not think to dance in a net before old Jack Hildebrod, that has thrice your years o'er his head, and was born, like King Richard, with all his eye-teeth ready cut.'
'Well, sir, go on,' said Nigel.
'Why, then, my lord, I presume to say, that, if you are, as I believe you are, that Lord Glenvarloch whom all the world talk of—the Scotch gallant that has spent all, to a thin cloak and a light purse—be not moved, my lord, it is so noised of you—men call you the sparrow-hawk, who will fly at all—ay, were it in the very Park—Be not moved, my lord.'
'I am ashamed, sirrah,' replied Glenvarloch, 'that you should have power to move me by your insolence—but beware—and, if you indeed guess who I am, consider how long I may be able to endure your tone of insolent familiarity.'
'I crave pardon, my lord,' said Hildebrod, with a sullen, yet apologetic look; 'I meant no harm in speaking my poor mind. I know not what honour there may be in being familiar with your lordship, but I judge there is little safety, for Lowestoffe is laid up in lavender only for having shown you the way into Alsatia; and so, what is to come of those who maintain you when you are here, or whether they will get most honour or most trouble by doing so, I leave with your lordship's better judgment.'
'I will bring no one into trouble on my account,' said Lord Glenvarloch. 'I will leave Whitefriars to-morrow. Nay, by Heaven, I will leave it this day.'
'You will have more wit in your anger, I trust,' said Duke Hildebrod; 'listen first to what I have to say to you, and, if honest Jack Hildebrod puts you not in the way of nicking them all, may he never cast doublets, or dull a greenhorn again! And so, my lord, in plain words, you must wap and win.'
'Your words must be still plainer before I can understand them,' said Nigel.
'What the devil—a gamester, one who deals with the devil's bones and the doctors, and not understand Pedlar's French! Nay, then, I must speak plain English, and that's the simpleton's tongue.'
'Speak, then, sir,' said Nigel; 'and I pray you be brief, for I have little more time to bestow on you.'
'Well, then, my lord, to be brief, as you and the lawyers call it—I understand you have an estate in the north, which changes masters for want of the redeeming ready.—Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in a net before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the frowning humour on you, and the Court vapours you the go- by; and the Prince scowls at you from under his cap; and the favourite serves you out the puckered brow and the cold shoulder; and the favourite's favourite—'
'To go no further, sir,' interrupted Nigel, 'suppose all this true— and what follows?'
'What follows?' returned Duke Hildebrod. 'Marry, this follows, that you will owe good deed, as well as good will, to him who shall put you in the way to walk with your beaver cocked in the presence, as an ye were Earl of Kildare; bully the courtiers; meet the Prince's blighting look with a bold brow; confront the favourite; baffle his deputy, and- -'
'This is all well,' said Nigel! 'but how is it to be accomplished?'
'By making thee a Prince of Peru, my lord of the northern latitudes; propping thine old castle with ingots,— fertilizing thy failing fortunes with gold dust—it shall but cost thee to put thy baron's coronet for a day or so on the brows of an old Caduca here, the man's daughter of the house, and thou art master of a mass of treasure that shall do all I have said for thee, and—'
'What, you would have me marry this old gentlewoman here, the daughter of mine host?' said Nigel, surprised and angry, yet unable to suppress some desire to laugh.
'Nay, my lord, I would have you marry fifty thousand good sterling pounds; for that, and better, hath old Trapbois hoarded; and thou shall do a deed of mercy in it to the old man, who will lose his golden smelts in some worse way—for now that he is well-nigh past his day of work, his day of payment is like to follow.'
'Truly, this is a most courteous offer,' said Lord Glenvarloch; 'but may I pray of your candour, most noble duke, to tell me why you dispose of a ward of so much wealth on a stranger like me, who may leave you to- morrow?'
'In sooth, my lord,' said the Duke, 'that question smacks more of the wit of Beaujeu's ordinary, than any word I have yet heard your lordship speak, and reason it is you should be answered. Touching my peers, it is but necessary to say, that Mistress Martha Trapbois will none of them, whether clerical or laic. The captain hath asked her, so hath the parson, but she will none of them—she looks higher than either, and is, to say truth, a woman of sense, and so forth, too profound, and of spirit something too high, to put up with greasy buff or rusty prunella. For ourselves, we need but hint that we have a consort in the land of the living, and, what is more to purpose, Mrs. Martha knows it. So, as she will not lace her kersey hood save with a quality binding, you, my lord, must be the man, and must carry off fifty thousand decuses, the spoils of five thousand bullies, cutters, and spendthrifts,— always deducting from the main sum some five thousand pounds for our princely advice and countenance, without which, as matters stand in Alsatia, you would find it hard to win the plate.'
'But has your wisdom considered, sir,' replied Glenvarloch, 'how this wedlock can serve me in my present emergence?'
'As for that, my lord,' said Duke Hildebrod, 'if, with forty or fifty thousand pounds in your pouch, you cannot save yourself, you will deserve to lose your head for your folly, and your hand for being close-fisted.'
'But, since your goodness has taken my matters into such serious consideration,' continued Nigel, who conceived there was no prudence in breaking with a man, who, in his way, meant him favour rather than offence, 'perhaps you may be able to tell me how my kindred will be likely to receive such a bride as you recommend to me?'
'Touching that matter, my lord, I have always heard your countrymen knew as well as other folks, on which side their bread was buttered. And, truly, speaking from report, I know no place where fifty thousand pounds—fifty thousand pounds, I say—will make a woman more welcome than it is likely to do in your ancient kingdom. And, truly, saving the slight twist in her shoulder, Mrs. Martha Trapbois is a person of very awful and majestic appearance, and may, for aught I know, be come of better blood than any one wots of; for old Trapbois looks not over like to be her father, and her mother was a generous, liberal sort of a woman.'
'I am afraid,' answered Nigel, 'that chance is rather too vague to assure her a gracious reception into an honourable house.'
'Why, then, my lord,' replied Hildebrod, 'I think it like she will be even with them; for I will venture to say, she has as much ill-nature as will make her a match for your whole clan.'
'That may inconvenience me a little,' replied Nigel.
'Not a whit—not a whit,' said the Duke, fertile in expedients; 'if she should become rather intolerable, which is not unlikely, your honourable house, which I presume to be a castle, hath, doubtless, both turrets and dungeons, and ye may bestow your bonny bride in either the one or the other, and then you know you will be out of hearing of her tongue, and she will be either above or below the contempt of your friends.'
'It is sagely counselled, most equitable sir,' replied Nigel, 'and such restraint would be a fit meed for her folly that gave me any power over her.'
'You entertain the project then, my lord?' said Duke Hildebrod.
'I must turn it in my mind for twenty-four hours,' said Nigel; 'and I will pray you so to order matters that I be not further interrupted by any visitors.'
'We will utter an edict to secure your privacy,' said the Duke; 'and you do not think,' he added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, 'that ten thousand is too much to pay to the Sovereign, in name of wardship?'
'Ten thousand!' said Lord Glenvarloch; 'why, you said five thousand but now.'
'Aha! art avised of that?' said the Duke, touching the side of his nose with his finger; 'nay, if you have marked me so closely, you are thinking on the case more nearly than I believed, till you trapped me. Well, well, we will not quarrel about the consideration, as old Trapbois would call it—do you win and wear the dame; it will be no hard matter with your face and figure, and I will take care that no one interrupts you. I will have an edict from the Senate as soon as they meet for their meridiem.'
So saying, Duke Hildebrod took his leave.
CHAPTER XXIV
