"
"I should feel the shame of having deserved such a punishment,"
answered Nigel, "more than the pain of undergoing it."
"Doubtless, my lord, the having, as you say, deserved it, must be an
excruciation to your own mind," replied his tormentor; "a kind of
mental and metaphysical hanging, drawing, and quartering, which may be
in some measure equipollent with the external application of hemp,
iron, fire, and the like, to the outer man."
"I say, Sir Mungo," repeated Nigel, "and beg you to understand my
words, that I am unconscious of any error, save that of having arms on
my person when I chanced to approach that of my Sovereign."
"Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing," said Sir Mungo. "We
have an old proverb,--Confess, and--so forth. And indeed, as to the
weapons, his Majesty has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever,
and more especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that
matter. [Footnote: Wilson informs us that when Colonel Grey, a
Scotsman who affected the buff dress even in the time of peace,
appeared in that military garb at Court, the king, seeing him with a
case of pistols at his girdle, which he never greatly liked, told him,
merrily, "he was now so fortified, that, if he were but well
victualled, he would be impregnable."--WILSON'S _Life and Reign of
James VI._, _apud_ KENNET'S _History of England_, vol. ii. p.
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