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

When Nigel entered the mansion of this eminent person, which had been but of late the residence of a great Baron of Queen Elizabeth's court, who had retired to his manors in the country on the death of that princess, he was surprised at the extent of the accommodation which it afforded, and the number of guests who were already assembled. Feathers waved, spurs jingled, lace and embroidery glanced everywhere; and at first sight, at least, it certainly made good Lord Dalgarno's encomium, who represented the company as composed almost entirely of youth of the first quality. A more close review was not quite so favourable. Several individuals might be discovered who were not exactly at their ease in the splendid dresses which they wore, and who, therefore, might be supposed not habitually familiar with such finery. Again, there were others, whose dress, though on a general view it did not seem inferior to that of the rest of the company, displayed, on being observed more closely, some of these petty expedients, by which vanity endeavours to disguise poverty.

Nigel had very little time to make such observations, for the entrance of Lord Dalgarno created an immediate bustle and sensation among the company, as his name passed from one mouth to another. Some stood forward to gaze, others stood back to make way—those of his own rank hastened to welcome him—those of inferior degree endeavoured to catch some point of his gesture, or of his dress, to be worn and practised upon a future occasion, as the newest and most authentic fashion.

The genius loci, the Chevalier himself, was not the last to welcome this prime stay and ornament of his establishment. He came shuffling forward with a hundred apish conges and chers milors, to express his happiness at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.—“I hope you do bring back the sun with you, Milor—You did carry away the sun and moon from your pauvre Chevalier when you leave him for so long. Pardieu, I believe you take them away in your pockets.”

“That must have been because you left me nothing else in them, Chevalier,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “but Monsieur le Chevalier, I pray you to know my countryman and friend, Lord Glenvarloch!”

“Ah, ha! tres honore—Je m'en souviens,—oui. J'ai connu autrefois un Milor Kenfarloque en Ecosse. Yes, I have memory of him—le pere de milor apparemment-we were vera intimate when I was at Oly Root with Monsieur de la Motte—I did often play at tennis vit Milor Kenfarloque at L'Abbaie d'Oly Root—il etoit meme plus fort que moi—Ah le beaucoup de revers qu'il avoit!—I have memory, too that he was among the pretty girls—ah, un vrai diable dechaine—Aha! I have memory—”

“Better have no more memory of the late Lord Glenvarloch,” said Lord Dalgarno, interrupting the Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived that the encomium which he was about to pass on the deceased was likely to be as disagreeable to the son as it was totally undeserved by the father, who, far from being either a gamester or libertine, as the Chevalier's reminiscences falsely represented him, was, on the contrary, strict and severe in his course of life, almost to the extent of rigour.

“You have the reason, milor,” answered the Chevalier, “you have the right—Qu'est ce que nous avons a faire avec le temps passe?—the time passed did belong to our fathers—our ancetres—very well—the time present is to us—they have their pretty tombs with their memories and armorials, all in brass and marbre—we have the petits plats exquis, and the soupe-a-Chevalier, which I will cause to mount up immediately.”

So saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his attendants in motion to place dinner on the table. Dalgarno laughed, and, observing his young friend looked grave, said to him, in a tone of reproach—“Why, what!—you are not gull enough to be angry with such an ass as that?”

“I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “but I confess I was moved to hear such a fellow mention my father's name—and you, too, who told me this was no gaming-house, talked to him of having left it with emptied pockets.”

“Pshaw, man!” said Lord Dalgarno, “I spoke but according to the trick of the time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he would be held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will see whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better than his conversation.”

Dinner was announced accordingly, and the two friends, being seated in the most honourable station at the board, were ceremoniously attended to by the Chevalier, who did the honours of his table to them and to the other guests, and seasoned the whole with his agreeable conversation. The dinner was really excellent, in that piquant style of cookery which the French had already introduced, and which the home-bred young men of England, when they aspired to the rank of connoisseurs and persons of taste, were under the necessity of admiring. The wine was also of the first quality, and circulated in great variety, and no less abundance. The conversation among so many young men was, of course, light, lively, and amusing; and Nigel, whose mind had been long depressed by anxiety and misfortune, naturally found himself at ease, and his spirits raised and animated.

Some of the company had real wit, and could use it both politely and to advantage; others were coxcombs, and were laughed at without discovering it; and, again, others were originals, who seemed to have no objection that the company should be amused with their folly instead of their wit. And almost all the rest who played any prominent part in the conversation had either the real tone of good society which belonged to the period, or the jargon which often passes current for it.

In short, the company and conversation was so agreeable, that Nigel's rigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and he listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de Beaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the “curieux and Futile,” chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one whom he had known in his youth, “Maitre de Cuisine to the Marechal Strozzi—tres bon gentilhomme pourtant;” who had maintained his master's table with twelve covers every day during the long and severe blockade of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on it than the quarter of a carrion-horse now and then, and the grass and weeds that grew on the ramparts. “Despardieux c'dtoit un homme superbe!” With one tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a soupe for twenty guests—an haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti des plus excellens; but his coupe de maitre was when the rendition—what you call the surrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me damme, he made out of the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five couverts; that the English and Scottish officers and nobility, who had the honour to dine with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell what the devil any of them were made upon at all.

The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such genial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table, who had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own credit, or that of the ordinary, to make innovations.

“You speak of the siege of Leith,” said a tall, raw-boned man, with thick