They were a cannie, comely, sensible brood. Their father and mother, if they gave them nothing else, gave them strong bodies and sharp brains. They were very like each other, though always with a difference. Red hair, bright as burnished gold; high, but not very high, cheek bones; and small, sharp, twinkling eyes, were the Gaberlunzie personal characteristics. There were three in the army, two in the navy, and one at a foreign embassy; one was at the diggings, another was chairman of a railway company, and our own more particular friend, Undecimus, was picking up crumbs about the world in a manner that satisfied the paternal mind that he was quite able to fly alone.
There is a privilege common to the sons of all noble lords, the full value of which the young Scotts learnt very early in life—that of making any woman with a tocher an honourable lady. 'Ye maun be a puir chiel, gin ye'll be worth less than ten thoosand pound in the market o' marriage; and ten thoosand pound is a gawcey grand heritage!' Such had been the fatherly precept which Lord Gaberlunzie had striven to instil into each of his noble sons; and it had not been thrown away upon them. One after the other they had gone forth into the market-place alluded to, and had sold themselves with great ease and admirable discretion. There had been but one Moses in the lot: the Hon. Gordon Hamilton Scott had certainly brought home a bundle of shagreen spectacle cases in the guise of a widow with an exceedingly doubtful jointure; doubtful indeed at first, but very soon found to admit of no doubt whatever. He was the one who, with true Scotch enterprise, was prosecuting his fortunes at the Bendigo diggings, while his wife consoled herself at home with her title.
Undecimus, with filial piety, had taken his father exactly at his word, and swapped himself for £10,000. He had, however, found himself imbued with much too high an ambition to rest content with the income arising from his matrimonial speculation. He had first contrived to turn his real £10,000 into a fabulous £50,000, and had got himself returned to Parliament for the Tillietudlem district burghs on the credit of his great wealth; he then set himself studiously to work to make a second market by placing his vote at the disposal of the Government.
Nor had he failed of success in his attempt, though he had hitherto been able to acquire no high or permanent post. He had soon been appointed private secretary to the First Lord of the Stannaries, and he found that his duty in this capacity required him to assist the Government whip in making and keeping houses. This occupation was congenial to his spirit, and he worked hard and well at it; but the greatest of men are open to the tainting breath of suspicion, and the Honourable Undecimus Scott, or Undy Scott, as he was generally now called, did not escape. Ill-natured persons whispered that he was not on all occasions true to his party; and once when his master, the whip-in-chief, overborne with too much work, had been tempted to put himself to bed comfortably in his own house, instead of on his usual uneasy couch behind the Speaker's chair, Undy had greatly failed. The leader of a party whose struggles for the religion of his country had hitherto met but small success, saw at a glance the opportunity which fortune had placed in his way; he spied with eagle eye the nakedness of that land of promise which is compressed in the district round the Treasury benches; the barren field before him was all his own, and he put and carried his motion for closing the parks on Sundays.
He became a hero; but Undy was all but undone. The highest hope of the Sabbatarian had been to address an almost empty house for an hour and a half on this his favourite subject. But the chance was too good to be lost; he sacrificed his oratorical longings on the altar of party purpose, and limited his speech to a mere statement of his motion. Off flew on the wings of Hansom a youthful member, more trusty than the trusted Undy, to the abode of the now couchant Treasury Argus. Morpheus had claimed him all for his own. He was lying in true enjoyment, with his tired limbs stretched between the unaccustomed sheets, and snoring with free and sonorous nose, restrained by the contiguity of no Speaker's elbow. But even in his deepest slumber the quick wheels of the bounding cab struck upon the tympanum of his anxious ear. He roused himself as does a noble watch-dog when the 'suspicious tread of theft' approaches. The hurry of the jaded horse, the sudden stop, the maddened furious knock, all told a tale which his well-trained ear only knew too well. He sat up for a moment, listening in his bed, stretched himself with one involuntary yawn, and then stood upright on the floor. It should not at any rate be boasted by any one that he had been found in bed.
With elastic step, three stairs at a time, up rushed that young and eager member. It was well for the nerves of Mrs. Whip Vigil that the calls of society still held her bound in some distant brilliant throng; for no consideration would have stopped the patriotic energy of that sucking statesman. Mr. Vigil had already performed the most important act of a speedy toilet, when his door was opened, and as his young friend appeared was already buttoning his first brace.
'Pumpkin is up!' said the eager juvenile,' and we have only five men in the house.'
'And where the devil is Undy Scott?' said the Right Hon. Mr. Vigil.
'The devil only knows,' said the other.
'I deserve it for trusting him,' said the conscience-stricken but worthy public servant. By this time he had on his neckcloth and boots; in his eager haste to serve his country he had forgotten his stockings. 'I deserve it for trusting him—and how many men have they?'