keeper. Look you, my gude friend, there has been twenty things said
about this same lord, in which there is no more truth than in the
leasings of Mahound. The warst they can say of him is, that he is not
always so amenable to good advice as I would pray him, you, and every
young man to be. Come wi' me - just come ye wi' me; and, if a little
spell of siller and a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your
occasions, all I can say is, you have had the luck to meet one capable
of giving you both, and maist willing to bestow them."
The pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent,
who was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for
himself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of
another. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which
Richie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a
snug niche, with a reeking pottle of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar
betwixt them. Pipes and tobacco were also provided, but were only used
by Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding considerably
to the gravity and importance of his manner, and affording, as it
were, a bland and pleasant accompaniment to the words of wisdom which
flowed from his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank
them in silence, Richie repeated the question, whither his guest was
going when they met so fortunately.
"I told you," said Jenkin, "I was going to destruction - I mean to the
gaming-house. I am resolved to hazard these two or three pieces, to
get as much as will pay for a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship
lies at Gravesend, bound for America - and so Eastward, ho! - I met one
devil in the way already, who would have tempted me from my purpose,
but I spurned him from me - you may be another for what I know. - What
degree of damnation do you propose for me," he added wildly, "and what
is the price of it?"
"I would have you to know," answered Richie, "that I deal in no such
commodities, whether as buyer or seller. But if you will tell me
honestly the cause of your distress, I will do what is in my power to
help you out of it, - not being, however, prodigal of promises, until I
know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice when he has
observed the diagnostics."
"No one has any thing to do with my affairs," said the poor lad; and
folding his arms on the table, he laid his head upon them, with the
sullen dejection of the overburdened lama, when it throws itself down
to die in desperation.
Richard Moniplies, like most folk who have a good opinion of
themselves, was fond of the task of consolation, which at once
displayed his superiority, (for the consoler is necessarily, for the
time at least, superior to the afflicted person,) and indulged his
love of talking. He inflicted on the poor penitenta harangue of
pitiless length, stuffed full of the usual topics of the mutability of
human affairs - the eminent advantages of patience under affliction -
the folly of grieving for what hath no remedy - the necessity of taking
more care for the future, and some gentle rebukes on account of the
past, which acid he threw in to assist in subduing the patient's
obstinacy, as Hannibal used vinegar in cutting his way through rocks.
It was not in human nature to endure this flood of commonplace
eloquence in silence; and Jin Vin, whether desirous of stopping the
flow of words - crammed thus into his ear, "against the stomach of his
sense," or whether confiding in Richie's protestations of friendship,
which the wretched, says Fielding, are ever so ready to believe, or
whether merely to give his sorrows vent in words, raised his head, and
turning his red and swollen eyes to Richie -
"Cocksbones, man, only hold thy tongue, and thou shall know all about
it, - and then all I ask of thee is to shake hands and part. - This
Margaret Ramsay, - you have seen her, man?"
"Once," said Richie, "once, at Master George Heriot's in Lombard
Street - I was in the room when they dined."
"Ay, you helped to shift their trenchers, I remember," said Jin Vin.
"Well, that same pretty girl - and I will uphold her the prettiest
betwixt Paul's and the Bar - she is to be wedded to your Lord
Glenvarloch, with a pestilence on him!"
"That is impossible," said Richie; "it is raving nonsense, man - they
make April gouks of you cockneys every month in the year - The Lord
Glenvarloch marry the daughter of a Lonnon mechanic! I would as soon
believe the great Prester John would marry the daughter of a Jew
packman."
"Hark ye, brother," said Jin Vin, "I will allow no one to speak
disregardfully of the city, for all I am in trouble."
"I crave your pardon, man - I meant no offence," said Richie; "but as
to the marriage, it is a thing simply impossible."
"It is a thing that will take place, though, for the Duke and the
Prince, and all of them, have a finger in it; and especially the old
fool of a king, that makes her out to be some great woman in her own
country, as all the Scots pretend to be, you know."
"Master Vincent, but that you are under affliction," said the
consoler, offended on his part, "I would hear no national
reflections."
