The jolly rector laughed so much at the poor jest of the old rake, that the latter actually became commiserate; or it may be that my mother's death and my utter desolation, stirred some emotion of shame—pity he had none—in Sir Basil's arid heart; so, to keep me at a distance from himself, he consigned me on a pittance to the care of his country agent, a certain Mr. Nathan Wylie, who was exceedingly well-named, as he was a canting Scotch lawyer—in truth "a cunning wretch whose shrivelled heart was dead to every human feeling," and who by the sharpness of his legal practice was a greater terror on both sides of the Border than ever the mosstroopers were of old.
He was the person who had prepared and executed the will which transferred my heritage to my cousin, Tony Gauntlet—a will which he framed with peculiar satisfaction, as he hated my father for making free with his orchard in boyhood, and in later years for laying a horsewhip across his shoulders at the market-cross of Greenlaw, so in his sanctified dwelling I was likely to have a fine time of it!
For ten years I resided with the godly Nathan Wylie, a repining drudge, ill-fed, ill-clad, and poorly lodged, in one of those attics which he apportioned to Abraham Clod, his groom, his pigeons and myself—uncared for by all; and not unfrequently taunted with the misfortunes of my parents for whom I sorrowed, and the neglect of my grandfather whom I had learned to abhor and regard with boyish terror.
I picked up a little knowledge of law—at least such knowledge as one might learn in the office of a Scotch country agent in those days. I mastered, I believe, even "Dirlton's Doubts," and other equally amusing literature then in vogue; while Nathan Wylie took especial care that I should know all the shorter catechism, and other biblical questions by rote, that I might be able to repeat them when the minister paid us his periodical visit, though my elbows were threadbare, my shoes none of the best, and my eyes and brain ached with drudging at the desk far into the hours of the silent night, penning prosy documents, preparing endless processes, and not unfrequently writing to dictation such an epistle as the following, which I give verbatim as it actually appeared in a Border paper:—
"DEAR SIR,—I am directed to raise an action against you to-morrow for the sum of one penny, together with the additional sum of three shillings and fourpence, sterling, the expense of this notice, if both sums be not paid me before 9 a.m.
"Yours, faithfully in the Lord,
"NATHAN WYLIE.
"To Farmer Flail, &c."
In early life he had married an old and equally devout female client for the money which he knew well she possessed; and as that was all he wanted, after her death he never married again, but devoted himself manfully to the practice of the law and extempore prayer—an external air of great sanctity being rather conducive to success in life in too many parts of Scotland.
Poor Nathan has long been laid six feet under the ground; but in fancy I can still see before me his thin figure, with rusty black suit and spotless white cravat; his sharp visage, with keen, restless, and cat-like eyes, that peered through a pair of horn spectacles, and with shaggy brows that met above them. Moreover, he had hollow temples, coarse ears, and a tiger-like jaw, which he always scratched vigorously when a case perplexed him, or with satisfaction when some hapless client was floored in the field of legal strife.
As years stole on, that keen and honest sense of justice, which a boy seldom fails to feel, inspired me with indignation at the neglect with which my family treated me, and the story of my parents and their fate redoubled my hatred to my oppressors.