"But,
Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for your habit
--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor, who
should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the
little word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and then
your goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have
equipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have
bought you thrice as many suits, or done better things for you."
"I do not understand these fashions, my lord," said Nigel, his
displeasure mastering his shame; "were I to attend the Court of my
sovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting or
borrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires."
"Which my rank requires!" said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last
words; "that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it. I fancy
you would love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of
old blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and
broadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong
waters, can make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms,
to show whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard
of plate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with
the flavour of onions and genievre--pah!"
"The poor knaves!" said Lord Glenvarloch; "they have served your
father, it may be, in the wars.
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