The afflicted youth apologised in his turns, but asserted, "it
was true that the king said Peg-a-Ramsay was some far-off sort of
noblewoman; and that he had taken a great interest in the match, and
had run about like an old gander, cackling about Peggie ever since he
had seen her in hose and doublet - and no wonder," added poor Vin, with
a deep sigh.
"This may be all true," said Richie, "though it sounds strange in my
ears; but, man, you should not speak evil of dignities - -Curse not the
king, Jenkin; not even in thy bed-chamber - stone walls have ears - no
one has a right to know better than I."
"I do not curse the foolish old man," said Jenkin; "but I would have
them carry things a peg lower. - If they were to see on a plain field
thirty thousand such pikes as I have seen in the artillery gardens, it
would not be their long-haired courtiers would help them, I trow."
[Footnote: Clarendon remarks, that the importance of the military
exercise of the citizens was severely felt by the cavaliers during the
civil war, notwithstanding the ridicule that had been showered upon it
by the dramatic poets of the day. Nothing less than habitual practice
could, at the battle of Newbury and elsewhere, have enabled the
Londoners to keep their ranks as pikemen, in spite of the repeated
charge of the fiery Prince Rupert and his gallant cavaliers.]
"Hout tout, man," said Richie, "mind where the Stewarts come frae, and
never think they would want spears or claymores either; but leaving
sic matters, whilk are perilous to speak on, I say once more, what is
your concern in all this matter?"
"What is it?" said Jenkin; "why, have I not fixed on Peg-a-Ramsay to
be my true love, from the day I came to her old father's shop? and
have I not carried her pattens and her chopines for three years, and
borne her prayer-book to church, and brushed the cushion for her to
kneel down upon, and did she ever say me nay?"
"I see no cause she had," said Richie, "if the like of such small
services were all that ye proffered. Ah, man! there are few - very few,
either of fools or of wise men, ken how to guide a woman."
"Why, did I not serve her at the risk of my freedom, and very nigh at
the risk of my neck? Did she not - no, it was not her neither, but that
accursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me - persuade me like a
fool to turn myself into a waterman to help my lord, and a plague to
him, down to Scotland? and instead of going peaceably down to the ship
at Gravesend, did not he rant and bully, and show his pistols, and
make me land him at Greenwich, where he played some swaggering pranks,
that helped both him and me into the Tower?"
"Aha!" said Richie, throwing more than his usual wisdom into his
looks, "so you were the green-jacketed waterman that rowed Lord
Glenvarloch down the river?"
"The more fool I, that did not souse him in the Thames," said Jenkin;
"and I was the lad who would not confess one word of who and what I
was, though they threatened to make me hug the Duke of Exeter's
daughter."[Footnote: A particular species of rack, used at the Tower
of London, was so called.]
"Wha is she, man?" said Richie; "she must be an ill-fashioned piece,
if you're so much afraid of her, and she come of such high kin."
"I mean the rack - the rack, man," said Jenkin. "Where were you bred
that never heard of the Duke of Exeter's daughter? But all the dukes
and duchesses in England could have got nothing out of me - so the
truth came out some other way, and I was set free. - Home I ran,
thinking myself one of the cleverest and happiest fellows in the ward.
And she - she - she wanted to pay me with _money_ for all my true
service! and she spoke so sweetly and so coldly at the same time, I
wished myself in the deepest dungeon of the Tower - I wish they had
racked me to death before I heard this Scottishman was to chouse me
out of my sweetheart!"
"But are ye sure ye have lost her?" said Richie; "it sounds strange in
my ears that my Lord Glenvarloch should marry the daughter of a
dealer, - though there are uncouth marriages made in London, I'll allow
that."
"Why, I tell you this lord was no sooner clear of the Tower, than he
and Master George Heriot comes to make proposals for her, with the
king's assent, and what not; and fine fair-day prospects of Court
favour for this lord, for he hath not an acre of land."
"Well, and what said the auld watch-maker?" said Richie; "was he not,
as might weel beseem him, ready to loop out of his skin-case for very
joy?"
"He multiplied six figures progressively, and reported the product -
then gave his consent."
"And what did you do?"
"I rushed into the streets," said the poor lad, "with a burning heart
and a blood-shot eye - and where did I first find myself, but with that
beldam, Mother Suddlechop - and what did she propose to me, but to take
the road?"
"Take the road, man? in what sense?" said Richie.
