“It's done, or ye bade, Sir Mungo,” said the king; “and I trust we, who are the fountain of all earthly honour, are free to spirit a few drops of it on one so near our person, without offence to the Knight of Castle Girnigo. We have already spoken with the learned men of the Herald's College, and we propose to grant him an augmented coat-of-arms, being his paternal coat, charged with the crown-wheel of a watch in chief, for a difference; and we purpose to add Time and Eternity, for supporters, as soon as the Garter King-at-Arms shall be able to devise how Eternity is to be represented.”
“I would make him twice as muckle as Time,” [Footnote: Chaucer says, there is nothing new but what it has been old. The reader has here the original of an anecdote which has since been fathered on a Scottish Chief of our own time.] said Archie Armstrong, the Court fool, who chanced to be present when the king stated this dilemma. “Peace, man—ye shall be whippet,” said the king, in return for this hint; “and you, my liege subjects of England, may weel take a hint from what we have said, and not be in such a hurry to laugh at our Scottish pedigrees, though they be somewhat long derived, and difficult to be deduced. Ye see that a man of right gentle blood may, for a season, lay by his gentry, and yet ken whare to find it, when he has occasion for it. It would be as unseemly for a packman, or pedlar, as ye call a travelling merchant, whilk is a trade to which our native subjects of Scotland are specially addicted, to be blazing his genealogy in the faces of those to whom he sells a bawbee's worth of ribbon, as it would be to him to have a beaver on his head, and a rapier by his side, when the pack was on his shoulders. Na, na—he hings his sword on the cleek, lays his beaver on the shelf, puts his pedigree into his pocket, and gangs as doucely and cannily about his peddling craft as if his blood was nae better than ditch-water; but let our pedlar be transformed, as I have kend it happen mair than ance, into a bein thriving merchant, then ye shall have a transformation, my lords.
'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas—'
Out he pulls his pedigree, on he buckles his sword, gives his beaver a brush, and cocks it in the face of all creation. We mention these things at the mair length, because we would have you all to know, that it is not without due consideration of the circumstances of all parties, that we design, in a small and private way, to honour with our own royal presence the marriage of Lord Glenvarloch with Margaret Ramsay, daughter and heiress of David Ramsay, our horologer, and a cadet only thrice removed from the ancient house of Dalwolsey. We are grieved we cannot have the presence of the noble Chief of that House at the ceremony; but where there is honour to be won abroad the Lord Dalwolsey is seldom to be found at home. Sic fuit, est, et erit.-Jingling Geordie, as ye stand to the cost of the marriage feast, we look for good cheer.”
Heriot bowed, as in duty bound. In fact, the king, who was a great politician about trifles, had manoeuvred greatly on this occasion, and had contrived to get the Prince and Buckingham dispatched on an expedition to Newmarket, in order that he might find an opportunity in their absence of indulging himself in his own gossiping, coshering habits, which were distasteful to Charles, whose temper inclined to formality, and with which even the favourite, of late, had not thought it worth while to seem to sympathise. When the levee was dismissed, Sir Mungo Malagrowther seized upon the worthy citizen in the court-yard of the Palace, and detained him, in spite of all his efforts, for the purpose of subjecting him to the following scrutiny:—
“This is a sair job on you, Master George—the king must have had little consideration—this will cost you a bonny penny, this wedding dinner?”
“It will not break me, Sir Mungo,” answered Heriot; “the king hath a right to see the table which his bounty hath supplied for years, well covered for a single day.”
“Vera true, vera true—we'll have a' to pay, I doubt, less or mair—a sort of penny-wedding it will prove, where all men contribute to the young folk's maintenance, that they may not have just four bare legs in a bed together. What do you propose to give, Master George?—we begin with the city when money is in question.” [Footnote: The penny-wedding of the Scots, now disused even among the lowest ranks, was a peculiar species of merry-making, at which, if the wedded pair were popular, the guests who convened, contributed considerable sums under pretence of paying for the bridal festivity, but in reality to set the married folk afloat in the world.]
“Only a trifle, Sir Mungo—I give my god-daughter the marriage ring; it is a curious jewel—I bought it in Italy; it belonged to Cosmo de Medici. The bride will not need my help—she has an estate which belonged to her maternal grandfather.”
“The auld soap-boiler,” said Sir Mungo; “it will need some of his suds to scour the blot out of the Glenvarloch shield—I have heard that estate was no great things.”