--And if they were my last
words," he said, raising his voice, "I would say you are misled, and
are forsaking the paths which your honourable father trode in; and,
what is more, you are going--still under correction--to the devil with
a dishclout, for ye are laughed at by them that lead you into these
disordered bypaths."
"Laughed at!" said Nigel, who, like others of his age, was more
sensible to ridicule than to reason--"Who dares laugh at me?"
"My lord, as sure as I live by bread--nay, more, as I am a true man--
and, I think, your lordship never found Richie's tongue bearing aught
but the truth--unless that your lordship's credit, my country's
profit, or, it may be, some sma' occasion of my ain, made it
unnecessary to promulgate the haill veritie,--I say then, as I am a
true man, when I saw that puir creature come through the ha', at that
ordinary, whilk is accurst (Heaven forgive me for swearing!) of God
and man, with his teeth set, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet
drawn over his brows like a desperate man, Goblin said to me, 'There
goes a dunghill chicken, that your master has plucked clean enough; it
will be long ere his lordship ruffle a feather with a cock of the
game.' And so, my lord, to speak it out, the lackeys, and the
gallants, and more especially your sworn brother, Lord Dalgarno, call
you the sparrow-hawk.--I had some thought to have cracked Lutin's pate
for the speech, but, after a', the controversy was not worth it.
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