"Even as a clerk to Saint Nicholas - as a highwayman, like Poins and
Peto, and the good fellows in the play - and who think you was to be my
captain? - for she had the whole out ere I could speak to her - I fancy
she took silence for consent, and thought me damned too unutterably to
have one thought left that savoured of redemption - who was to be my
captain, but the knave that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you
waited on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully about
town here, whom they call Colepepper."
"Colepepper - umph - I know somewhat of that smaik," said Richie; "ken
ye by ony chance where he may be heard of, Master Jenkin? - ye wad do
me a sincere service to tell me."
"Why, he lives something obscurely," answered the apprentice, "on
account of suspicion of some villainy - I believe that horrid murder in
Whitefriars, or some such matter. But I might have heard all about him
from Dame Suddlechop, for she spoke of my meeting him at Enfield
Chase, with some other good fellows, to do a robbery on one that goes
northward with a store of treasure."
"And you did not agree to this fine project?" said Moniplies.
"I cursed her for a hag, and came away about my business," answered
Jenkin.
"Ay, and what said she to that, man? That would startle her," said
Richie.
"Not a whit. She laughed, and said she was in jest," answered Jenkin;
"but I know the she-devil's jest from her earnest too well to be taken
in that way. But she knows I would never betray her.'
"Betray her! No," replied Richie; "but are ye in any shape bound to
this birkie Peppercull, or Colepepper, or whatever they call him, that
ye suld let him do a robbery on the honest gentleman that is
travelling to the north, and may be a kindly Scot, for what we know?"
"Ay - going home with a load of English money," said Jenkin. "But be he
who he will, they may rob the whole world an they list, for I am
robbed and ruined."
Richie filled his friend's cup up to the brim, and insisted that he
should drink what he called "clean caup out." "This love," he said,
"is but a bairnly matter for a brisk young fellow like yourself,
Master Jenkin. And if ye must needs have a whimsy, though I think it
would be safer to venture on a staid womanly body, why, here be as
bonny lasses in London as this Peg-a-Ramsay. You need not sigh sae
deeply, for it is very true - there is as good fish in the sea as ever
came out of it. Now wherefore should you, who are as brisk and trig a
young fellow of your inches as the sun needs to shine on - wherefore
need you sit moping this way, and not try some bold way to better your
fortune?"
"I tell you, Master Moniplies," said Jenkin, "I am as poor as any Scot
among you - I have broke my indenture, and I think of running my
country."
"A-well-a-day!" said Richie; "but that maunna be, man - I ken weel, by
sad experience, that poortith takes away pith, and the man sits full
still that has a rent in his breeks. [Footnote: This elegant speech
was made by the Earl of Douglas, called Tineman after being wounded
and made prisoner at the battle of Shrewsbury, where
"His well labouring sword
Had three times slain the semblance of the king,"]
But courage, man; you have served me heretofore, and I will serve you
now. If you will but bring me to speech of this same captain, it will
be the best day's work you ever did."
"I guess where you are, Master Richard - you would save your
countryman's long purse," said Jenkin. "I cannot see how that should
advantage me, but I reck not if I should bear a hand. I hate that
braggart, that bloody-minded, cowardly bully. If you can get me
mounted I care not if I show you where the dame told me I should meet
him - but you must stand to the risk, for though he is a coward
himself, I know he will have more than one stout fellow with him."
"We'll have a warrant, man," said Richie, "and the hue and cry, to
boot."
"We will have no such thing," said Jenkin, "if I am to go with you. I
am not the lad to betray any one to the harmanbeck. You must do it by
manhood if I am to go with you. I am sworn to cutter's law, and will
sell no man's blood."
"Aweel," said Richie, "a wilful man must have his way; ye must think
that I was born and bred where cracked crowns were plentier than whole
ones. Besides, I have two noble friends here, Master Lowestoffe of the
Temple, and his cousin Master Ringwood, that will blithely be of so
gallant a party."
"Lowestoffe and Ringwood!" said Jenkin; "they are both brave gallants-
-they will be sure company. Know you where they are to be found?"
"Ay, marry do I," replied Richie. "They are fast at the cards and
dice, till the sma' hours, I warrant them."
