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

SWASH-BUCKLER. Bilboe's the word—PIERROT. It hath been spoke too often, The spell hath lost its charm—I tell thee, friend, The meanest cur that trots the street, will turn, And snarl against your proffer'd bastinado. SWASH-BUCKLER. 'Tis art shall do it, then—I will dose the mongrels—Or, in plain terms, I'll use the private knife 'Stead of the brandish'd falchion. Old Play.

The noble Captain Colepepper or Peppercull, for he was known by both these names, and some others besides; had a martial and a swashing exterior, which, on the present occasion, was rendered yet more peculiar, by a patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek. The sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and shone with grease,—his buff gloves had huge tops, which reached almost to the elbow; his sword-belt of the same materials extended its breadth from his haunchbone to his small ribs, and supported on the one side his large black-hilted back-sword, on the other a dagger of like proportions He paid his compliments to Nigel with that air of predetermined effrontery, which announces that it will not be repelled by any coldness of reception, asked Trapbois how he did, by the familiar title of old Peter Pillory, and then, seizing upon the black-jack, emptied it off at a draught, to the health of the last and youngest freeman of Alsatia, the noble and loving master Nigel Grahame.

When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began to criticise the liquor which it had lately contained.—“Sufficient single beer, old Pillory—and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a nutshell of malt to a butt of Thames—as dead as a corpse, too, and yet it went hissing down my throat—bubbling, by Jove, like water upon hot iron.—You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith, we had a carouse to your honour—we heard butt ring hollow ere we parted; we were as loving as inkle-weavers—we fought, too, to finish off the gawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about me, you see—a note of the sermon or so, which should have been addressed to my ear, but missed its mark, and reached my left eye. The man of God bears my sign-manual too, but the Duke made us friends again, and it cost me more sack than I could carry, and all the Rhenish to boot, to pledge the seer in the way of love and reconciliation—But, Caracco! 'tis a vile old canting slave for all that, whom I will one day beat out of his devil's livery into all the colours of the rainbow.—Basta!—Said I well, old Trapbois? Where is thy daughter, man?—what says she to my suit?—'tis an honest one—wilt have a soldier for thy son-in-law, old Pillory, to mingle the soul of martial honour with thy thieving, miching, petty-larceny blood, as men put bold brandy into muddy ale?”

“My daughter receives not company so early, noble captain,” said the usurer, and concluded his speech with a dry, emphatical “ugh, ugh.”

“What, upon no con-si-de-ra-ti-on?” said the captain; “and wherefore not, old Truepenny? she has not much time to lose in driving her bargain, methinks.”

“Captain,” said Trapbois, “I was upon some little business with our noble friend here, Master Nigel Green—ugh, ugh, ugh—”

“And you would have me gone, I warrant you?” answered the bully; “but patience, old Pillory, thine hour is not yet come, man—You see,” he said, pointing to the casket, “that noble Master Grahame, whom you call Green, has got the decuses and the smelt.”

“Which you would willingly rid him of, ha! ha!—ugh, ugh,” answered the usurer, “if you knew how—but, lack-a-day! thou art one of those that come out for wool, and art sure to go home shorn. Why now, but that I am sworn against laying of wagers, I would risk some consideration that this honest guest of mine sends thee home penniless, if thou darest venture with him—ugh, ugh—at any game which gentlemen play at.”

“Marry, thou hast me on the hip there, thou old miserly cony-catcher!” answered the captain, taking a bale of dice from the sleeve of his coat; “I must always keep company with these damnable doctors, and they have made me every baby's cully, and purged my purse into an atrophy; but never mind, it passes the time as well as aught else—How say you, Master Grahame?”

The fellow paused; but even the extremity of his impudence could scarcely hardly withstand the cold look of utter contempt with which Nigel received his proposal, returning it with a simple, “I only play where I know my company, and never in the morning.”

“Cards may be more agreeable,” said Captain Colepepper; “and, for knowing your company, here is honest old Pillory will tell you Jack Colepepper plays as truly on the square as e'er a man that trowled a die—Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles, topping, knapping, slurring, stabbing, and a hundred ways of rooking besides; but broil me like a rasher of bacon, if I could ever learn the trick on 'em!”

“You have got the vocabulary perfect, sir, at the least,” said Nigel, in the same cold tone.

“Yes, by mine honour have I,” returned the Hector; “they are phrases that a gentleman learns about town.—But perhaps you would like a set at tennis, or a game at balloon—we have an indifferent good court hard by here, and a set of as gentleman-like blades as ever banged leather against brick and mortar.”

“I beg to be excused at present,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “and to be plain, among the valuable privileges your society has conferred on me, I hope I may reckon that of being private in my own apartment when I have a mind.”

“Your humble servant, sir,” said the captain; “and I thank you for your civility—Jack Colepepper can have enough of company, and thrusts himself on no one.—But perhaps you will like to make a match at skittles?”

“I am by no means that way disposed,” replied the young nobleman,

“Or to leap a flea—run a snail—match a wherry, eh?”

“No—I will do none of these,” answered Nigel.

Here the old man, who had been watching with his little peery eyes, pulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, and whispered, “Do not vapour him the huff, it will not pass—let the trout play, he will rise to the hook presently.”

But the bully, confiding in his own strength, and probably mistaking for timidity the patient scorn with which Nigel received his proposals, incited also by the open casket, began to assume a louder and more threatening tone. He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed a look of professional ferocity, and continued, “In Alsatia, look ye, a man must be neighbourly and companionable. Zouns! sir, we would slit any nose that was turned up at us honest fellows.—Ay, sir, we would slit it up to the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life but musk, ambergris, and court-scented water.—Rabbit me, I am a soldier, and care no more for a lord than a lamplighter!”

“Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?” said Nigel, calmly, having in truth no desire to engage himself in a discreditable broil in such a place, and with such