The Fortunes of Nigel. Вальтер Скотт

than I at the good old game of What is my thought like? Now I’ll warrant that little head of yours is running on a new head-tire, a foot higher than those our city dames wear – or you are all for a trip to Islington or Ware, and your father is cross and will not consent – or – ”

      “Or you are an old fool, Dame Suddlechop,” said Margaret, peevishly, “and must needs trouble yourself about matters you know nothing of.”

      “Fool as much as you will, mistress,” said Dame Ursula, offended in her turn, “but not so very many years older than yourself, mistress.”

      “Oh! we are angry, are we?” said the beauty; “and pray, Madam Ursula, how come you, that are not so many years older than me, to talk about such nonsense to me, who am so many years younger, and who yet have too much sense to care about head-gears and Islington?”

      “Well, well, young mistress,” said the sage counsellor, rising, “I perceive I can be of no use here; and methinks, since you know your own matters so much better than other people do, you might dispense with disturbing folks at midnight to ask their advice.”

      “Why, now you are angry, mother,” said Margaret, detaining her; “this comes of your coming out at eventide without eating your supper – I never heard you utter a cross word after you had finished your little morsel. – Here, Janet, a trencher and salt for Dame Ursula; – and what have you in that porringer, dame? – Filthy clammy ale, as I would live – Let Janet fling it out of the window, or keep it for my father’s morning draught; and she shall bring you the pottle of sack that was set ready for him – good man, he will never find out the difference, for ale will wash down his dusty calculations quite as well as wine.”

      “Truly, sweetheart, I am of your opinion,” said Dame Ursula, whose temporary displeasure vanished at once before these preparations for good cheer; and so, settling herself on the great easy-chair, with a three-legged table before her, she began to dispatch, with good appetite, the little delicate dish which she had prepared for herself. She did not, however, fail in the duties of civility, and earnestly, but in vain, pressed Mistress Margaret to partake her dainties. The damsel declined the invitation.

      “At least pledge me in a glass of sack,” said Dame Ursula; “I have heard my grandame say, that before the gospellers came in, the old Catholic father confessors and their penitents always had a cup of sack together before confession; and you are my penitent.”

      “I shall drink no sack, I am sure,” said Margaret; “and I told you before, that if you cannot find out what ails me, I shall never have the heart to tell it.”

      So saying, she turned away from Dame Ursula once more, and resumed her musing posture, with her hand on her elbow, and her back, at least one shoulder, turned towards her confidant.

      “Nay, then,” said Dame Ursula, “I must exert my skill in good earnest. – You must give me this pretty hand, and I will tell you by palmistry, as well as any gipsy of them all, what foot it is you halt upon.”

      “As if I halted on any foot at all,” said Margaret, something scornfully, but yielding her left hand to Ursula, and continuing at the same time her averted position.

      “I see brave lines here,” said Ursula, “and not ill to read neither – pleasure and wealth, and merry nights and late mornings to my Beauty, and such an equipage as shall shake Whitehall. O, have I touched you there? – and smile you now, my pretty one? – for why should not he be Lord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, as others have done before him?”

      “Lord Mayor? pshaw!” replied Margaret.

      “And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or perhaps you pshaw at my prophecy; but there is a cross in every one’s line of life as well as in yours, darling. And what though I see a ‘prentice’s flat cap in this pretty palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath not its match in the Ward of Farringdon-Without.”

      “Whom do you mean, dame?” said Margaret coldly.

      “Whom should I mean,” said Dame Ursula, “but the prince of ‘prentices, and king of good company, Jenkin Vincent?”

      “Out, woman – Jenkin Vincent? – a clown – a Cockney!” exclaimed the indignant damsel.