"They are gentlemen of trust and honour," said Jenkin, "and, if they
advise it, I will try the adventure. Go, try if you can bring them
hither, since you have so much to say with, them. We must not be seen
abroad together. - I know not how it is, Master Moniplies," continued
he, as his countenance brightened up, and while, in his turn, he
filled the cups, "but I feel my heart something lighter since I have
thought of this matter."
"Thus it is to have counsellors, Master Jenkin," said Richie; "and
truly I hope to hear you say that your heart is as light as a
lavrock's, and that before you are many days aulder. Never smile and
shake your head, but mind what I tell you - and bide here in the
meanwhile, till I go to seek these gallants. I warrant you, cart-ropes
would not hold them back from such a ploy as I shall propose to them."
CHAPTER XXXVI
The thieves have bound the true men -
Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go
merrily to London.
_Henry IV., Part I._
The sun was high upon the glades of Enfield Chase, and the deer, with
which it then abounded, were seen sporting in picturesque groups among
the ancient oaks of the forest, when a cavalier and a lady, on foot,
although in riding apparel, sauntered slowly up one of the long alleys
which were cut through the park for the convenience of the hunters.
Their only attendant was a page, who, riding a Spanish jennet, which
seemed to bear a heavy cloak-bag, followed them at a respectful
distance. The female, attired in all the fantastic finery of the
period, with more than the usual quantity of bugles, flounces, and
trimmings, and holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and
her riding-mask of black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all
the little coquetry practised on such occasions, to secure the notice
of her companion, who sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to
attend to it, and at other times interrupted his train of graver
reflections, to reply to her.
"Nay, but, my lord - my lord, you walk so fast, you will leave me
behind you. - Nay, I will have hold of your arm, but how to manage with
my mask and my fan? Why would you not let me bring my waiting-
gentlewoman to follow us, and hold my things? But see, I will put my
fan in my girdle, soh! - and now that I have a hand to hold you with,
you shall not run away from me."
"Come on, then," answered the gallant, "and let us walk apace, since
you would not be persuaded to stay with your gentlewoman, as you call
her, and with the rest of the baggage. - You may perhaps see _that_,
though, you will not like to see."
She took hold of his arm accordingly; but as he continued to walk at
the same pace, she shortly let go her hold, exclaiming that he had
hurt her hand. The cavalier stopped, and looked at the pretty hand and
arm which she showed him, with exclamations against his cruelty. "I
dare say," she said, baring her wrist and a part of her arm, "it is
all black and blue to the very elbow."
"I dare say you are a silly little fool," said the cavalier,
carelessly kissing the aggrieved arm; "it is only a pretty incarnate
which sets off the blue veins."
"Nay, my lord, now it is you are silly," answered the dame; "but I am
glad I can make you speak and laugh on any terms this morning. I am
sure, if I did insist on following you into the forest, it was all for
the sake of diverting you. I am better company than your page, I
trow. - And now, tell me, these pretty things with horns, be they not
deer?" "Even such they be, Nelly," answered her neglectful attendant.
"And what can the great folk do with so many of them, forsooth?"
"They send them to the city, Nell, where wise men make venison pasties
of their flesh, and wear their horns for trophies," answered Lord
Dalgarno, whom our reader has already recognised.
"Nay, now you laugh at me, my lord," answered his companion; "but I
know all about venison, whatever you may think. I always tasted it
once a year when we dined with Mr. Deputy," she continued, sadly, as a
sense of her degradation stole across a mind bewildered with vanity
and folly, "though he would not speak to me now, if we met together in
the narrowest lane in the Ward!"
"I warrant he would not," said Lord Dalgarno, "because thou, Nell,
wouldst dash him with a single look; for I trust thou hast more spirit
than to throw away words on such a fellow as he?"
"Who, I!" said Dame Nelly. "Nay, I scorn the proud princox too much
for that. Do you know, he made all the folk in the Ward stand cap in
hand to him, my poor old John Christie and all?" Here her recollection
began to overflow at her eyes.
"A plague on your whimpering," said Dalgarno, somewhat harshly, - "Nay,
never look pale for the matter, Nell. I am not angry with you, you
simple fool. But what would you have me think, when you are eternally
looking back upon your dungeon yonder by the river, which smelt of
pitch and old cheese worse than a Welshman does of onions, and all
this when I am taking you down to a castle as fine as is in Fairy
Land!"
