Chapter 26

Give us good voyage, gentle stream--we stun not
Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry;
Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks
With voice of flute and horn--we do but seek
On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom
To glide in silent safety.
_The Double Bridal._

Grey, or rather yellow light, was beginning to twinkle through the
fogs of Whitefriars, when a low tap at the door of the unhappy miser
announced to Lord Glenvarloch the summons of the boatman. He found at
the door the man whom he had seen the night before, with a companion.

"Come, come, master, let us get afloat," said one of them, in a rough
impressive whisper, "time and tide wait for no man." "They shall not
wait for me," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but I have some things to carry
with me."

"Ay, ay--no man will take a pair of oars now, Jack, unless he means to
load the wherry like a six-horse waggon. When they don't want to shift
the whole kitt, they take a sculler, and be d--d to them. Come, come,
where be your rattle-traps?"

One of the men was soon sufficiently loaded, in his own estimation at
least, with Lord Glenvarloch's mail and its accompaniments, with which
burden he began to trudge towards the Temple Stairs. His comrade, who
seemed the principal, began to handle the trunk which contained the
miser's treasure, but pitched it down again in an instant, declaring,
with a great oath, that it was as reasonable to expect a man to carry
Paul's on his back. The daughter of Trapbois, who had by this time
joined them, muffled up in a long dark hood and mantle, exclaimed to
Lord Glenvarloch--"Let them leave it if they will, let them leave it
all; let us but escape from this horrible place."

We have mentioned elsewhere, that Nigel was a very athletic young man,
and, impelled by a strong feeling of compassion and indignation, he
showed his bodily strength singularly on this occasion, by seizing on
the ponderous strong-box, and, by means of the rope he had cast around
it, throwing it on his shoulders, and marching resolutely forward
under a weight, which would have sunk to the earth three young
gallants, at the least, of our degenerate day. The waterman followed
him in amazement, calling out, "Why, master, master, you might as well
gie me t'other end on't!" and anon offered his assistance to support
it in some degree behind, which after the first minute or two Nigel
was fain to accept. His strength was almost exhausted when he reached
the wherry, which was lying at the Temple Stairs according to
appointment; and, when he pitched the trunk into it, the weight sank
the bow of the boat so low in the water as well-nigh to overset it.