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

CHAPTER XVI Give way—give way—I must and will have justice. And tell me not of privilege and place; Where I am injured, there I'll sue redress. Look to it, every one who bars my access; I have a heart to feel the injury, A hand to night myself, and, by my honour, That hand shall grasp what grey-beard Law denies me. The Chamberlain.

It was not long ere Nigel discovered Lord Dalgarno advancing towards him in the company of another young man of quality of the Prince's train; and as they directed their course towards the south-eastern corner of the Park, he concluded they were about to go to Lord Huntinglen's. They stopped, however, and turned up another path leading to the north; and Lord Glenvarloch conceived that this change of direction was owing to their having seen him, and their desire to avoid him.

Nigel followed them without hesitation by a path which, winding around a thicket of shrubs and trees, once more conducted him to the less frequented part of the Park. He observed which side of the thicket was taken by Lord Dalgarno and his companion, and he himself, walking hastily round the other verge, was thus enabled to meet them face to face.

“Good-morrow, my Lord Dalgarno,” said Lord Glenvarloch, sternly.

“Ha! my friend Nigel,” answered Lord Dalgarno, in his usual careless and indifferent tone, “my friend Nigel, with business on his brow?—but you must wait till we meet at Beaujeu's at noon—Sir Ewes Haldimund and I are at present engaged in the Prince's service.”

“If you were engaged in the king's, my lord,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you must stand and answer me.”

“Hey-day!” said Lord Dalgarno, with an air of great astonishment, “what passion is this? Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!—You have frequented the theatres too much lately—Away with this folly, man; go, dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to bed at sun-down, and defy those foul fiends, Wrath and Misconstruction.”

“I have had misconstruction enough among you,” said Glenvarloch, in the same tone of determined displeasure, “and from you, my Lord Dalgarno, in particular, and all under the mask of friendship.”

“Here is a proper business!”—said Dalgarno, turning as if to appeal to Sir Ewes Haldimund; “do you see this angry ruffler, Sir Ewes? A month since, he dared not have looked one of yonder sheep in the face, and now he is a prince of roisterers, a plucker of pigeons, a controller of players and poets—and in gratitude for my having shown him the way to the eminent character which he holds upon town, he comes hither to quarrel with his best friend, if not his only one of decent station.”

“I renounce such hollow friendship, my lord,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “I disclaim the character which, even to my very face, you labour to fix upon me, and ere we part I will call you to a reckoning for it.”

“My lords both,” interrupted Sir Ewes Haldimund, “let me remind you that the Royal Park is no place to quarrel in.”

“I will make my quarrel good,” said Nigel, who did not know, or in his passion might not have recollected, the privileges of the place, “wherever I find my enemy.”

“You shall find quarelling enough,” replied Lord Dalgarno, calmly, “so soon as you assign a sufficient cause for it. Sir Ewes Haldimund, who knows the Court, will warrant you that I am not backward on such occasions.—But of what is it that you now complain, after having experienced nothing save kindness from me and my family?”

“Of your family I complain not,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “they have done for me all they could, more, far more, than I could have expected; but you, my lord, have suffered me, while you called me your friend, to be traduced, where a word of your mouth would have placed my character in its true colours—and hence the injurious message which I just now received from the Prince of Wales. To permit the misrepresentation of a friend, my lord, is to share in the slander.”

“You have been misinformed, my Lord Glenvarloch,” said Sir Ewes Haldimund; “I have myself often heard Lord Dalgarno defend your character, and regret that your exclusive attachment to the pleasures of a London life prevented your paying your duty regularly to the King and Prince.”

“While he himself,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “dissuaded me from presenting myself at Court.”

“I will cut this matter short,” said Lord Dalgarno, with haughty coldness. “You seem to have conceived, my lord, that you and I were Pylades and Orestes—a second edition of Damon and Pythias—Theseus and Pirithoiis at the least. You are mistaken, and have given the name of friendship to what, on my part, was mere good-nature and compassion for a raw and ignorant countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge which my father gave me respecting you. Your character, my lord, is of no one's drawing, but of your own making. I introduced you where, as in all such places, there was good and indifferent company to be met with—your habits, or taste, made you prefer the worse. Your holy horror at the sight of dice and cards degenerated into the cautious resolution to play only at those times, and with such persons, as might ensure your rising a winner—no man can long do so, and continue to be held a gentleman. Such is the reputation you have made for yourself, and you have no right to be angry that I do not contradict in society what yourself know to be true. Let us pass on, my lord; and if you want further explanation, seek some other time and fitter place.”

“No time can be better than the present,” said Lord Glenvarloch, whose resentment was now excited to the uttermost by the cold-blooded and insulting manner, in which Dalgarno vindicated himself,—“no place fitter than the place where we now stand. Those of my house have ever avenged insult, at the moment, and on the spot, where it was offered, were it at the foot of the throne.—Lord Dalgarno, you are a villain! draw and defend yourself.” At the same moment he unsheathed his rapier.