"Shall we be there to-night, my lord?" said Nelly, drying her tears.
"To-night, Nelly? - no, nor this night fortnight."
"Now, the Lord be with us, and keep us! - But shall we not go by sea,
my lord? - I thought everybody came from Scotland by sea. I am sure
Lord Glenvarloch and Richie Moniplies came up by sea."
"There is a wide difference between coming up and going down, Nelly,"
answered Lord Dalgarno.
"And so there is, for certain," said his simple companion. "But yet I
think I heard people speaking of going down to Scotland by sea, as
well as coming up. Are you well avised of the way? - Do you think it
possible we can go by land, my sweet lord?"
"It is but trying, my sweet lady," said Lord Dalgarno. "Men say
England and Scotland are in the same island, so one would hope there
may be some road betwixt them by land."
"I shall never be able to ride so far," said the lady.
"We will have your saddle stuffed softer," said the lord. "I tell you
that you shall mew your city slough, and change from the caterpillar
of a paltry lane into the butterfly of a prince's garden. You shall
have as many tires as there are hours in the day - as many handmaidens
as there are days in the week - as many menials as there are weeks in
the year - and you shall ride a hunting and hawking with a lord,
instead of waiting upon an old ship-chandler, who could do nothing but
hawk and spit"
"Ay, but will you make me your lady?" said Dame Nelly.
"Ay, surely - what else?" replied the lord - "My lady-love."
"Ay, but I mean your lady-wife," said Nelly.
"Truly, Nell, in that I cannot promise to oblige you. A lady-wife,"
continued Dalgarno, "is a very different thing from a lady-love."
"I heard from Mrs. Suddlechop, whom you lodged me with since I left
poor old John Christie, that Lord Glenvarloch is to marry David Ramsay
the clockmaker's daughter?"
"There is much betwixt the cup and the lip, Nelly. I wear something
about me may break the bans of that hopeful alliance, before the day
is much older," answered Lord Dalgarno.
"Well, but my father was as good a man as old Davy Ramsay, and as well
to pass in the world, my lord; and, therefore, why should you not
marry me? You have done me harm enough, I trow - wherefore should you
not do me this justice?"
"For two good reasons, Nelly. Fate put a husband on you, and the king
passed a wife upon me," answered Lord Dalgarno.
"Ay, my lord," said Nelly, "but they remain in England, and we go to
Scotland."
"Thy argument is better than thou art aware of," said Lord Dalgarno.
"I have heard Scottish lawyers say the matrimonial tie may be
unclasped in our happy country by the gentle hand of the ordinary
course of law, whereas in England it can only be burst by an act of
Parliament. Well, Nelly, we will look into that matter; and whether we
get married again or no, we will at least do our best to get
unmarried."
"Shall we indeed, my honey-sweet lord? and then I will think less
about John Christie, for he will marry again, I warrant you, for he is
well to pass; and I would be glad to think he had somebody to take
care of him, as I used to do, poor loving old man! He was a kind man,
though he was a score of years older than I; and I hope and pray he
will never let a young lord cross his honest threshold again!"
Here the dame was once more much inclined to give way to a passion of
tears; but Lord Dalgarno conjured down the emotion, by saying with
some asperity - "I am weary of these April passions, my pretty
mistress, and I think you will do well to preserve your tears for some
more pressing occasion. Who knows what turn of fortune may in a few
minutes call for more of them than you can render?"
"Goodness, my lord! what mean you by such expressions? John Christie
(the kind heart!) used to keep no secrets from me, and I hope your
lordship will not hide your counsel from me?"
"Sit down beside me on this bank," said the nobleman; "I am bound to
remain here for a short space, and if you can be but silent, I should
like to spend a part of it in considering how far I can, on the
present occasion, follow the respectable example which you recommend
to me."
