Part 8 (1/2)
On going into the street, I met several persons running to the scene of action, and, among others, Mrs Beaufort, with a gallant of her own, and both of them no in their sober senses. It's no for me to say who he was; but a.s.suredly, had the woman no been doited with drink, she never would have seen any likeness between him and me, for he was more than twenty years my junior. However, onward we all ran to Mrs Fenton's house, where the riot, like a raging caldron boiling o'er, had overflowed into the street.
The moment I reached the door, I ran forward with my stick raised, but not with any design of striking man, woman, or child, when a ramplor devil, the young laird of Swinton, who was one of the most outstrapolous rakes about the town, wrenched it out of my grip, and would have, I dare say, made no scruple of doing me some dreadful bodily harm, when suddenly I found myself pulled out of the crowd by a powerful-handed woman, who cried, ”Come, my love; love, come:” and who was this but that scarlet strumpet, Mrs Beaufort, who having lost her gallant in the crowd, and being, as I think, blind fou, had taken me for him, insisting before all present that I was her dear friend, and that she would die for me--with other siclike fantastical and randy ranting, which no queen in a tragedy could by any possibility surpa.s.s. At first I was confounded and overtaken, and could not speak; and the worst of all was, that, in a moment, the mob seemed to forget their quarrel, and to turn in derision on me. What might have ensued it would not be easy to say; but just at this very critical juncture, and while the drunken latheron was casting herself into antic shapes of distress, and flouris.h.i.+ng with her hands and arms to the heavens at my imputed cruelty, two of the town-officers came up, which gave me courage to act a decisive part; so I gave over to them Mrs Beaufort, with all her airs, and, going myself to the guardhouse, brought a file of soldiers, and so quelled the riot. But from that night I thought it prudent to eschew every allusion to Mrs Fenton, and tacitly to forgive even Swinton for the treatment I had received from him, by seeming as if I had not noticed him, although I had singled him out by name.
Mrs Pawkie, on hearing what I had suffered from Mrs Beaufort, was very zealous that I should punish her to the utmost rigour of the law, even to drumming her out of the town; but forbearance was my best policy, so I only persuaded my colleagues to order the players to decamp, and to give the Tappit-hen notice, that it would be expedient for the future sale of her pies and porter, at untimeous hours, and that she should flit her howff from our town. Indeed, what pleasure would it have been to me to have dealt unmercifully, either towards the one or the other? for surely the gentle way of keeping up a proper respect for magistrates, and others in authority, should ever be preferred; especially, as in cases like this, where there had been no premeditated wrong. And I say this with the greater sincerity; for in my secret conscience, when I think of the affair at this distance of time, I am p.r.i.c.ked not a little in reflecting how I had previously crowed and triumphed over poor Mr Hickery, in the matter of his mortification at the time of Miss Peggy Dainty's false step.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII--THE DUEL
Heretofore all my magisterial undertakings and concerns had thriven in a very satisfactory manner. I was, to be sure, now and then, as I have narrated, subjected to opposition, and squibs, and a jeer; and envious and spiteful persons were not wanting in the world to call in question my intents and motives, representing my best endeavours for the public good as but a right-handed method to secure my own interests. It would be a vain thing of me to deny, that, at the beginning of my career, I was misled by the wily examples of the past times, who thought that, in taking on them to serve the community, they had a privilege to see that they were full-handed for what benefit they might do the public; but as I gathered experience, and saw the rising of the sharp-sighted spirit that is now abroad among the affairs of men, I clearly discerned that it would be more for the advantage of me and mine to act with a conformity thereto, than to seek, by any similar wiles or devices, an immediate and sicker advantage. I may therefore say, without a boast, that the two or three years before my third provostry were as renowned and comfortable to myself, upon the whole, as any reasonable man could look for. We cannot, however, expect a full cup and measure of the sweets of life, without some adulteration of the sour and bitter; and it was my lot and fate to prove an experience of this truth, in a sudden and unaccountable falling off from all moral decorum in a person of my brother's only son, Richard, a lad that was a promise of great ability in his youth.
He was just between the tyning and the winning, as the saying is, when the playactors, before spoken off, came to the town, being then in his eighteenth year. Naturally of a light-hearted and funny disposition, and possessing a jocose turn for mimickry, he was a great favourite among his companions, and getting in with the players, it seems drew up with that little-worth, demure daffodel, Miss Scarborough, through the instrumentality of whose condisciples and the randy Mrs Beaufort, that riot at Widow Fenton's began, which ended in expurgating the town of the whole gang, bag and baggage. Some there were, I shall here mention, who said that the expulsion of the players was owing to what I had heard anent the intromission of my nephew; but, in verity, I had not the least s.p.u.n.k or spark of suspicion of what was going on between him and the miss, till one night, some time after, Richard and the young laird of Swinton, with others of their comrades, forgathered, and came to high words on the subject, the two being rivals, or rather, as was said, equally in esteem and favour with the lady.
