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.

TIE POT UNES OF NIGiEL 229
Sufferer mingled with others which will continue in remembrance until
English history shall perish. There were the pious effusions of the devout
Catholic, poured forth on the eve of his sealing his profession at Tyburn,
mingled with those of the firm protestant, about to feed the fires of Smithfield. There the slender hand of the unfortunate Jane Gray, whose fate
was to draw tears from future generations, might be contrasted with the
bolder touch which impressed deep on the walls the Bear and the Ragged
Staff, the proud emblem of the proud Dudleys. It was like the roll of the
prophet, a record of lamentation and mourning, and yet not unmixed with
brief interjections of resignation, and sentences expressive of the firmest
resolution.*
In the sad task of examining the miseries of his predecessors in captivity,
Lord Glenvarloch was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door of his
prison-room. It was the warder, who came to inform him, that, by order
of the Lieutenant of the Tower, his lordship was to have the society and
attendance of a fellow-prisoner in his place of confinement. Nigel replied
hastily, that he wished no attendance, and would rather be left alone; but
the warder gave him to understand, with a kind of grumbling civility, that
the Lieutenant was the best judge how his prisoners should be accommodated,
and that he would have no trouble with the boy, who was such a slip of a
thing as was scarce worth turning a key upon. —" There, Giles," he said,
"bring the child in."
Another warder put the " lad before him" into the room, and, both withdrawing, bolt crashed and chain clanged, as they replaced these ponderous
obstacles to freedom. The boy was clad in a gray suit of the finest cloth,
laid down with silver lace, with a buff-coloured cloak of the same pattern.
HI-s cap, which was a Montero of black velvet, was pulled over his brows,
and, with the profusion of his long ringlets, almost concealed his face. He
stood on the very spot where the warder had quitted his collar, about two
steps from the door of the apartment, his eyes fixed on the ground, and
every joint trembling with confusion and terror. Nigel could well have
dispensed with his society, but it was not in his nature to behold distress,
whether of body or mind, without endeavouring to relieve it.
"Cheer up," he said, "my pretty lad. We are to be companions, it
seems, for a little time-at least I trust your confinement will be short, since
you are too young-to have done aught to deserve long restraint. Come,
come-do not be discouraged. Your hand is cold and trembles! the air is
warm too-but it may be the damp of this darksome room. Place you by
the fire. - What! weeping-ripe, my little man? I pray you, do not be a
child. You have no beard yet, to be dishonoured by your tears, but yet
you should not cry like a girl. Think you are only shut up for playing
truant, and you can pass a day without weeping, surely."
The boy suffered himself to be led and seated by the fire, but, after retaining for a long time the very posture which he assumed in sitting down,
he suddenly changed it in order to wring his hands with an air of the bitterest distress, and then, spreading them before his face, wept so plentifully,
that the tears found their way in floods through his slender fingers.
Nigel was in some degree rendered insensible to his own situation, by
his feelings for the intense agony by which so young and beautiful a creature seemed to be utterly overwhelmed; and, sitting down close beside the
boy, he applied the most soothing terms which occurred to endeavour to
alleviate his distress; and with an action which the difference of their age
rendered natural, drew his hand kindly along the long hair of the disconsolate child. The lad appeared so shy as even to shrink from this slight
These memorials of illustrious criminals, or of innocent persons who had the fate of such, are still preserved. though at one time, in the course of repairing the roornms they were in some danger of being whitewashed. They are preserved at present with becoming respect, and have most of them been engraved.-Sd
BAYLEY'S History and Antiquities of the Tower of Undon.
uJ