“It’s no maner o’ use gaun into the hale story. A buik wad scarce ha’d it a’. The details’ll keep till you an’ I meet again on the braes o’ Yarrow—if we iver meet there, which is by no means sure, for thae Englishers’ll be the death o’ me afore I git hame, if they gang on as they’ve begood. Here’s the ootline:—
“I’ve been thick wi’ thieves, burglars, pickpockets, an’ the like. Veesitin’ at their dens, an’ gaun aboot the streets wi’ them, an’ I’ve stolen a fifty-pun’ note, an’ it’s been fund i’ the pouch inside my bag. That’s the warst o’t; but it seems that I’ve also resistet the poliss in the dischairge o’ their duty, which means that I flang ane ower a sofa an’ stappit anither into a coal-scuttle—though I didna mean it, puir falla, for his breeks suffered in the way that ye’ve aften seen mine whan I was a wee laddie. But I was roused to that extent whan they first gruppit me that I couldna help it!
“I wadna mind it muckle if it wasna that I’ve no a freend to help me—
“I was interruptit to receive a veesiter—an’ a rebuik at the same time, for he turned oot to be a freend, though a stranger, a Colonel Brentwud, wha’s been cheetit by that blagyird lawyer that’s tryin’ to play the mischief wi’ me. But he’ll fin’ that I’m teuch! The Colonel says they’ll hae nae diffeeculty in clearin’ me, so let that comfort ye, mither.—Yer ill-doin’ son, David.
“P.S.—There’s a wee laddie I’ve faw’n in wi’ since I cam’ to Bawbylon, they ca’ him Tammy Splint. O woman, but he is a queer bairn. He’s jist been to see me i’ my cell, an’ the moment he cam’ in, though he was half greetin’, he lookit roond an’ said, ‘Isn’t this a sell!’ Eh, but he is auld-farrant! wi’ mair gumption than mony full-grown men, to say naething o’ women.”
But David Laidlaw had more friends in London than he was aware of. At the very time that he was penning the foregoing epistle to his mother, a number of disreputable-looking men were bewailing his fate and discussing his affairs in the thieves’ den, and two equally disreputable women were quarrelling over the same subject in a wretched dwelling in the presence of a third woman, who presided over a teapot.
One of the women, whose visage exhibited marks of recent violence, struck her fist on the table and exclaimed, “No, Mrs Rampy, you are wrong, as usual. The story I ’eard about ’im was quite different an’ I believes it too, for them Scotsmen are a rough lot—no better than they should be.”
“Mrs Blathers,” remarked Mrs Rampy, in a soft sarcastic tone which she was wont to assume when stung to the quick, and which her friend knew from experience was the prelude to a burst of passion, “I may be wrong as usual, but as you have never seen or conwersed with this Scotsman, an’ don’t know nothink about ’im, perhaps you will condescend to give me an’ Liz the kreckt wershion.”
“Now, Mrs Rampy,” interposed old Liz, grasping her teapot, “don’t be angry, for Mrs Blathers is right. Scotsmen are no better than they should be. Neither are English nor Irish nor Welshmen. In fact, there’s none of us—men or women—nearly as good as we should be. Now, I am sure it won’t be denied,” continued Liz, in an argumentative tone, “that Mrs Blathers might be better—”
“Ha! I won’t deny it,” said Mrs Rampy, with emphasis.