The place at which he stopped was at that time little more than a
mound, partly surrounded by a ditch, from which it derived the name of
Camlet Moat. A few hewn stones there were, which had escaped the fate
of many others that had been used in building different lodges in the
forest for the royal keepers. These vestiges, just sufficient to show
that "herein former times the hand of man had been," marked the ruins
of the abode of a once illustrious but long-forgotten family, the
Mandevilles, Earls of Essex, to whom Enfield Chase and the extensive
domains adjacent had belonged in elder days. A wild woodland prospect
led the eye at various points through broad and seemingly interminable
alleys, which, meeting at this point as at a common centre, diverged
from each other as they receded, and had, therefore, been selected by
Lord Dalgarno as the rendezvous for the combat, which, through the
medium of Richie Moniplies, he had offered to his injured friend, Lord
Glenvarloch.
"He will surely come?" he said to himself; "cowardice was not wont to
be his fault - at least he was bold enough in the Park. - Perhaps yonder
churl may not have carried my message? But no - he is a sturdy knave -
one of those would prize their master's honour above their life. - Look
to the palfrey, Lutin, and see thou let him not loose, and cast thy
falcon glance down every avenue to mark if any one comes. - Buckingham
has undergone my challenge, but the proud minion pleads the king's
paltry commands for refusing to answer me. If I can baffle this
Glenvarloch, or slay him - If I can spoil him of his honour or his
life, I shall go down to Scotland with credit sufficient to gild over
past mischances. I know my dear countrymen - they never quarrel with
any one who brings them home either gold or martial glory, much more
if he has both gold and laurels."
As he thus reflected, and called to mind the disgrace which he had
suffered, as well as the causes he imagined for hating Lord
Glenvarloch, his countenance altered under the influence of his
contending emotions, to the terror of Nelly, who, sitting unnoticed at
his feet, and looking anxiously in his face, beheld the cheek kindle,
the mouth become compressed, the eye dilated, and the whole
countenance express the desperate and deadly resolution of one who
awaits an instant and decisive encounter with a mortal enemy. The
loneliness of the place, the scenery so different from that to which
alone she had been accustomed, the dark and sombre air which crept so
suddenly over the countenance of her seducer, his command imposing
silence upon her, and the apparent strangeness of his conduct in
idling away so much time without any obvious cause, when a journey of
such length lay before them, brought strange thoughts into her weak
brain. She had read of women, seduced from their matrimonial duties by
sorcerers allied to the hellish powers, nay, by the Father of Evil
himself, who, after conveying his victim into some desert remote from
human kind, exchanged the pleasing shape in which he gained her
affections, for all his natural horrors. She chased this wild idea
away as it crowded itself upon her weak and bewildered imagination;
yet she might have lived to see it realised allegorically, if not
literally, but for the accident which presently followed.
The page, whose eyes were remarkably acute, at length called out to
his master, pointing with his finger at the same time down one of the
alleys, that horsemen were advancing in that direction. Lord Dalgarno
started up, and shading his eyes with his hand, gazed eagerly down the
alley; when, at the same instant, he received a shot, which, grazing
his hand, passed right through his brain, and laid him a lifeless
corpse at the feet, or rather across the lap, of the unfortunate
victim of his profligacy. The countenance, whose varied expression she
had been watching for the last five minutes, was convulsed for an
instant, and then stiffened into rigidity for ever. Three ruffians
rushed from the brake from which the shot had been fired, ere the
smoke was dispersed. One, with many imprecations seized on the page;
another on the female, upon whose cries he strove by the most violent
threats to impose silence; whilst the third began to undo the burden
from the page's horse. But an instant rescue prevented their availing
themselves of the advantage they had obtained.
It may easily be supposed that Richie Moniplies, having secured the
assistance of the two Templars, ready enough to join in any thing
which promised a fray, with Jin Vin to act as their guide, had set
off, gallantly mounted and well armed, under the belief that they
would reach Camlet Moat before the robbers, and apprehend them in the
fact. They had not calculated that, according to the custom of robbers
in other countries, but contrary to that of the English highwayman of
those days, they meant to ensure robbery by previous murder. An
accident also happened to delay them a little while on the road. In
riding through one of the glades of the forest, they found a man
dismounted and sitting under a tree, groaning with such bitterness of
spirit, that Lowestoffe could not forbear asking if he was hurt. In
answer, he said he was an unhappy man in pursuit of his wife, who had
been carried off by a villain; and as he raised his countenance, the
eyes of Richie, to his great astonishment, encountered the visage of
John Christie.
"For the Almighty's sake, help me, Master Moniplies!" he said; "I have
learned my wife is but a short mile before, with that black villain
Lord Dalgarno."
