Chapter 37 - Page 2

thereby remove the only
objection which envy might conceive against the match. In his own
opinion, at least, he was eminently successful; for, when Sir Mungo
Malagrowther one day, in the presence-chamber, took upon him to grieve
bitterly for the bride's lack of pedigree, the monarch cut him short
with, "Ye may save your grief for your ain next occasions, Sir Mungo;
for, by our royal saul, we will uphauld her father, Davy Ramsay, to be
a gentleman of nine descents, whase great gudesire came of the auld
martial stock of the House of Dalwolsey, than whom better men never
did, and better never will, draw sword for king and country. Heard ye
never of Sir William Ramsay of Dalwolsey, man, of whom John Fordoun
saith,--'He was _bellicosissimus, nobilissimus?_'--His castle stands
to witness for itsell, not three miles from Dalkeith, man, and within
a mile of Bannockrig. Davy Ramsay came of that auld and honoured
stock, and I trust he hath not derogated from his ancestors by his
present craft. They all wrought wi' steel, man; only the auld knights
drilled holes wi' their swords in their enemies' corslets, and he saws
nicks in his brass wheels. And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes
to the blind as to slash them out of the head of those that see, and
to show us how to value our time as it passes, as to fling it away in
drinking, brawling, spear-splintering, and such-like unchristian
doings. And you maun understand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but
follows a liberal art, which approacheth almost to the act of creating
a living being, seeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius saith of
the sphere of Archimedes, the Syracusan--

"Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris,
Et vivum certis motibus urget opus.'"

"Your Majesty had best give auld Davy a coat-of-arms, as well as a
pedigree," said Sir Mungo.

"It's done, or ye bade, Sir Mungo," said the king; "and I trust we,
who are the fountain of all earthly honour, are free to spirit a few
drops of it on one so near our person, without offence to the Knight
of Castle Girnigo. We have already spoken with the learned men of the
Herald's College, and we propose to grant him an augmented coat-of-
arms, being his paternal coat, charged with the crown-wheel of a watch
in chief, for a difference; and we purpose to add Time and Eternity,
for supporters, as soon as the Garter King-at-Arms shall be able to
devise how Eternity is to be represented."

"I would make him twice as muckle as Time," [Footnote: Chaucer says,
there is nothing new but what it has been old. The reader has here the
original of an anecdote which has since been fathered on a Scottish
Chief of our own time.] said Archie Armstrong,