Chapter 6 - Page 2

little more attention,
as an original character of the time in which he flourished.

That good knight knocked at Master Heriot's door just as the clock
began to strike twelve, and was seated in his chair ere the last
stroke had chimed. This gave the knight an excellent opportunity of
making sarcastic observations on all who came later than himself, not
to mention a few rubs at the expense of those who had been so
superfluous as to appear earlier.

Having little or no property save his bare designation, Sir Mungo had
been early attached to Court in the capacity of whipping-boy, as the
office was then called, to King James the Sixth, and, with his
Majesty, trained to all polite learning by his celebrated preceptor,
George Buchanan. The office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate
occupant to undergo all the corporeal punishment which the Lord's
Anointed, whose proper person was of course sacred, might chance to
incur, in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody.
Under the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve
of the vicarious mode of punishment, James bore the penance of his own
faults, and Mungo Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James's other
pedagogue, Master Patrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and
appalled the very soul of the youthful king by the floggings which he
bestowed on the whipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably
performed. And be it told to Sir Mungo's praise, that there were
points about him in the highest respect suited to his official
situation. He had even in youth a naturally irregular and grotesque
set of features, which, when distorted by fear, pain, and anger,
looked like one of the whimsical faces which present themselves in a
Gothic cornice. His voice also was high-pitched and querulous, so
that, when smarting under Master Peter Young's unsparing inflictions,
the expression of his grotesque physiognomy, and the superhuman yells
which he uttered, were well suited to produce all the effects on the
Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be produced by
seeing another and an innocent individual suffering for his delict.

Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for such he became, thus got an early footing
at Court, which another would have improved and maintained. But, when
he grew too big to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering
himself acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a
malicious wit, and an envy of others more prosperous than the
possessor of such amiable qualities, have not, indeed, always been
found obstacles to a courtier's rise; but then they must be
amalgamated with a degree of selfish cunning and prudence, of which
Sir Mungo had no share. His satire ran riot, his envy could not