Jacques. There is, suie, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark!—Here comes a pair of very strange beasts.—As You Like It.
The fashion of such as the present, changes like other earthly things. Time was that the tale-teller was obliged to wind up his story by a circumstantial description of the wedding, bedding, and throwing the stocking, as the grand to which, through so many circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at length happily conducted his hero and heroine. Not a circumstance was then omitted, from the ardour of the bridegroom, and the modest blushes of the bride, to the parson's new surplice, and the silk tabinet mantua of the bridesmaid. But such descriptions are now discarded, for the same reason, I suppose, that public marriages are no longer fashionable, and that, instead of calling together their friends to a feast and a dance, the happy couple elope in a post-chaise, as secretly as if they meant to go to Gretna-Green, or to do worse. I am not ungrateful for a change which saves an author the trouble of attempting in vain to give a new colour to the commonplace description of such matters; but, notwithstanding, I find myself forced upon it in the present instance, as circumstances sometimes compel a stranger to make use of an old road which has been for some time shut up. The experienced reader may have already remarked, that the last chapter was employed in out of the way all the unnecessary and less interesting characters, that I might clear the floor for a bridal.
In truth, it would be unpardonable to pass over slightly what so deeply interested our principal personage, King James. That learned and good-humoured made no great figure in the politics of Europe; but then, to make , he was busy, when he could find a fair opportunity of intermeddling with the private affairs of his loving subjects, and the approaching marriage of Lord Glenvarloch was matter of great interest to him. He had been much struck (that is, for him, who was not very accessible to such emotions) with the beauty and of the pretty Peg-a-Ramsay, as he called her, when he first saw her, and he himself greatly on the acuteness which he had displayed in detecting her disguise, and in carrying through the whole which took place in consequence of it.
He laboured for several weeks, while the courtship was in progress, with his own royal eyes, so as wellnigh to wear out, he declared, a pair of her father's best barnacles, in searching through old books and documents, for the purpose of establishing the bride's to a noble, though remote descent, and remove the only objection which envy might conceive against the match. In his own opinion, at least, he was successful; for, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther one day, in the presence-, took upon him to grieve bitterly for the bride's lack of pedigree, the monarch cut him short with, “Ye may save your grief for your ain next occasions, Sir Mungo; for, by our royal saul, we will uphauld her father, Davy Ramsay, to be a gentleman of nine descents, whase great gudesire came of the stock of the House of Dalwolsey, than whom better men never did, and better never will, draw sword for king and country. Heard ye never of Sir William Ramsay of Dalwolsey, man, of whom John Fordoun saith,—'He was bellicosissimus, nobilissimus?'—His castle stands to witness for itsell, not three miles from Dalkeith, man, and within a mile of Bannockrig. Davy Ramsay came of that auld and honoured stock, and I trust he hath not derogated from his ancestors by his present craft. They all wi' steel, man; only the auld drilled holes wi' their swords in their enemies' corslets, and he saws nicks in his wheels. And I hope it is as to give eyes to the blind as to them out of the head of those that see, and to show us how to value our time as it passes, as to fling it away in drinking, , spear-splintering, and such-like unchristian doings. And you maun understand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal art, which approacheth almost to the act of creating a living being, seeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius saith of the sphere of Archimedes, the Syracusan—
“Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris, Et vivum certis motibus urget opus.'”
“Your had best give auld Davy a coat-of-arms, as well as a pedigree,” said Sir Mungo.
“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 of Castle Girnigo. We have already spoken with the learned men of the Herald's College, and we propose to grant him an coat-of-arms, being his coat, charged with the crown-wheel of a watch in chief, for a difference; and we purpose to add Time and , 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 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 . “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 , and difficult to be deduced. Ye see that a man of right gentle blood may, for a season, lay by his , and yet 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 , to be blazing his in the faces of those to whom he sells a bawbee's worth of ribbon, as it would be to him to have a 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 about his 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 , my lords.
'In nova fert mutatas dicere formas—'
Out he pulls his pedigree, on he 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 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 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 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 species of merry-making, at which, if the pair were popular, the guests who , contributed considerable sums under 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 grandfather.”
“The auld soap-boiler,” said Sir Mungo; “it will need some of his suds to the out of the Glenvarloch shield—I have heard that estate was no great things.”
“It is as good as some posts at Court, Sir Mungo, which are by persons of high quality,” replied George Heriot.
“Court favour, said ye? Court favour, Master Heriot?” replied Sir Mungo, choosing then to use his of misapprehension; “Moonshine in water, poor thing, if that is all she is to be tochered with—I am truly about them.”
“I will let you into a secret,” said the citizen, “which will relieve your tender anxiety. The dowager Lady Dalgarno gives a competent fortune to the bride, and settles the rest of her estate upon her nephew the bridegroom.”
“Ay, say ye sae?” said Sir Mungo, “just to show her regard to her husband that is in the tomb—lucky that her nephew did not send him there; it was a strange story that death of poor Lord Dalgarno—some folk think the poor gentleman had much wrong. Little good comes of marrying the daughter of the house you are at with; indeed, it was less poor Dalgarno's fault, than theirs that forced the match on him; but I am glad the young folk are to have something to live on, come how it like, whether by charity or inheritance. But if the Lady Dalgarno were to sell all she has, even to her very wylie-coat, she canna gie them back the fair Castle of Glenvarloch—that is lost and gane—lost and gane.”
“It is but too true,” said George Heriot; “we cannot discover what has become of the Andrew Skurliewhitter, or what Lord Dalgarno has done with the mortgage.”
“Assigned it away to some one, that his wife might not get it after he was gane; it would have disturbed him in his grave, to think Glenvarloch should get that land back again,” said Sir Mungo; “depend on it, he will have ta'en sure measures to keep that noble lordship out of her grips or her nevoy's either.”
“Indeed it is but too probable, Sir Mungo,” said Master Heriot; “but as I am obliged to go and look after many things in consequence of this ceremony, I must leave you to comfort yourself with the reflection.”
“The bride-day, you say, is to be on the thirtieth of the instant month?” said Sir Mungo, holloing after the citizen; “I will be with you in the hour of cause.”
“The king invites the guests,” said George Heriot, without turning back.
“The base-born, ill-bred mechanic!” soliloquised Sir Mungo, “if it were not the odd score of pounds he lent me last week, I would teach him how to bear himself to a man of quality! But I will be at the bridal banquet in spite of him.”
Sir Mungo contrived to get invited, or commanded, to attend on the bridal accordingly, at which there were but few persons present; for James, on such occasions, preferred a privacy, which gave him liberty to lay aside the , as he felt it to be, of his regal dignity. The company was very small, and indeed there were at least two persons absent whose presence might have been expected. The first of these was the Lady Dalgarno, the state of whose health, as well as the recent death of her husband, her attendance on the ceremony. The other absentee was Richie Moniplies, whose conduct for some time past had been extremely mysterious. Regulating his attendance on Lord Glenvarloch according to his own will and pleasure, he had, ever since the rencounter in Enfield Chase, appeared regularly at his bedside in the morning, to assist him to dress, and at his wardrobe in the evening. The rest of the day he disposed of at his own pleasure, without control from his lord, who had now a complete establishment of attendants. Yet he was somewhat curious to know how the fellow disposed of so much of his time; but on this subject Richie showed no desire to be communicative.
On the morning of the bridal-day, Richie was particularly in doing all a valet-de-chambre could, so as to set off to advantage the very handsome figure of his master; and when he had arranged his dress to the utmost exactn............