"
"O Geordie!" exclaimed the king, "these are auld-warld frailties, of
whilk we dare not pronounce even ourselves absolutely free. But the
warld grows worse from day to day, Geordie. The juveniles of this age
may weel say with the poet--
'Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores--'
This Dalgarno does not drink so much, or swear so much, as his father;
but he wenches, Geordie, and he breaks his word and oath baith. As to
what you say of the leddy, and the ministers, we are a' fallible
creatures, Geordie, priests and kings, as weel as others; and wha kens
but what that may account for the difference between this Dalgarno and
his father? The earl is the vera soul of honour, and cares nae mair
for warld's gear than a noble hound for the quest of a foulmart; but
as for his son, he was like to brazen us a' out--ourselves, Steenie,
Baby Charles, and our council--till he heard of the tocher, and then,
by my kingly crown, he lap like a cock at a grossart! These are
discrepancies betwixt parent and son not to be accounted for
naturally, according to Baptista Porta, Michael Scott _de secretis_,
and others.--Ah, Jingling Geordie, if your clouting the caldron, and
jingling on pots, pans, and veshels of all manner of metal, hadna
jingled a' your grammar out of your head, I could have touched on that
matter to you at mair length."
Heriot was too plain-spoken to express much concern for the loss of
his grammar learning on this occasion; but after modestly hinting that
he had seen many men who could not fill their father's bonnet, though
no one had been suspected of wearing their father's nightcap, he
inquired "whether Lord Dalgarno had consented to do the Lady Hermione
justice.
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