"Well--I will, with your permission, go to the
poor lad Glenvarloch, and bestow some comfort on him."
The Lieutenant seemed to look up, and pause for a moment as if in
doubt.
"The lad will want a pleasant companion, who can tell him the nature
of the punishment which he is to suffer, and other matters of
concernment. I will not leave him until I show him how absolutely he
hath ruined himself from feather to spur, how deplorable is his
present state, and how small his chance of mending it."
"Well, Sir Mungo," replied the Lieutenant, "if you really think all
this likely to be very consolatory to the party concerned, I will send
a warder to conduct you."
"And I," said George Heriot, "will humbly pray of Lady Mansel, that
she will lend some of her handmaiden's apparel to this giddy-brained
girl; for I shall forfeit my reputation if I walk up Tower Hill with
her in that mad guise--and yet the silly lassie looks not so ill in it
neither."
"I will send my coach with you instantly," said the obliging lady.
"Faith, madam, and if you will honour us by such courtesy, I will
gladly accept it at your hands," said the citizen, "for business
presses hard on me, and the forenoon is already lost, to little
purpose."
The coach being ordered accordingly, transported the worthy citizen
and his charge to his mansion in Lombard Street. There he found his
presence was anxiously expected by the Lady Hermione, who had just
received an order to be in readiness to attend upon the Royal Privy
Council in the course of an hour; and upon whom, in her inexperience
of business, and long retirement from society and the world, the
intimation had made as deep an impression as if it had not been the
necessary consequence of the petition which she had presented to the
king by Monna Paula.
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