The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. 95
have, of his own, may perchance be corrected by the society in which he
moves.-See, here he comes."
Lord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley to
the bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that Nigel had
full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was dressed pointdevice, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of the time, which
suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty, with a noble form
and fine countenance, in which last could easily be traced the manly features of his father, but softened by a more habitual air of assiduous courtesy
than the stubborn old Earl had ever condescended to assume towards the
world in general. In other respects, his address was gallant, free, and unencumbered either by pride or ceremony-far remote certainly from the charge
either of haughty coldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father
had justly freed him from the marked faults which he ascribed to the manners of the Prince and his favourite Buckingham.
While the old Earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch
to his son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked
the countenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aught
of that secret dislike which the King had, in one of his broken expostulatioas, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clashing of interests betwixt his
new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothing of this was visible; on
the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his new acquaintance with the open
frankness and courtesy which makes conquest at once, when addressed to
the feelings of an ingenuous young man.
It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equally
ready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months,
and while a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained
by circumstances from the conversation of his equals. W~hen, on his
faLther's sudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had found
himself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with the details of the law,
all of which threatened to end in the alienation of the patrimony which
should support his hereditary rank. His tearm of sincere mourning, joined
to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart under unexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty attending the issue of his
affairs, had induced the young Lord of Glenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reserved manner. Htow he had passed his time
in London, the reader is acquainted with. But this melancholy and secluded
course of life was neither agreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was
genial and sociable. Hie hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the approaches which a young man of his own age and rank made towards him;
and, when he had exchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and
signals by which, as surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognize a mutual wish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two
noblemen had been acquaintedc for some time.
Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of Lord Huntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards a man
dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed, considering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, he kept his
body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that he came in
sight of the company to which he was about to be presented.
"Who is this, you cuckoldy knave," said the old Lord, who had retained
the keen appetite and impatience of a Scottish Baron even during a long
alienation from his native country; "and why does John Cook, with a
murrain to him, keep back dinner?"
" I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion," said
George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desire to see. — Look up,
man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of bearing tlhy
noddle charged against us thus like a-battering-ram."