Chapter 16 - Page 2

best friend, if not his only one of
decent station."

"I renounce such hollow friendship, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch;
"I disclaim the character which, even to my very face, you labour to
fix upon me, and ere we part I will call you to a reckoning for it."

"My lords both," interrupted Sir Ewes Haldimund, "let me remind you
that the Royal Park is no place to quarrel in."

"I will make my quarrel good," said Nigel, who did not know, or in his
passion might not have recollected, the privileges
of the place, "wherever I find my enemy."

"You shall find quarelling enough," replied Lord Dalgarno, calmly, "so
soon as you assign a sufficient cause for it. Sir Ewes Haldimund, who
knows the Court, will warrant you that I am not backward on such
occasions.--But of what is it that you now complain, after having
experienced nothing save kindness from me and my family?"

"Of your family I complain not," replied Lord Glenvarloch; "they have
done for me all they could, more, far more, than I could have
expected; but you, my lord, have suffered me, while you called me your
friend, to be traduced, where a word of your mouth would have placed
my character in its true colours--and hence the injurious message
which I just now received from the Prince of Wales. To permit the
misrepresentation of a friend, my lord, is to share in the slander."

"You have been misinformed, my Lord Glenvarloch," said Sir Ewes
Haldimund; "I have myself often heard Lord Dalgarno defend your
character, and regret that your exclusive attachment to the pleasures
of a London life prevented your paying your duty regularly to the King
and Prince."

"While he himself," said Lord Glenvarloch, "dissuaded me from
presenting myself at Court."

"I will cut this matter short," said Lord Dalgarno, with haughty
coldness. "You seem to have conceived, my lord, that you and I were
Pylades and Orestes--a second edition of Damon and Pythias--Theseus
and Pirithoiis at the least. You are mistaken, and have given the name
of friendship to what, on my part, was mere good-nature and compassion
for a raw and ignorant countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge
which my father gave me respecting you. Your character, my lord, is of
no one's drawing, but of your own making. I introduced you where, as
in all such places, there was good and indifferent company to be met
with--your habits, or taste, made you prefer the worse. Your holy
horror at the sight of dice and cards degenerated into the cautious
resolution to play only at those times, and with such persons, as
might ensure your