Chapter 3

_Bobadil._ I pray you, possess no gallant of your acquaintance with a
knowledge of my lodging.
_Master Matthew._ Who, I, sir?--Lord, sir!
_Ben Jonson._

The next morning found Nigel Olifaunt, the young Lord of Glenvarloch,
seated, sad and solitary, in his little apartment, in the mansion of
John Christie, the ship-chandler; which that honest tradesman, in
gratitude perhaps to the profession from which he derived his chief
support, appeared to have constructed as nearly as possible upon the
plan of a ship's cabin.

It was situated near to Paul's Wharf, at the end of one of those
intricate and narrow lanes, which, until that part of the city was
swept away by the Great Fire in 1666, constituted an extraordinary
labyrinth of small, dark, damp, and unwholesome streets and alleys, in
one corner or other of which the plague was then as surely found
lurking, as in the obscure corners of Constantinople in our own time.
But John Christie's house looked out upon the river, and had the
advantage, therefore, of free air, impregnated, however, with the
odoriferous fumes of the articles in which the ship-chandler dealt,
with the odour of pitch, and the natural scent of the ooze and sludge
left by the reflux of the tide.

Upon the whole, except that his dwelling did not float with the flood-
tide, and become stranded with the ebb, the young lord was nearly as
comfortably accommodated as he was while on board the little trading
brig from the long town of Kirkaldy, in Fife, by which he had come a
passenger to London. He received, however, every attention which could
be paid him by his honest landlord, John Christie; for Richie
Moniplies had not thought it necessary to preserve his master's
_incognito_ so completely, but that the honest ship-chandler could
form a guess that his guest's quality was superior to his appearance.

As for Dame Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laughter-loving dame,
with black eyes, a tight well-laced bodice, a green apron, and a red
petticoat edged with a slight silver lace, and judiciously shortened
so as to show that a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon
her well-burnished shoe,--she, of course, felt interest in a young
man, who, besides being very handsome, good-humoured, and easily
satisfied with the accommodations her house afforded, was evidently of
a rank, as well as manners, highly superior to the skippers (or
Captains, as they called themselves) of merchant vessels, who were the
usual tenants of the apartments which she let to hire; and at whose
departure she was sure to find her well-scrubbed floor soiled with the
relics of tobacco, (which, spite of King James's Counterblast, was
then forcing itself into use,) and her best curtains impregnated with