, as I would, with whom, too.”

“Indeed!” said Margaret, turning suddenly round with an accent of strong surprise, and colouring up to the eyes.

“With old Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said the oracular dame,—“he was trimmed in my Benjamin's shop in his way to the city.”

“Pshaw! the frightful old mouldy skeleton!” said the damsel.

“Indeed you say true, my dear,” replied the confidant,—“it is a shame to him to be out of Saint Pancras's charnel-house, for I know no other place he is fit for, the foul-mouthed old railer. He said to my husband—”

“Somewhat which signifies nothing to our purpose, I dare say,” interrupted Margaret. “I must speak, then.—There dined with us a nobleman—”

“A nobleman! the maiden's mad!” said Dame Ursula.

“There dined with us, I say,” continued Margaret, without regarding the interruption, “a nobleman—a Scottish nobleman.”

“Now Our Lady keep her!” said the confidant, “she is quite frantic!—heard ever any one of a watchmaker's daughter falling in love with a nobleman—and a Scots nobleman, to make the matter complete, who are all as proud as Lucifer, and as poor as Job?—A Scots nobleman, quotha? I had lief you told me of a Jew pedlar. I would have you think how all this is to end, pretty one, before you jump in the dark.”

“That is nothing to you, Ursula—it is your assistance,” said Mistress Margaret, “and not your advice, that I am desirous to have, and you know I can make it worth your while.”

“O, it is not for the sake of lucre, Mistress Margaret,” answered the obliging dame; “but truly I would have you listen to some advice—bethink you of your own condition.”

“My father's calling is mechanical,” said Margaret, “but our blood is not so. I have heard my father say that we are descended, at a distance indeed, from the great Earls of Dalwolsey.” [Footnote: The head of the ancient and distinguished house of Ramsay, and to whom, as their chief, the individuals of that name look as their origin and source of gentry. Allan Ramsay, the pastoral poet, in the same manner, makes

“Dalhousie of an auld descent, My chief, my stoup, my ornament.”]

“Ay, ay,” said Dame Ursula; “even so—I never knew a Scot of you but was descended, as ye call it, from some great house or other; and a piteous descent it often is—and as for the distance you speak of, it is so great as to put you out of sight of each other. Yet do not toss your pretty head so scornfully, but tell me the name of this lordly northern gallant, and we will try what can be done in the matter.”

“It is Lord Glenvarloch, whom they call Lord Nigel Olifaunt,” said Margaret in a low voice, and turning away to hide her blushes.

“Marry, Heaven forefend!” exclaimed Dame Suddlechop; “this is the very devil, and something worse!”

“How mean you?” said the damsel, surprised at the vivacity of her exclamation.

“Why, know ye not,” said the dame, “what powerful enemies he has at Court? know ye not—But blisters on my tongue, it runs too fast for my wit—enough to say, that you had better make your bridal-bed under a falling house, than think of young Glenvarloch.”

“He IS unfortunate then?” said Margaret; “I knew it—I divined it—there was sorrow in his voice when he said even what was gay—there was a touch of misfortune in his melancholy smile—he had not thus clung to my thoughts had I seen him in all the mid-day glare of prosperity.”

“Romances have cracked her brain!” said Dame Ursula; “she is a castaway girl—utterly distraught—loves a Scots lord—and likes him the better for being unfortunate! Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I cannot aid you in—it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair above my condition, and beyond my management;—but I will keep your counsel.”

“You will not be so base as to desert me, after having drawn my secret from me?” said Margaret, indignantly; “if you do, I know how to have my revenge; and if you do not, I will reward you well. Remember the house your husband dwells in is my father's property.”

“I remember it but too well, Mistress Margaret,” said Ursula, after a moment's reflection, “and I would serve you in any thing in my condition; but to meddle with such high matters—I shall never forget poor Mistress Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her!—she had the ill-luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset and Overbury, and so the great earl and his lady slipt their necks out of the collar, and left her and some half-dozen others to suffer in their stead. I shall never forget the sight of her standing on the scaffold with the ruff round her pretty neck, all done up with the yellow starch which I had so often helped her to make, and that was so soon to give place to a rough hempen cord. Such a sight, sweetheart, will make one loath to meddle with matters that are