Young Swinton was, to say the truth of him, a fine bold rattling lad, warm in the temper, and ready with the hand, and no man's foe so much as his own; for he was a spoiled bairn, through the partiality of old Lady Bodikins, his grandmother, who lived in the turreted house at the town- end, by whose indulgence he grew to be of a dressy and rakish inclination, and, like most youngsters of the kind, was vain of his shames, the which cost Mr Pittle's session no little trouble. But--not to dwell on his faults--my nephew and he quarrelled, and nothing less would serve them than to fight a duel, which they did with pistols next morning; and Richard received from the laird's first shot a bullet in the left arm, that disabled him in that member for life. He was left for dead on the green where they fought--Swinton and the two seconds making, as was supposed, their escape.
When Richard was found faint and bleeding by Tammy Tout, the town-herd, as he drove out the cows in the morning, the hobleshow is not to be described; and my brother came to me, and insisted that I should give him a warrant to apprehend all concerned. I was grieved for my brother, and very much distressed to think of what had happened to blithe d.i.c.ky, as I was wont to call my nephew when he was a laddie, and I would fain have gratified the spirit of revenge in myself; but I brought to mind his roving and wanton pranks, and I counselled his father first to abide the upshot of the wound, representing to him, in the best manner I could, that it was but the quarrel of the young men, and that maybe his son was as muckle in fault as Swinton.
My brother was, however, of a hasty temper, and upbraided me with my slackness, on account, as he tauntingly insinuated, of the young laird being one of my best customers, which was a harsh and unrighteous doing; but it was not the severest trial which the accident occasioned to me; for the same night, at a late hour, a line was brought to me by a la.s.sie, requesting I would come to a certain place--and when I went there, who was it from but Swinton and the two other young lads that had been the seconds at the duel.
”Bailie,” said the laird on behalf of himself and friends, ”though you are the uncle of poor d.i.c.k, we have resolved to throw ourselves into your hands, for we have not provided any money to enable us to flee the country; we only hope you will not deal overly harshly with us till his fate is ascertained.”
I was greatly disconcerted, and wist not what to say; for knowing the rigour of our Scottish laws against duelling, I was wae to see three brave youths, not yet come to years of discretion, standing in the peril and jeopardy of an ignominious end, and that, too, for an injury done to my own kin; and then I thought of my nephew and of my brother, that, maybe, would soon be in sorrow for the loss of his only son. In short, I was tried almost beyond my humanity. The three poor lads, seeing me hesitate, were much moved, and one of them (Sandy Blackie) said, ”I told you how it would be; it was even-down madness to throw ourselves into the lion's mouth.” To this Swinton replied, ”Mr Pawkie, we have cast ourselves on your mercy as a gentleman.”
What could I say to this, but that I hoped they would find me one; and without speaking any more at that time--for indeed I could not, my heart beat so fast--I bade them follow me, and taking them round by the back road to my garden yett, I let them in, and conveyed them into a warehouse where I kept my bales and boxes. Then slipping into the house, I took out of the pantry a basket of bread and a cold leg of mutton, which, when Mrs Pawkie and the servant la.s.sies missed in the morning, they could not divine what had become of; and giving the same to them, with a bottle of wine--for they were very hungry, having tasted nothing all day--I went round to my brother's to see at the latest how Richard was. But such a stang as I got on entering the house, when I heard his mother wailing that he was dead, he having fainted away in getting the bullet extracted; and when I saw his father coming out of the room like a demented man, and heard again his upbraiding of me for having refused a warrant to apprehend the murderers--I was so stunned with the shock, and with the thought of the poor young lads in my mercy, that I could with difficulty support myself along the pa.s.sage into a room where there was a chair, into which I fell rather than threw myself. I had not, however, been long seated, when a joyful cry announced that Richard was recovering, and presently he was in a manner free from pain; and the doctor a.s.sured me the wound was probably not mortal. I did not, however, linger long on hearing this; but hastening home, I took what money I had in my scrutoire, and going to the malefactors, said, ”Lads, take thir twa three pounds, and quit the town as fast as ye can, for Richard is my nephew, and blood, ye ken, is thicker than water, and I may be tempted to give you up.”
They started on their legs, and shaking me in a warm manner by both the hands, they hurried away without speaking, nor could I say more, as I opened the back yett to let them out, than bid them take tent of themselves.
