I was a good deal tickled at this, and listened, in spite of myself, to hear how my Scotch friend would brook this insinuation.
Lennox replied, quite calmly—"He was hanged."
"Ha! ha! I have you on the hip now, my master," shouted Peter.
"Indeed, man, you are a coorse-minded animal," responded the corporal. "I spoke in yae sense metaphorically, and alluded to his reward in Heaven—where I have nae doubt he went—but leeterally, I will no deny, in another; for he was in verity hanged by that villain Lauderdale in the Lawnmarket, and sang this very hundredth Psalm, that you have heard raised on board that vessel, at the"——
"What, the whole of it?" interrupted honest Peter.
"Ay, the whole of it, from stem to stern, on the scaffold."
Here poor Lennox's voice fell a little, so that honest Peter, thinking that the disclosure of his great-grandfather's exaltation, which, in his innocence, he considered he had cleverly wrung from him, was giving him pain, sung out, in what was meant for a consolatory tone—"Never mind, Lennox, man—don't mind; better men have been hanged than your grandfather;—but what was it for, man?"—his curiosity combating with his kindly feelings—"I dare say something the poor fellow had done in his drink; some unfortunate blow or thrust that rid the world of a vagabond; or a little bit of forgetfulness in signing another man's name for his own, eh?"
"Why, freend Peter," chimed in Lennox, "since ye crack sae croose—wha may yeer great-grandfather hae been?—tell me that."
Peter was rather caught. He twisted himself about. "My father I know—I am sure I had a father,—and a grandfather too, I suppose; but as to a great-grandfather"——
"I say, Peter, my man, 'never cudgel yeer brains about it,' as Shakspeare hath it; and never again disparage a man wha can authentically show that he had a great-grandfather, even although he had the misfortune to be hanged, until ye can honestly tell whether ye ever had a grandfather or no at all. But none of these brought him to his end, noo since ye maun ken."