How fares the man on whom good men would look   With eyes where scorn and combated,
  But that kind love hath taught the lesson—
  That they who merit most contempt and hate,
  Do most deserve our pity.—
                              Old Play.
It might have seemed natural that the visit of John Christie should have diverted Nigel's attention from his companion, and, for a time, such was the effect of the chain of new ideas which the incident introduced; yet, soon after the injured man had departed, Lord Glenvarloch began to think it extraordinary that the boy should have slept so soundly, while they talked loudly in his vicinity. Yet he certainly did not appear to have stirred. Was he well—was he only sleep? He went close to him to make his observations, and perceived that he had wept, and was still weeping, though his eyes were closed. He touched him gently on the shoulder—the boy shrunk from his touch, but did not awake. He pulled him harder, and asked him if he was sleeping.
 
“Do they waken folk in your country to know whether they are asleep or no?” said the boy, in a tone.
 
“No, my young sir,” answered Nigel; “but when they weep in the manner you do in your sleep, they them to see what them.”
 
“It signifies little to any one what ails me,” said the boy.
 
“True,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “but you knew before you went to sleep how little I could assist you in your difficulties, and you seemed disposed, notwithstanding, to put some confidence in me.”
 
“If I did, I have changed my mind,” said the lad.
 
“And what may have occasioned this change of mind, I trow?” said Lord Glenvarloch. “Some men speak through their sleep—perhaps you have the gift of hearing in it?”
 
“No, but the Patriarch Joseph never dreamt truer dreams than I do.”
 
“Indeed!” said Lord Glenvarloch. “And, pray, what dream have you had that has deprived me of your good opinion; for that, I think, seems the moral of the matter?”
 
“You shall judge yourself,” answered the boy. “I dreamed I was in a wild forest, where there was a cry of hounds, and of horns, exactly as I heard in Greenwich Park.”
 
“That was because you were in the Park this morning, you simple child,” said Nigel.
 
“Stay, my lord,” said the youth. “I went on in my dream, till, at the top of a broad green , I saw a noble stag which had fallen into the ; and methought I knew that he was the very stag which the whole party were hunting, and that if the chase came up, the dogs would tear him to pieces, or the hunters would cut his throat; and I had pity on the stag, and though I was of a different kind from him, and though I was somewhat afraid of him, I thought I would venture something to free so stately a creature; and I pulled out my knife, and just as I was beginning to cut the of the net, the animal started up in my face in the of a tiger, much larger and fiercer than any you may have seen in the of the wild beasts yonder, and was just about to tear me limb from limb, when you awaked me.”
 
“Methinks,” said Nigel, “I deserve more thanks than I have got, for rescuing you from such a danger by waking you. But, my pretty master, methinks all this tale of a tiger and a stag has little to do with your change of temper towards me.”
 
“I know not whether it has or no,” said the lad; “but I will not tell you who I am.”
 
“You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish boy,” said Nigel, turning from him, and resuming his walk through the room; then stopping suddenly, he said—“And yet you shall not escape from me without knowing that I your mystery.”
 
“My mystery!” said the youth, at once alarmed and irritated—“what mean you, my lord?”
 
“Only that I can read your dream without the assistance of a Chaldean interpreter, and my exposition is—that my fair companion does not wear the dress of her sex.”
 
“And if I do not, my lord,” said his companion, hastily starting up, and folding her cloak tight around her, “my dress, such as it is, covers one who will not disgrace it.”
 
“Many would call that speech a fair challenge,” said Lord Glenvarloch, looking on her ; “women do not masquerade in men's clothes, to make use of men's weapons.”
 
“I have no such purpose,” said the seeming boy; “I have other means of protection, and powerful—but I would first know what is your purpose.”
 
“An and a most respectful one,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “whatever you are—whatever may have brought you into this ambiguous situation, I am sensible—every look, word, and action of yours, makes me sensible, that you are no proper subject of , far less of ill usage. What circumstances can have forced you into so doubtful a situation, I know not; but I feel assured there is, and can be, nothing in them of premeditated wrong, which should expose you to cold-blooded insult. From me you have nothing to .”
 
