“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?”