“Well, ye see, Mr Pawkie, I gae’d up to London in a trader from Leith; and by the use of a gude Scotch tongue, the whilk was the main substance o’ a’ the bairns’ part o’ gear that I inherited from my parents, I found out the nabob’s dwelling, in the west end o’ the town of London; and finding out the nabob’s dwelling, I went and rappit at the door, which a bardy flunkie opened, and speer’t what I want it, as if I was a thing no fit to be lifted off a midden with a pair of iron tongs. Like master, like man, thought I to myself; and thereupon, taking heart no to be put out, I replied to the whipper-snapper – ‘I’m Bailie M’Lucre o’ Gudetown, and maun hae a word wi’ his honour.’
“The cur lowered his birsses at this, and replied, in a mair ceeveleezed style of language, ‘Master is not at home.’ But I kent what not at home means in the morning at a gentleman’s door in London; so I said, ‘Very weel, as I hae had a long walk, I’ll e’en rest myself and wait till he come;’ and with that, I plumpit down on one of the mahogany chairs in the trance. The lad, seeing that I was na to be jookit, upon this answered me, by saying, he would go and enquire if his master would be at home to me; and the short and the long o’t was, that I got at last an audience o’ my honourable friend.
“‘Well, bailie,’ said he, ‘I’m glad to see you in London,’ and a hantle o’ ither courtly glammer that’s no worth a repetition; and, from less to mair, we proceeded to sift into the matter and end of my coming to ask the help o’ his hand to get me a post in the government. But I soon saw, that wi a’ the phraseology that lay at his tongue end during the election, about his power and will to serve us, his ain turn ser’t, he cared so little for me. Howsever after tarrying some time, and going to him every day, at long and last he got me a tide-waiter’s place at the custom-house; a poor hungry situation, no worth the grassum at a new tack of the warst land in the town’s aught. But minnows are better than nae fish, and a tide-waiter’s place was a step towards a better, if I could have waited. Luckily, however, for me, a flock of fleets and ships frae the East and West Indies came in a’ thegither; and there was sic a stress for tide-waiters, that before I was sworn in and tested, I was sent down to a grand ship in the Malabar trade frae China, loaded with tea and other rich commodities; the captain whereof, a discreet man, took me down to the cabin, and gave me a dram of wine, and, when we were by oursels, he said to me —
“‘Mr M’Lucre, what will you take to shut your eyes for an hour?’
“‘I’ll no take a hundred pounds,’ was my answer.
“‘I’ll make it guineas,’ quoth he.
“Surely, thought I, my eyne maun be worth pearls and diamonds to the East India Company; so I answered and said —
“‘Captain, no to argol-bargol about the matter,’ (for a’ the time, I thought upon how I had not been sworn in;) – ‘what will ye gie me, if I take away my eyne out of the vessel?’
“‘A thousand pounds,’ cried he.
“‘A bargain be’t,’ said I. I think, however, had I stood out I might hae got mair. But it doesna rain thousands of pounds every day; so, to make a long tale short, I got a note of hand on the Bank of England for the sum, and, packing up my ends and my awls, left the ship.
“It was my intent to have come immediately home to Scotland; but the same afternoon, I was summoned by the Board at the Custom-house for deserting my post; and the moment I went before them, they opened upon me like my lord’s pack of hounds, and said they would send me to Newgate. ‘Cry a’ at ance,’ quoth I; ‘but I’ll no gang.’ I then told them how I was na sworn, and under no obligation to serve or obey them mair than pleasured mysel’; which set them a’ again a barking worse than before; whereupon, seeing no likelihood of an end to their stramash, I turned mysel’ round, and, taking the door on my back, left them, and the same night came off on the Fly to Edinburgh. Since syne they have been trying every grip and wile o’ the law to punish me as they threatened; but the laws of England are a great protection to the people against arbitrary power; and the letter that I have got to-day frae the nabob, tells me that the commissioners hae abandoned the plea.”
Such was the account and narration that the bailie gave to me of the particulars o’ his journey to London; and when he was done, I could not but make a moral reflection or two, on the policy of gentlemen putting themselves on the leet to be members of Parliament; it being a clear and plain thing, that as they are sent up to London for the benefit of the people by whom they are chosen, the people should always take care to get some of that benefit in hand paid down, otherwise they run a great risk of seeing their representatives neglecting their special interests, and treating them as entitled to no particular consideration.
CHAPTER VIII – ON THE CHOOSING OF A MINISTER
The next great handling that we had in the council after the general election, was anent the choice of a minister for the parish. The Rev. Dr Swapkirk having had an apoplexy, the magistrates were obligated to get Mr Pittle to be his helper. Whether it was that, by our being used to Mr Pittle, we had ceased to have a right respect for his parts and talents, or that in reality he was but a weak brother, I cannot in conscience take it on me to say; but the certainty is, that when the Doctor departed this life, there was hardly one of the hearers who thought Mr Pittle would ever be their placed minister, and it was as far at first from the unanimous mind of the magistrates, who are the patrons of the parish, as any thing could well be, for he was a man of no smeddum in discourse. In verity, as Mrs Pawkie, my wife, said, his sermons in the warm summer afternoons were just a perfect hushabaa, that no mortal could hearken to without sleeping. Moreover, he had a sorning way with him, that the genteeler sort could na abide, for he was for ever going from house to house about tea-time, to save his ain canister. As for the young ladies, they could na endure him at all, for he had aye the sough and sound of love in his mouth, and a round-about ceremonial of joking concerning the same, that was just a fasherie to them to hear. The commonality, however, were his greatest adversaries; for he was, notwithstanding the spareness of his abilities, a prideful creature, taking no interest in their hamely affairs, and seldom visiting the aged or the sick among them. Shortly, however, before the death of the doctor, Mr Pittle had been very attentive to my wife’s full cousin, Miss Lizy Pinkie, I’ll no say on account of the legacy of seven hundred pounds left her by an uncle that made his money in foreign parts, and died at Portsmouth of the liver complaint, when he was coming home to enjoy himself; and Mrs Pawkie told me, that as soon as Mr Pittle could get a kirk, I needna be surprised if I heard o’ a marriage between him and Miss Lizy.
Had I been a sordid and interested man, this news could never have given me the satisfaction it did, for Miss Lizy was very fond of my bairns, and it was thought that Peter would have been her heir; but so far from being concerned at what I heard, I rejoiced thereat, and resolved in secret thought, whenever a vacancy happened, Dr Swapkirk being then fast wearing away, to exert the best of my ability to get the kirk for Mr Pittle, not, however, unless he was previously married to Miss Lizy; for, to speak out, she was beginning to stand in need of a protector, and both me and Mrs Pawkie had our fears that she might outlive her income, and in her old age become a cess upon us. And it couldna be said that this was any groundless fear; for Miss Lizy, living a lonely maiden life by herself, with only a bit lassie to run her errands, and no being naturally of an active or eydent turn, aften wearied, and to keep up her spirits gaed may be, now and then, oftener to the gardevin than was just necessar, by which, as we thought, she had a tavert look. Howsever, as Mr Pittle had taken a notion of her, and she pleased his fancy, it was far from our hand to misliken one that was sib to us; on the contrary, it was a duty laid on me by the ties of blood and relationship, to do all in my power to further their mutual affection into matrimonial fruition; and what I did towards that end, is the burden of this current chapter.
Dr Swapkirk, in whom the spark of life was long fading, closed his eyes, and it went utterly out, as to this world, on a Saturday night, between the hours of eleven and twelve. We had that afternoon got an inkling that he was drawing near to his end. At the latest, Mrs Pawkie