So saying, he quietly slipped his arm under Lord Glenvarloch's, in spite of all the decent reluctance which his victim could exhibit, by keeping his elbow close to his side; and having fairly grappled the prize, he proceeded to take it in tow.
Nigel was sullen and silent, in hopes to shake off his unpleasant companion; but Sir Mungo was determined, that if he did not speak, he should at least hear.
“Ye are bound for the ordinary, my lord?” said the cynic;—“weel, ye canna do better—there is choice company there, and peculiarly selected, as I am tauld, being, dootless, sic as it is desirable that young noblemen should herd withal—and your noble father wad have been blithe to see you keeping such worshipful society.”
“I believe,” said Lord Glenvarloch, thinking himself obliged to say something, “that the society is as good as generally can be found in such places, where the door can scarcely be shut against those who come to spend their money.”
“Right, my lord—vera right,” said his tormentor, bursting out into a chuckling, but most discordant laugh. “These citizen chuffs and clowns will press in amongst us, when there is but an inch of a door open. And what remedy?—Just e'en this, that as their cash gies them confidence, we should strip them of it. Flay them, my lord—singe them as the kitchen wench does the rats, and then they winna long to come back again.—Ay, ay—pluck them, plume them—and then the larded capons will not be for flying so high a wing, my lord, among the goss-hawks and sparrow-hawks, and the like.”
And, therewithal, Sir Mungo fixed on Nigel his quick, sharp, grey eye, watching the effect of his sarcasm as keenly as the surgeon, in a delicate operation, remarks the progress of his anatomical scalpel.
Nigel, however willing to conceal his sensations, could not avoid gratifying his tormentor by wincing under the operation. He coloured with vexation and anger; but a quarrel with Sir Mungo Malagrowther would, he felt, be unutterably ridiculous; and he only muttered to himself the words, “Impertinent coxcomb!” which, on this occasion, Sir Mungo's imperfection of organ did not prevent him from hearing and replying to.
“Ay, ay—vera true,” exclaimed the caustic old courtier—“Impertinent coxcombs they are, that thus intrude themselves on the society of their betters; but your lordship kens how to gar them as gude—ye have the trick on't.—They had a braw sport in the presence last Friday, how ye suld have routed a young shopkeeper, horse and foot, ta'en his spolia ofima, and a' the specie he had about him, down to the very silver buttons of his cloak, and sent him to graze with Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Muckle honour redounded to your lordship thereby.—We were tauld the loon threw himsell into the Thames in a fit of desperation. There's enow of them behind—there was mair tint on Flodden-edge.”
“You have been told a budget of lies, so far as I am concerned, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, speaking loud and sternly.
“Vera likely—vera likely,” said the unabashed and undismayed Sir Mungo; “naething but lies are current in the circle.—So the chield is not drowned, then?—the mair's the pity.—But I never believed that part of the story—a London dealer has mair wit in his anger. I dare swear the lad has a bonny broom-shank in his hand by this time, and is scrubbing the kennels in quest after rusty nails, to help him to begin his pack again.—He has three bairns, they say; they will help him bravely to grope in the gutters. Your good lordship may have the ruining of him again, my lord, if they have any luck in strand-scouring.”