His Majesty, to close this discourse at
once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a
respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by
my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost
emergencies."
"It is impossible!" said the citizen--"it is absolutely impossible!--
If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still
he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so
flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who,
dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish
people." "I should have been of your opinion," answered Lord
Nigel, in the same tone as before; "but there is no fighting with
facts."
"What was the tenor of this Supplication?" said Heriot; "or by whom
was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the
contents, or else--"
"You may see my original draught," said the young lord, taking it out
of a small travelling strong-box; "the technical part is by my lawyer
in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I
hope, with due deference and modesty."
Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. "Nothing," he
said, "can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the
king can have treated this petition with contempt?"
"He threw it down on the pavement," said the Lord of Glenvarloch, "and
sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the
paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the
eyes of the proud English--that is all.
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