The Fortunes of Nigel

'I say, Sir Mungo,' repeated Nigel, 'and beg you to understand my words, that I am unconscious of any error, save that of having arms on my person when I chanced to approach that of my Sovereign.'

'Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing,' said Sir Mungo. 'We have an old proverb,—Confess, and— so forth. And indeed, as to the weapons, his Majesty has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever, and more especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that matter.[23] I wish you as well through the next, which is altogether unlikely.'

'Surely, Sir Mungo,' answered Nigel, 'you yourself might say something in my favour concerning the affair in the Park. None knows better than you that I was at that moment urged by wrongs of the most heinous nature, offered to me by Lord Dalgarno, many of which were reported to me by yourself, much to the inflammation of my passion.'

'Alack-a-day!-Alack-a-day!' replied Sir Mungo, 'I remember but too well how much your choler was inflamed, in spite of the various remonstrances which I made to you respecting the sacred nature of the place. Alas! alas! you cannot say you leaped into the mire for want of warning.'

'I see, Sir Mungo, you are determined to remember nothing which can do me service,' said Nigel.

'Blithely would I do ye service,' said the Knight; 'and the best whilk I can think of is, to tell you the process of the punishment to the whilk you will be indubitably subjected, I having had the good fortune to behold it performed in the Queen's time, on a chield that had written a pasquinado. I was then in my Lord Gray's train, who lay leaguer here, and being always covetous of pleasing and profitable sights, I could not dispense with being present on the occasion.'

'I should be surprised, indeed,' said Lord Glenvarloch, 'if you had so far put restraint upon your benevolence, as to stay away from such an exhibition.'

'Hey! was your lordship praying me to be present at your own execution?' answered the Knight. 'Troth, my lord, it will be a painful sight to a friend, but I will rather punish myself than baulk you. It is a pretty pageant, in the main—a very pretty pageant. The fallow came on with such a bold face, it was a pleasure to look on him. He was dressed all in white, to signify harmlessness and innocence. The thing was done on a scaffold at Westminster— most likely yours will be at the Charing. There were the Sheriffs and the Marshal's men, and what not—the executioner, with his cleaver and mallet, and his man, with a pan of hot charcoal, and the irons for cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This man Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might be worth your lordship's while to have the loon sent to a barber-surgeon's, to learn some needful scantling of anatomy—it may be for the benefit of yourself and other unhappy sufferers, and also a kindness to Gregory.'

'I will not take the trouble,' said Nigel.—'If the laws will demand my hand, the executioner may get it off as he best can. If the king leaves it where it is, it may chance to do him better service.'

'Vera noble—vera grand, indeed, my lord,' said Sir Mungo; 'it is pleasant to see a brave man suffer. This fallow whom I spoke of—This Tubbs, or Stubbs, or whatever the plebeian was called, came forward as bold as an emperor, and said to the people, 'Good friends, I come to leave here the hand of a true Englishman,' and clapped it on the dressing-block with as much ease as if he had laid it on his sweetheart's shoulder; whereupon Derrick the hangman, adjusting, d'ye mind me, the edge of his cleaver on the very joint, hit it with the mallet with such force, that the hand flew off as far from the owner as a gauntlet which the challenger casts down in the tilt-yard. Well, sir, Stubbs, or Tubbs, lost no whit of countenance, until the fallow clapped the hissing-hot iron on his raw stump. My lord, it fizzed like a rasher of bacon, and the fallow set up an elritch screech, which made some think his courage was abated; but not a whit, for he plucked off his hat with his left hand, and waved it, crying, 'God save the Queen, and confound all evil counsellors!' The people gave him three cheers, which he deserved for his stout heart; and, truly, I hope to see your lordship suffer with the same magnanimity.'

'I thank you, Sir Mungo,' said Nigel, who had not been able to forbear some natural feelings of an unpleasant nature during this lively detail,—'I have no doubt the exhibition will be a very engaging one to you and the other spectators, whatever it may prove to the party principally concerned.'

