"Professional! professional!—another forfeit," exclaimed the tumultuary nobility.
"Had not our royal predecessors," continued the monarch, exalting his sovereign voice to drown these disaffected clamours,—"Had they not their Jean Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V., we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades of life those pleasures which are denied to a throne."
So saying, he flung away his crown, and sprung from his exalted station with more agility than could have been expected from his age, ordered lights and a wash-hand basin and towel, with a cup of green tea, into another room, and made a sign to Mannering to accompany him. In less than two minutes he washed his face and hands, settled his wig in the glass, and, to Mannering's great surprise, looked quite a different man from the childish Bacchanal he bad seen a moment before.
"There are folks," he said, "Mr. Mannering, before whom one should take care how they play the fool—because they have either too much malice, or too little wit, as the poet says. The best compliment I can pay Colonel Mannering, is to show I am not ashamed to expose myself before him—and truly I think it is a compliment I have not spared to-night on your good-nature.—But what's that great strong fellow wanting?"
Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began with a scrape with his foot and a scratch of his head in unison. "I am Dandie Dinmont, sir, of the Charlies-hope—the Liddesdale lad—ye'll mind me?—it was for me ye won yon grand plea."
"What plea, you loggerhead" said the lawyer "d'ye think I can remember all the fools that come to plague me?"
"Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the Langtae
Head!" said the farmer.
"Well, curse thee, never mind; give me the memorial [*The Scottish memorial corresponds to the English brief.] and come to me on Monday at ten," replied the learned counsel.
"But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial."
"No memorial, man?" said Pleydell.