Mrs Pawkie was in a great consternation at my late absence, and when I went home she thought I was ill, I was so pale and flurried, and she wanted to send for the doctor, but I told her that when I was calmed, I would be better; however, I got no sleep that night. In the morning I went to see Richard, whom I found in a composed and rational state: he confessed to his father that he was as muckle to blame as Swinton, and begged and entreated us, if he should die, not to take any steps against the fugitives: my brother, however, was loth to make rash promises, and it was not till his son was out of danger that I had any ease of mind for the part I had played. But when Richard was afterwards well enough to go about, and the duellers had come out of their hidings, they told him what I had done, by which the whole affair came to the public, and I got great fame thereby, none being more proud to speak of it than poor d.i.c.k himself, who, from that time, became the bosom friend of Swinton; in so much that, when he was out of his time as a writer, and had gone through his courses at Edinburgh, the laird made him his man of business, and, in a manner, gave him a nest egg.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII--AN INTERLOCUTOR
Upon a consideration of many things, it appears to me very strange, that almost the whole tot of our improvements became, in a manner, the parents of new plagues and troubles to the magistrates. It might reasonably have been thought that the lamps in the streets would have been a terror to evil-doers, and the plainstone side-pavements paths of pleasantness to them that do well; but, so far from this being the case, the very reverse was the consequence. The servant la.s.ses went freely out (on their errands) at night, and at late hours, for their mistresses, without the protection of lanterns, by which they were enabled to gallant in a way that never could have before happened: for lanterns are kenspeckle commodities, and of course a check on every kind of gavaulling. Thus, out of the lamps sprung no little irregularity in the conduct of servants, and much bitterness of spirit on that account to mistresses, especially to those who were of a particular turn, and who did not choose that their maidens should spend their hours a-field, when they could be profitably employed at home.
Of the plagues that were from the plainstones, I have given an exemplary specimen in the plea between old perjink Miss Peggy Dainty, and the widow Fenton, that was commonly called the Tappit-hen. For the present, I shall therefore confine myself in this _nota bena_ to an accident that happened to Mrs Girdwood, the deacon of the coopers' wife--a most managing, industrious, and indefatigable woman, that allowed no gra.s.s to grow in her path.
Mrs Girdwood had fee'd one Jeanie Tirlet, and soon after she came home, the mistress had her big summer was.h.i.+ng at the public was.h.i.+ng-house on the green--all the best of her sheets and napery--both what had been used in the course of the winter, and what was only washed to keep clear in the colour, were in the boyne. It was one of the greatest doings of the kind that the mistress had in the whole course of the year, and the value of things intrusted to Jeanie's care was not to be told, at least so said Mrs Girdwood herself.
Jeanie and Marion Sapples, the washerwoman, with a pickle tea and sugar tied in the corners of a napkin, and two measured gla.s.ses of whisky in an old doctor's bottle, had been sent with the foul clothes the night before to the was.h.i.+ng-house, and by break of day they were up and at their work; nothing particular, as Marion said, was observed about Jeanie till after they had taken their breakfast, when, in spreading out the clothes on the green, some of the ne'er-do-weel young clerks of the town were seen gaffawing and haverelling with Jeanie, the consequence of which was, that all the rest of the day she was light-headed; indeed, as Mrs Girdwood told me herself, when Jeanie came in from the green for Marion's dinner, she couldna help remarking to her goodman, that there was something fey about the la.s.sie, or, to use her own words, there was a storm in her tail, light where it might. But little did she think it was to bring the dule it did to her.
Jeanie having gotten the pig with the wonted allowance of broth and beef in it for Marion, returned to the green, and while Marion was eating the same, she disappeared. Once away, aye away; hilt or hair of Jeanie was not seen that night. Honest Marion Sapples worked like a Trojan to the gloaming, but the light latheron never came back; at last, seeing no other help for it, she got one of the other women at the was.h.i.+ng-house to go to Mrs Girdwood and to let her know what had happened, and how the best part of the was.h.i.+ng would, unless help was sent, be obliged to lie out all night.
The deacon's wife well knew the great stake she had on that occasion in the boyne, and was for a season demented with the thought; but at last summoning her three daughters, and borrowing our la.s.s, and Mr Smeddum the tobacconist's niece, she went to the green, and got everything safely housed, yet still Jeanie Tirlet never made her appearance.
Mrs Girdwood and her daughters having returned home, in a most uneasy state of mind on the la.s.sie's account, the deacon himself came over to me, to consult what he ought to do as the head of a family. But I advised him to wait till Jeanie cast up, which was the next morning.