“I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my lord,” answered the female; “my adventure, though I feel it was both desperate and foolish, is not so very foolish, nor my safety here so unprotected, as at first sight—and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I have suffered enough, and more than enough, by the of having been seen in this unfeminine , and the comments you must necessarily have made on my conduct—but I thank God that I am so far protected, that I could not have been subjected to insult unavenged.” When this extraordinary explanation had proceeded thus far, the warder appeared, to place before Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present situation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not equal to the cookery of the Chevalier Beaujeu, was much superior in neatness and cleanliness to that of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the honours of the table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise and assist him in his functions. But Nigel, declaring that he knew the youth's parents, , and caused his companion to eat along with him. She consented with a sort of , which rendered her pretty features yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a natural grace that sort of good-breeding which belongs to the table; and it seemed to Nigel, whether already prejudiced in her favour by the extraordinary circumstances of their meeting, or whether really judging from what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a young person herself with more decorous , mixed with ; while the consciousness of the of her situation threw a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which could be neither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embarrassed, but was compounded of, and shaded with, an interchange of all these three characteristics. Wine was placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed on to taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, limited by the presence of the warder to the business of the table: but Nigel had, long ere the cloth was removed, formed the resolution, if possible, of making himself master of this young person's history, the more especially as he now began to think that the tones of her voice and her features were not so strange to him as he had originally supposed. This, however, was a conviction which he adopted slowly, and only as it dawned upon him from particular circumstances during the course of the repast.
 
At length the prison-meal was finished, and Lord Glenvarloch began to think how he might most easily enter upon the topic he , when the warder announced a visitor.
 
“Soh!” said Nigel, something , “I find even a prison does not save one from visitations.”
 
He prepared to receive his guest, however, while his alarmed companion flew to the large cradle-shaped chair, which had first served her as a place of refuge, drew her cloak around her, and disposed herself as much as she could to avoid observation. She had scarce made her arrangements for that purpose when the door opened, and the citizen, George Heriot, entered the prison-chamber.
 
He cast around the apartment his usual sharp, quick glance of observation, and, advancing to Nigel, said—“My lord, I wish I could say I was happy to see you.”
 
“The sight of those who are unhappy themselves, Master Heriot, seldom produces happiness to their friends—I, however, am glad to see you.”
 
He extended his hand, but Heriot bowed with much formal , instead of accepting the courtesy, which in those times, when the distinction of ranks was much guarded by and ceremony, was considered as a favour.
 
“You are displeased with me, Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch, reddening, for he was not deceived by the worthy citizen's affectation of extreme and respect.
 
“By no means, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but I have been in France, and have thought it is well to import, along with other more substantial articles, a small sample of that good-breeding which the French are so for.”
 
“It is not kind of you,” said Nigel, “to the first use of it on an old and obliged friend.”
 
Heriot only answered to this observation with a short dry cough, and then proceeded.
 
“! hem! I say, ahem! My lord, as my French politeness may not carry me far, I would willingly know whether I am to speak as a friend, since your lordship is pleased to term me such; or whether I am, as befits my condition, to confine myself to the needful business which must be treated of between us.”
 
“Speak as a friend by all means, Master Heriot,” said Nigel; “I perceive you have adopted some of the numerous prejudices against me, if not all of them. Speak out, and —what I cannot deny I will at least confess.”
 
“And I trust, my lord, ,” said Heriot.
 
“So far as in my power, certainly,” answered Nigel.
 
“Ah I my lord,” continued Heriot, “that is a though a necessary ; for how lightly may any one do an hundred times more than the degree of evil which it may be within his power to repair to the sufferers and to society! But we are not alone here,” he said, stopping, and his shrewd eye towards the figure of the disguised , whose utmost efforts had not enabled her so to adjust her position as altogether to escape observation. More anxious to prevent her being discovered than to keep his own affairs private, Nigel hastily answered—“'Tis a page of mine; you may speak freely before him. He is of France, and knows no English.”
 
“I am then to speak freely,” said Heriot, after a second glance at the chair; “perhaps my words may be more free than welcome.”
 
“Go on, sir,” said Nigel, “I have told you I can bear .”
 
“In one word, then, my lord—why do I find you in this place, and whelmed with charges which must blacken a name rendered famous by ages of ?”
 
“Simply, then, you find me here,” said Nigel, “because, to begin from my original error, I would be wiser than my father.”
 
“It was a difficult task, my lord,” replied Heriot; “your father was voiced generally as the wisest and one of the bravest men of Scotland.”
 
“He commanded me,” continued Nigel, “to avoid all ; and I took upon me to modify this injunction into regulating my play according to my skill, means, and the course of my luck.”
 
“Ay, self opinion, on a desire of acquisition, my lord—you hoped to touch pitch and not to be defiled,” answered Heriot. “Well, my lord, you need not say, for I have heard with much regret, how far this conduct diminished your reputation. Your next error I may without remind you of—My lord, my lord, in whatever degree Lord Dalgarno may have failed towards you, the son of his father should have been sacred from your violence.”
 
“You speak in cold blood, Master Heriot, and I was smarting under a thousand wrongs on me under the mask of friendship.”
 