'Vera engaging,' answered Sir Mungo, 'vera interesting—vera interesting indeed, though not altogether so much so as an execution for high treason. I saw Digby, the Winters, Fawkes, and the rest of the gunpowder gang, suffer for that treason, whilk was a vera grand spectacle, as well in regard to their sufferings, as to their constancy in enduring.'

'I am the more obliged to your goodness, Sir Mungo,' replied Nigel, 'that has induced you, although you have lost the sight, to congratulate me on my escape from the hazard of making the same edifying appearance.'

'As you say, my lord,' answered Sir Mungo, 'the loss is chiefly in appearance. Nature has been very bountiful to us, and has given duplicates of some organs, that we may endure the loss of one of them, should some such circumstance chance in our pilgrimage. See my poor dexter, abridged to one thumb, one finger, and a stump,—by the blow of my adversary's weapon, however, and not by any carnificial knife. Weel, sir, this poor maimed hand doth me, in some sort, as much service as ever; and, admit yours to be taken off by the wrist, you have still your left hand for your service, and are better off than the little Dutch dwarf here about town, who threads a needle, limns, writes, and tosses a pike, merely by means of his feet, without ever a hand to help him.'

'Well, Sir Mungo,' said Lord Glenvarloch, 'this is all no doubt very consolatory; but I hope the king will spare my hand to fight for him in battle, where, notwithstanding all your kind encouragement, I could spend my blood much more cheerfully than on a scaffold.'

'It is even a sad truth,' replied Sir Mungo, 'that your lordship was but too like to have died on a scaffold—not a soul to speak for you but that deluded lassie Maggie Ramsay.'

'Whom mean you?' said Nigel, with more interest than he had hitherto shown in the Knight's communications.

'Nay, who should I mean, but that travestied lassie whom we dined with when we honoured Heriot the goldsmith? Ye ken best how you have made interest with her, but I saw her on her knees to the king for you. She was committed to my charge, to bring her up hither in honour and safety. Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the wild blood out of her—a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches, and not so much as married yet!'

'Hark ye, Sir Mungo Malagrowther,' answered Nigel, 'I would have you talk of that young person with fitting respect.'

'With all the respect that befits your lordship's paramour, and Davy Ramsay's daughter, I shall certainly speak of her, my lord,' said Sir Mungo, assuming a dry tone of irony.

Nigel was greatly disposed to have made a serious quarrel of it, but with Sir Mungo such an affair would have been ridiculous; he smothered his resentment, therefore, and conjured him to tell what he had heard and seen respecting this young person.

'Simply, that I was in the ante-room when she had audience, and heard the king say, to my great perplexity, 'Pulchra sane puella;' and Maxwell, who hath but indifferent Latin ears, thought that his Majesty called on him by his own name of Sawney, and thrust into the presence, and there I saw our Sovereign James, with his own hand, raising up the lassie, who, as I said heretofore, was travestied in man's attire. I should have had my own thoughts of it, but our gracious Master is auld, and was nae great gillravager amang the queans even in his youth; and he was comforting her in his own way and saying,—'Ye needna greet about it, my bonnie woman, Glenvarlochides shall have fair play; and, indeed, when the hurry was off our spirits, we could not believe that he had any design on our person. And touching his other offences, we will look wisely and closely into the matter.' So I got charge to take the young fence-louper to the Tower here, and deliver her to the charge of Lady Mansel; and his Majesty charged me to say not a word to her about your offences, for, said he, the poor thing is breaking her heart for him.'

'And on this you have charitably founded the opinion to the prejudice of this young lady, which you have now thought proper to express?' said Lord Glenvarloch.

'In honest truth, my lord,' replied Sir Mungo, 'what opinion would you have me form of a wench who gets into male habiliments, and goes on her knees to the king for a wild young nobleman? I wot not what the fashionable word may be, for the phrase changes, though the custom abides. But truly I must needs think this young leddy—if you call Watchie Ramsay's daughter a young leddy—demeans herself more like a leddy of pleasure than a leddy of honour.'

'You do her egregious wrong, Sir Mungo,' said Nigel; 'or rather you have been misled by appearances.'

'So will all the world be misled, my lord,' replied the satirist, 'unless you were doing that to disabuse them which your father's son will hardly judge it fit to do.'