Chapter 27

This way lie safety and a sure retreat;
Yonder lie danger, shame, and punishment
Most welcome danger then--Nay, let me say,
Though spoke with swelling heart--welcome e'en shame
And welcome punishment--for, call me guilty,
I do but pay the tax that's due to justice;
And call me guiltless, then that punishment
Is shame to those alone who do inflict it,
_The Tribunal_.

We left Lord Glenvarloch, to whose fortunes our story chiefly attaches
itself, gliding swiftly down the Thames. He was not, as the reader may
have observed, very affable in his disposition, or apt to enter into
conversation with those into whose company he was casually thrown.
This was, indeed, an error in his conduct, arising less from pride,
though of that feeling we do not pretend to exculpate him, than from a
sort of bashful reluctance to mix in the conversation of those with
whom he was not familiar. It is a fault only to be cured by experience
and knowledge of the world, which soon teaches every sensible and
acute person the important lesson, that amusement, and, what is of
more consequence, that information and increase of knowledge, are to
be derived from the conversation of every individual whatever, with
whom he is thrown into a natural train of communication. For
ourselves, we can assure the reader--and perhaps if we have ever been
able to afford him amusement, it is owing in a great degree to this
cause--that we never found ourselves in company with the stupidest of
all possible companions in a post-chaise, or with the most arrant
cumber-corner that ever occupied a place in the mail-coach, without
finding, that, in the course of our conversation with him, we had some
ideas suggested to us, either grave orgay, or some information
communicated in the course of our journey, which we should have
regretted not to have learned, and which we should be sorry to have
immediately forgotten. But Nigel was somewhat immured within the
Bastile of his rank, as some philosopher (Tom Paine, we think) has
happily enough expressed that sort of shyness which men of dignified
situations are apt to be beset with, rather from not exactly knowing
how far, or with whom, they ought to be familiar, than from any real
touch of aristocratic pride. Besides, the immediate pressure of our
adventurer's own affairs was such as exclusively to engross his
attention.

He sat, therefore, wrapt in his cloak, in the stern of the boat, with
his mind entirely bent upon the probable issue of the interview with
his Sovereign, which it was his purpose to seek; for which abstraction
of mind he may be fully justified, although perhaps, by questioning
the watermen who were transporting him down the river, he might have
discovered matters of