"Have him forward by all means," said Lowestoffe; "a second Orpheus
seeking his Eurydice! - Have him forward - we will save Lord Dalgarno's
purse, and ease him of his mistress - Have him with us, were it but for
the variety of the adventure. I owe his lordship a grudge for rooking
me. We have ten minutes good."
But it is dangerous to calculate closely in matters of life and death.
In all probability the minute or two which was lost in mounting John
Christie behind one of their party, might have saved Lord Dalgarno
from his fate. Thus his criminal amour became the indirect cause of
his losing his life; and thus "our pleasant vices are made the whips
to scourge us."
The riders arrived on the field at full gallop the moment after the
shot was fired; and Richie, who had his own reasons for attaching
himself to Colepepper, who was bustling to untie the portmanteau from
the page's saddle, pushed against him with such violence as to
overthrow him, his own horse at the same time stumbling and
dismounting his rider, who was none of the first equestrians. The
undaunted Richie immediately arose, however, and grappled with the
ruffian with such good-will, that, though a strong fellow, and though
a coward now rendered desperate, Moniplies got him under, wrenched a
long knife from his hand, dealt him a desperate stab with his own
weapon, and leaped on his feet; and, as the wounded man struggled to
follow his example, he struck him upon the head with the butt-end of a
musketoon, which last blow proved fatal.
"Bravo, Richie!" cried Lowestoffe, who had himself engaged at sword-
point with one of the ruffians, and soon put him to flight, - "Bravo!
why, man, there lies Sin, struck down like an ox, and Iniquity's
throat cut like a calf."
"I know not why you should upbraid me with my upbringing, Master
Lowestoffe," answered Richie, with great composure; "but I can tell
you, the shambles is not a bad place for training one to this work."
The other Templar now shouted loudly to them, - "If ye be men, come
hither - here lies Lord Dalgarno, murdered!"
Lowestoffe and Richie ran to the spot, and the page took the
opportunity, finding himself now neglected on all hands, to ride off
in a different direction; and neither he, nor the considerable sum
with which his horse was burdened, were ever heard of from that
moment.
The third ruffian had not waited the attack of the Templar and Jin
Vin, the latter of whom had put down old Christie from behind him that
he might ride the lighter; and the whole five now stood gazing with
horror on the bloody corpse of the young nobleman, and the wild sorrow
of the female, who tore her hair and shrieked in the most disconsolate
manner, until her agony was at once checked, or rather received a new
direction, by the sudden and unexpected appearance of her husband,
who, fixing on her a cold and severe look, said, in a tone suited to
his manner - "Ay, woman! thou takest on sadly for the loss of thy
paramour." - Then, looking on the bloody corpse of him from whom he had
received so deep an injury, he repeated the solemn words of
Scripture, - "'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay
it.' - I, whom thou hast injured, will be first to render thee the
decent offices due to the dead."
So saying, he covered the dead body with his cloak, and then looking
on it for a moment, seemed to reflect on what he had next to perform.
As the eye of the injured man slowly passed from the body of the
seducer to the partner and victim of his crime, who had sunk down to
his feet, which she clasped without venturing to look up, his
features, naturally coarse and saturnine, assumed a dignity of
expression which overawed the young Templars, and repulsed the
officious forwardness of Richie Moniplies, who was at first eager to
have thrust in his advice and opinion. "Kneel not to me, woman," he
said, "but kneel to the God thou hast offended, more than thou couldst
offend such another worm as thyself. How often have I told thee, when
thou wert at the gayest and the lightest, that pride goeth before
destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall? Vanity brought folly,
and folly brought sin, and sin hath brought death, his original
companion. Thou must needs leave duty, and decency, and domestic love,
to revel it gaily with the wild and with the wicked; and there thou
liest like a crushed worm, writhing beside the lifeless body of thy
paramour. Thou hast done me much wrong - dishonoured me among friends -
driven credit from my house, and peace from my fireside - But thou wert
my first and only love, and I will not see thee an utter castaway, if
it lies with me to prevent it. - Gentlemen, I render ye such thanks as
a broken-hearted man can give. - Richard, commend me to your honourable
master. I added gall to the bitterness of his affliction, but I was
deluded. - Rise up, woman, and follow me."
