Christie. “'Bide a wee,' says the judge, 'this boend gies ye na a drap o' bluid; the words expressly are, a pund o' flesh!'”
(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 exprassion 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 Bassanio.—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' scairtit; 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 lass gied him when he was young, an' maybe no sae hard-hairted?”