“That is, he gave your lordship bad advice, and you,” said Heriot—
 
“Was fool enough to follow his counsel,” answered Nigel—“But we will pass this, Master Heriot, if you please. Old men and young men, men of the sword and men of peaceful occupation, always have thought, always will think, differently on such subjects.”
 
“I grant,” answered Heriot, “the distinction between the old goldsmith and the young nobleman—still you should have had patience for Lord Huntinglen's sake, and for your own. Supposing your quarrel just—”
 
“I pray you to pass on to some other charge,” said Lord Glenvarloch.
 
“I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, that your own heart has already accused you bitterly on the inhospitable wrong which your late landlord has sustained at your hand.”
 
“Had I been guilty of what you to,” said Lord Glenvarloch,—“had a moment of temptation hurried me away, I had long ere now most bitterly it. But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, it was not I—I never heard of her until within this hour.”
 
“Come, my lord,” said Heriot, with some severity, “this sounds too much like affectation. I know there is among our modern youth a new respecting adultery as well as homicide—I would rather hear you speak of a revision of the Decalogue, with penalties in favour of the privileged orders—I would rather hear you do this than deny a fact in which you have been known to glory.”
 
“Glory!—I never did, never would have taken honour to myself from such a cause,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I could not prevent other idle tongues, and idle brains, from making false inferences.”
 
“You would have known well enough how to stop their mouths, my lord,” replied Heriot, “had they of you what was unpleasing to your ears, and what the truth did not warrant.—Come, my lord, remember your promise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, in some slight sort to redress. I will grant you are young—the woman handsome—and, as I myself have observed, light-headed enough. Let me know where she is. Her foolish husband has still some for her—will save her from infamy—perhaps, in time, receive her back; for we are a good-natured generation we traders. Do not, my lord, those who work merely for the pleasure of doing so—it is the very devil's worst quality.”
 
“Your grave will drive me mad,” said Nigel. “There is a show of sense and reason in what you say; and yet, it is insisting on my telling the retreat of a of whom I know nothing earthly.”
 
“It is well, my lord,” answered Heriot, coldly. “You have a right, such as it is, to keep your own secrets; but, since my on these points seems so totally unavailing, we had better proceed to business. Yet your father's image rises before me, and seems to plead that I should go on.”
 
“Be it as you will, sir,” said Glenvarloch; “he who doubts my word shall have no additional security for it.”
 
“Well, my lord.—In the at Whitefriars—a place of refuge so unsuitable to a young man of quality and character—I am told a murder was committed.”
 
“And you believe that I did the deed, I suppose?”
 
“God forbid, my lord!” said Heriot. “The coroner's inquest hath sat, and it appeared that your lordship, under your assumed name of Grahame, behaved with the utmost bravery.”
 
“No compliment, I pray you,” said Nigel; “I am only too happy to find, that I did not murder, or am not believed to have murdered, the old man.”
 
“True, my lord,” said Heriot; “but even in this affair there lacks explanation. Your lordship this morning in a wherry with a female, and, it is said, an immense sum of money, in specie and other valuables—but the woman has not since been heard of.”
 
“I parted with her at Paul's ,” said Nigel, “where she went with her charge. I gave her a letter to that very man, John Christie.”
 
“Ay, that is the waterman's story; but John Christie denies that he remembers anything of the matter.”
 
“I am sorry to hear this,” said the young nobleman; “I hope in Heaven she has not been trepanned, for the treasure she had with her.”
 
“I hope not, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but men's minds are much disturbed about it. Our national character suffers on all hands. Men remember the fatal case of Lord Sanquhar, hanged for the murder of a fencing-master; and exclaim, they will not have their wives whored, and their property stolen, by the nobility of Scotland.”
 
“And all this is laid to my door!” said Nigel; “my is easy.”
 
“I trust so, my lord,” said Heriot;—“, in this particular, I do not doubt it.—But why did you leave Whitefriars under such circumstances?”
 
“Master Reginald Lowestoffe sent a boat for me, with intimation to provide for my safety.”
 
“I am sorry to say,” replied Heriot, “that he denies all knowledge of your lordship's motions, after having dispatched a messenger to you with some baggage.”
 
“The watermen told me they were employed by him.”
 
“Watermen!” said Heriot; “one of these proves to be an idle , an old acquaintance of mine—the other has escaped; but the fellow who is in persists in saying he was employed by your lordship, and you only.”
 
“He lies!” said Lord Glenvarloch, hastily;—“He told me Master Lowestoffe had sent him.—I hope that kind-hearted gentleman is at liberty?”
 
“He is,” answered Heriot; “and has escaped with a from the benchers, for in such a matter as your lordship's. The Court desir............