“We have little time to talk of it, my friend,” said Nigel. “The point in question is, how am I to get speech of the king?”
“The king, my lord!” said Linklater in astonishment; “why, will not that be rushing wilfully into danger?—scalding yourself, as I may say, with your own ladle?”
“My good friend,” answered Nigel, “my experience of the Court, and my knowledge of the circumstances in which I stand, tell me, that the manliest and most direct road is, in my case, the surest and the safest. The king has both a head to apprehend what is just, and a heart to do what is kind.”
“It is e'en true, my lord, and so we, his old servants, know,” added Linklater; “but, woe's me, if you knew how many folks make it their daily and nightly purpose to set his head against his heart, and his heart against his head—to make him do hard things because they are called just, and unjust things because they are represented as kind. Woe's me! it is with his Sacred Majesty, and the favourites who work upon him, even according to the homely proverb that men taunt my calling with,—'God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks.'”
“It signifies not talking of it, my good friend,” said Nigel, “I must take my risk, my honour peremptorily demands it. They may maim me, or beggar me, but they shall not say I fled from my accusers. My peers shall hear my vindication.”
“Your peers?” exclaimed the cook—“Alack-a-day, my lord, we are not in Scotland, where the nobles can bang it out bravely, were it even with the king himself, now and then. This mess must be cooked in the Star-Chamber, and that is an oven seven times heated, my lord;—and yet, if you are determined to see the king, I will not say but you may find some favour, for he likes well any thing that is appealed directly to his own wisdom, and sometimes, in the like cases, I have known him stick by his own opinion, which is always a fair one. Only mind, if you will forgive me, my lord—mind to spice high with Latin; a curn or two of Greek would not be amiss; and, if you can bring in any thing about the judgment of Solomon, in the original Hebrew, and season with a merry jest or so, the dish will be the more palatable.—Truly, I think, that, besides my skill in art, I owe much to the stripes of the Rector of the High School, who imprinted on my mind that cooking scene in the Heautontimorumenos.”
“Leaving that aside, my friend,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “can you inform me which way I shall most readily get to the sight and speech of the king?”
“To the sight of him readily enough,” said Linklater; “he is galloping about these alleys, to see them strike the hart, to get him an appetite for a nooning—and that reminds me I should be in the kitchen. To the speech of the king you will not come so easily, unless you could either meet him alone, which rarely chances, or wait for him among the crowd that go to see him alight. And now, farewell, my lord, and God speed!—if I could do more for you, I would offer it.”
“You have done enough, perhaps, to endanger yourself,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I pray you to be gone, and leave me to my fate.”
The honest cook lingered, but a nearer burst of the horns apprized him that there was no time to lose; and, acquainting Nigel that he would leave the postern-door on the latch to secure his retreat in that direction, he bade God bless him, and farewell.