While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earl
even forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, in
his anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions,
and that all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him
to engross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on
the terrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which
Lord Dalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most
likely to interest his new friend.
These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and
Lord Dalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel
proposed an instant return to Scotland.
"You are jesting with me," he said. "All the Court rings--it is
needless to mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit--
against the highest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon
at Whitehall. Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you--
ask each other, who is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so
far in a single day? They augur, in whispers to each other, how high
and how far you may push your fortune--and all that you design to make
of it, is, to return to Scotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a
peat-fire, have your hand shaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who
chooses to dub you cousin, though your relationship comes by Noah;
drink Scots twopenny ale, eat half-starved red-deer venison, when you
can kill it, ride upon a galloway, and be called my right honourable
and maist worthy lord!"
"There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said
Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should
succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope.
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