Part 21 (1/2)
_Christie._ ”'A pund o' that same mairchant's flesh is thine! the coort awards it, and the law does give it.'”
_A young Fishwife._ ”There, I thoucht sae; he's gaun to cut him, he's gaun to cut him; I'll no can bide.” _(Exibat.)_
_Christie._ ”There's a fulish goloshen. 'Have by a doctor to stop the blood.'--'I see nae doctor in the boend,' says the Jew body.”
_Flucker._ ”Bait your hook wi' a boend, and ye shall catch yon carle's saul, Satin, my lad.”
_Christie (with dismal pathos)._ ”Oh, Flucker, dinna speak evil o'
deegneties--that's maybe fis.h.i.+ng for yoursel' the noo!---'An' ye shall cut the flesh frae off his breest.'--'A sentence,' says Shylock, 'come, prepare.'”
Christie made a dash _en Shylock,_ and the company trembled.
_Christie._ ”'Bide a wee,' says the judge, 'this boend gies ye na a drap o' bluid; the words expressly are, a pund o' fles.h.!.+'”
_(A Dramatic Pause.)_
_Jean Carnie (drawing her breath)._ ”That's into your mutton, Shylock”
_Christie (with dismal pathos)._ ”Oh, Jean! yon's an awfu' voolgar expra.s.sion to come fra' a woman's mooth.”
”Could ye no hae said, 'intil his bacon'?” said Lizzie Johnstone, confirming the remonstrance.
_Christie._ ”'Then tak your boend, an' your pund o' flesh, but in cutting o' 't, if thou dost shed one drop of Christian bluid, thou diest!'”
_Jean Carnie._ ”Hech!”
_Christie._ ”'Thy goods are by the laws Veneece con-fis-cate, confiscate!'”
Then, like an artful narrator, she began to wind up the story more rapidly.
”Sae Shylock got to be no sae saucy. 'Pay the boend thrice,' says he, 'and let the puir deevil go.'--'Here it's,' says Ba.s.sanio.--Na! the young judge wadna let him.--'He has refused it in open coort; no a bawbee for Shylock but just the forfeiture; an' he daur na tak it.'--'I'm awa',' says he. 'The deivil tak ye a'.'--Na! he wasna to win clear sae; ance they'd gotten the Jew on the hep, they worried him, like good Christians, that's a fact. The judge fand a law that fitted him, for conspiring against the life of a citizen; an' he behooved to give up hoose an' lands, and be a Christian; yon was a soor drap--he tarned no weel, puir auld villain, an' scairt.i.t; an' the lawyers sent ane o' their weary parchments till his hoose, and the puir auld heathen signed awa'
his siller, an' Abraham, an' Isaac, an' Jacob, on the heed o' 't. I pity him, an auld, auld man; and his dochter had rin off wi' a Christian lad--they ca' her Jessica, and didn't she steal his very diamond ring that his ain la.s.s gied him when he was young, an' maybe no sae hard-hairted?”
_Jean Carnie._ ”Oh, the jaud! suppose he was a Jew, it was na her business to clean him oot.”
_A young Fishwife._ ”Aweel, it was only a Jew body, that's my comfort.”
_Christie._ ”Ye speak as a Jew was na a man; has not a Jew eyes, if ye please?”
_Lizzy Johnstone._ ”Ay, has he!--and the awfuest lang neb atween 'em.”
_Christie._ ”Has not a Jew affections, paa.s.sions, organs?”
_Jean._ ”Na! Christie; thir lads comes fr' Italy!”
_Christie._ ”If you p.r.i.c.k him, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does na he lauch?”
_A young Fishwife (pertly)._ ”I never kittlet a Jew, for my pairt--sae I'll no can tell ye.”
_Christie._ ”If you poison him, does he not die? and if you wrang him”