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 FiORTUNES OF NIGEL. 263
" No, no!" the monarch continued to insinuate, " things are not so bad as
that-Steenie himself ne(ver thought of her being a street-walker even
when he thought the worst of her."
"If it can at all console my Lord of I-untinglen," said the citizen, "I
can assure him of this lady's good birth, and most fair and unspotted fame."
"I am sorry for it," said Lord HIuntinglen —then interrupting himself,
he said -" Heaven forgive me for being ungrateful for such comfort! - but
I am well-nigh sorry she should be, as you represent her, so much better
than the villain deserves. To be condemned to wed beauty, and innocence,
and honest birth-"
"Ay, and wealth, my lord wealth," insinuated the King, " is a better
sentence than his perfidy has deserved."
" It is long," said the imbittered father, " since I saw he was selfish and
hard-hearted; but to be a perjured liar -I never dreaded that such a blAt
would have fallen on my race! I will never look on him again."
" Hoot ay, my lord, hoot ay," said the King; "ye maun tak him to task
roundly. I grant you should speak more in the vein of Demea than Mitio,
vi lenmpe et vica pervulgata patrunms; but as for not seeing him again, and he
your only son, that is altogether out of reason. I tell ye, man, (but I would
not for a boddle that Baby Charles heard me,) that lie might gie the glaiks
to half the lasses of Lonnlun, ere I could find in my heart to speak such
harsh words as you have said of this deil of a Dalgarno of yours."
"May it please your Majesty to permit me to retire," said Lord Hluntinglen, "and dispose of the case according to your own royal sense of justice, for I desire no favour for him."
"Aweel, my lord, so be it; and if your lordship can think," added the
monarch, "of any thing' in our power which might comfort you "
"Your Majesty's gracious sympathy," said Lord Iluntinglen, "has
already comforted me as far as earth can; the rest must be from the King
of Kings."
"'' To Him I commend you, my auld and faithful servant," said James
with emotion, as the Earl withdrew from his presence. The King remained
fixed in thought for some time, and then said to Heriot, "Jingling Geordie,
ye ken all the privy doings of our Court, and have dune so these thirty
years, though, like a wise man, ye hear, and see, and say nothing. Now,
there is a thing I fain wad ken, in the way of philosophical inquiry -Did
you ever hear of the umquhile Lady iluntinglen, the departed Countess of
this noble Earl, ganging a wee bit gleed in her walk through the world; I
mean in the way of slipping a foot, casting a leglin-girth,* or the like, ye
understand me?"
"On my word as an honest man,' said George Heriot, somewhat surprised at the question, " I never heard her wronged by the slightest breath
of suspicion. She was a worthy lady, very circumspect in her walk, and
lived in great concord with her husband, save that the good Countess was
something of a puritan, and kept more company with ministers than was
altogether agreeable to Lord hluntinglen, who is, as your Majesty well
knows, a man of the old rough world, that will drink and swear."
"O Geordie!" exclaimed the King', "these are auld-warlld 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
iNos nequiores'* A leglin-girth is the lowest hoop upon a leglin, or milk-pail. Allan Ramsay applies the phrase in the same
metaphorical sense:'Or bairns can read, they first maun spell,
I learn'd this frae mly mIanmlny,
And cast a leglin-girth rlysell,
Lang ere I married Ta.srmie.'
-hrist's Kirk on the Green.