He raised her up by the arm, while, with streaming eyes, and bitter
sobs, she endeavoured to express her penitence. She kept her hands
spread over her face, yet suffered him to lead her away; and it was
only as they turned around a brake which concealed the scene they had
left, that she turned back, and casting one wild and hurried glance
towards the corpse of Dalgarno, uttered a shriek, and clinging to her
husband's arm, exclaimed wildly, - "Save me - save me! They have
murdered him!"
Lowestoffe was much moved by what he had witnessed; but he was
ashamed, as a town-gallant, of his own unfashionable emotion, and did
a force to his feelings when he exclaimed, - "Ay, let them go - the
kind-hearted, believing, forgiving husband - the liberal, accommodating
spouse. O what a generous creature is your true London husband! - Horns
hath he, but, tame as a fatted ox, he goreth not. I should like to see
her when she hath exchanged her mask and riding-beaver for her peaked
hat and muffler. We will visit them at Paul's Wharf, coz - it will be a
convenient acquaintance."
"You had better think of catching the gipsy thief, Lutin," said Richie
Moniplies; "for, by my faith, he is off with his master's baggage and
the siller."
A keeper, with his assistants, and several other persons, had now come
to the spot, and made hue and cry after Lutin, but in vain. To their
custody the Templars surrendered the dead bodies, and after going
through some formal investigation, they returned, with Richard and
Vincent, to London, where they received great applause for their
gallantry. - Vincent's errors were easily expiated, in consideration of
his having been the means of breaking up this band of villains; and
there is some reason to think, that what would have diminished the
credit of the action in other instances, rather added to it in the
actual circumstances, namely, that they came too late to save Lord
Dalgarno.
George Heriot, who suspected how matters stood with Vincent, requested
and obtained permission from his master to send the poor young fellow
on an important piece of business to Paris. We are unable to trace his
fate farther, but believe it was prosperous, and that he entered into
an advantageous partnership with his fellow-apprentice, upon old Davy
Ramsay retiring from business, in consequence of his daughter's
marriage. That eminent antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, is possessed of an
antique watch, with a silver dial-plate, the mainspring being a piece
of catgut instead of a chain, which bears the names of Vincent and
Tunstall, Memory-Monitors.
Master Lowestoffe failed not to vindicate his character as a man of
gaiety, by inquiring after John Christie and Dame Nelly; but greatly
to his surprise, (indeed to his loss, for he had wagered ten pieces
that he would domesticate himself in the family,) he found the good-
will, as it was called, of the shop, was sold, the stock auctioned,
and the late proprietor and his wife gone, no one knew whither. The
prevailing belief was, that they had emigrated to one of the new
settlements in America.
Lady Dalgarno received the news of her unworthy husband's death with a
variety of emotions, among which, horror that he should have been cut
off in the middle career of his profligacy, was the most prominent.
The incident greatly deepened her melancholy, and injured her health,
already shaken by previous circumstances. Repossessed of her own
fortune by her husband's death, she was anxious to do justice to Lord
Glenvarloch, by treating for the recovery of the mortgage.
But the scrivener, having taken fright at the late events, had left
the city and absconded, so that it was impossible to discover into
whose hands the papers had now passed. Richard Moniplies was silent,
for his own reasons; the Templars, who had witnessed the transaction,
kept the secret at his request, and it was universally believed that
the scrivener had carried off the writings along with him. We may here
observe, that fears similar to those of Skurliewhitter freed London
for ever from the presence of Dame Suddlechop, who ended her career in
the _Rasp-haus_, (viz. Bridewell,) of Amsterdam.
The stout old Lord Huntinglen, with a haughty carriage and unmoistened
eye, accompanied the funeral procession of his only son to its last
abode; and perhaps the single tear which fell at length upon the
coffin, was given less to the fate of the individual, than to the
extinction of the last male of his ancient race.
CHAPTER XXXVII
_Jacques_. There is, suie, another flood toward, and these couples are
coming to the ark! - Here comes a pair of very strange beasts. - _As You
Like It_.
The fashion of such narratives as the present, changes like other
earthly things. Time was that the tale-teller was obliged to wind up
his story by a circumstantial description of the wedding, bedding, and
throwing the stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so