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

to gar them as gude—ye have the trick on't.—They had a braw sport in the presence last Friday, how ye suld have routed a young shopkeeper, horse and foot, ta'en his spolia ofima, and a' the specie he had about him, down to the very silver buttons of his cloak, and sent him to graze with Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Muckle honour redounded to your lordship thereby.—We were tauld the loon threw himsell into the Thames in a fit of desperation. There's enow of them behind—there was mair tint on Flodden-edge.”

“You have been told a budget of lies, so far as I am concerned, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, speaking loud and sternly.

“Vera likely—vera likely,” said the unabashed and undismayed Sir Mungo; “naething but lies are current in the circle.—So the chield is not drowned, then?—the mair's the pity.—But I never believed that part of the story—a London dealer has mair wit in his anger. I dare swear the lad has a bonny broom-shank in his hand by this time, and is scrubbing the kennels in quest after rusty nails, to help him to begin his pack again.—He has three bairns, they say; they will help him bravely to grope in the gutters. Your good lordship may have the ruining of him again, my lord, if they have any luck in strand-scouring.”

“This is more than intolerable,” said Nigel, uncertain whether to make an angry vindication of his character, or to fling the old tormentor from his arm. But an instant's recollection convinced him, that, to do either, would only give an air of truth and consistency to the scandals which he began to see were affecting his character, both in the higher and lower circles. Hastily, therefore, he formed the wiser resolution, to endure Sir Mungo's studied impertinence, under the hope of ascertaining, if possible, from what source those reports arose which were so prejudicial to his reputation.

Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile, caught up, as usual, Nigel's last words, or rather the sound of them, and amplified and interpreted them in his own way. “Tolerable luck!” he repeated; “yes, truly, my lord, I am told that you have tolerable luck, and that ye ken weel how to use that jilting quean, Dame Fortune, like a canny douce lad, willing to warm yourself in her smiles, without exposing yourself to her frowns. And that is what I ca' having luck in a bag.”

“Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said Lord Glenvarloch, turning towards him seriously, “have the goodness to hear me for a moment.”

“As weel as I can, my lord—as weel as I can,” said Sir Mungo, shaking his head, and pointing the finger of his left hand to his ear.

“I will try to speak very distinctly,” said Nigel, arming himself with patience. “You take me for a noted gamester; I give you my word that you have not been rightly informed—I am none such. You owe me some explanation, at least, respecting the source from which you have derived such false information.”

“I never heard ye were a great gamester, and never thought or said ye were such, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, who found it impossible to avoid hearing what Nigel said with peculiarly deliberate and distinct pronunciation. “I repeat it—I never heard, said, or thought that you were a ruffling gamester,—such as they call those of the first head.—Look you, my lord, I call him a gamester, that plays with equal stakes and equal skill, and stands by the fortune of the game, good or bad; and I call him a ruffling gamester, or ane of the first head, who ventures frankly and deeply upon such a wager. But he, my lord, who has the patience and prudence never to venture beyond small game, such as, at most, might crack the Christmas-box of a grocer's 'prentice, who vies with those that have little to hazard, and who therefore, having the larger stock, can always rook them by waiting for his good fortune, and by rising from the game when luck leaves him—such a one as he, my lord, I do not call a great gamester, to whatever other name he may be entitled.”

“And such a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would infer that I am,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “one who fears the skilful, and preys upon the ignorant—who avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure of pillaging his inferiors?—Is this what I am to understand has been reported of me?”

“Nay, my lord, you will gain nought by speaking big with me,” said Sir Mungo, who, besides that his sarcastic humour was really supported by a good fund of animal courage, had also full reliance on the immunities which he had derived from the broadsword of Sir Rullion Rattray, and the baton of the satellites employed by the Lady Cockpen. “And for the truth of the matter,” he continued, “your lordship best knows whether you ever lost more than five pieces at a time since you frequented Beaujeu's—whether you have not most commonly risen a winner—and whether the brave young gallants who frequent the ordinary—I mean those of noble rank, and means conforming—are in use to play upon those terms?”

“My father was right,” said Lord Glenvarloch, in the bitterness of his spirit; “and his curse justly followed me when I first entered that place. There is contamination in the air, and he whose fortune avoids ruin, shall be blighted in his honour and reputation.”

Sir Mungo, who watched his victim with the delighted yet wary eye of an experienced angler, became now aware, that if he strained the line on him too tightly, there was every risk of his breaking hold. In order to give him room, therefore, to play, he protested that Lord Glenvarloch “should not take his free speech in malam partem. If you were a trifle ower sicker in your amusement, my lord, it canna be denied that it is the safest course to prevent farther endangerment of your somewhat dilapidated fortunes; and if ye play with your inferiors, ye are relieved of the pain of pouching the siller of your friends and equals; forby, that the plebeian knaves have had the advantage, tecum certasse, as Ajax Telamon sayeth, apud Metamorphoseos; and for the like of them to have played with ane Scottish nobleman is an honest and honourable consideration to compensate the loss of their stake, whilk, I dare say, moreover, maist of the churls can weel afford.”

“Be that as it may, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, “I would fain know—”

“Ay, ay,” interrupted Sir Mungo; “and, as you say, who cares whether the fat bulls of Bashan can spare it or no? gentlemen are not to limit their sport for the like of them.”

“I wish to know, Sir Mungo,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “in what company you have learned these offensive particulars respecting me?”

“Dootless—dootless, my lord,” said Sir Mungo; “I have ever heard, and have ever reported, that your lordship kept the best of company in a private way.—There is the fine Countess of Blackchester, but I think she stirs not much abroad since her affair with his Grace of Buckingham; and there is the gude auld-fashioned Scottish nobleman, Lord Huntinglen, an undeniable man of quality—it is pity but he could keep caup and can frae his head, whilk now and then doth'minish his reputation. And there is the gay young Lord Dalgarno, that carries the craft of gray hairs under his curled love-locks—a fair race they are, father, daughter, and son, all of the same honourable family. I think we needna speak of George Heriot, honest man, when we have nobility in question. So that is the company I have heard of your keeping, my lord, out-taken those of the ordinary.”