"Servants, too, frequently change their service, and you will often have great difficulty in tracing them out. In every instance, almost, some particular procedure must be resorted to. In one case, you may succeed by threats, and by pretending to read a warrant of apprehension; in another, a little flattery may not be amiss, particularly with the fair sex. 'It is, indeed, a pity that the price is not forthcoming: for you never saw her look so handsome as she did in the still unpaid article. Could she only manage the one-half now, you would take her acknowledgment for the other half, next time you came about,' &c. &c. In desperate cases, desperate measures must be resorted to. For example," continued my knowing instructor, "I'll tell you how I once recovered thirty shillings, which I had fully given up as lost.
"There was a servant lass, in the parish of Penpont, who had the hardihood not only to refuse me payment, but actually to aver that she owed me not a farthing, that she had already paid me, and would not pay me twice over. True, she had no receipt for the money; but then I was in the habit of receiving money without giving or being asked for any receipt whatever. What was to be done? There had been no witnesses of the transaction. Was I to sit quietly down, not only under the loss, but under the suspicion that I was capable of charging twice for the same purchase? I, at last, after much meditation, devised and carried into effect the following method of recovery. I shut myself up in a room, in the village of Penpont, for a day or two, and took care to have it noised abroad, by means of a boy whom I had bribed into the secret, first, that I had been taken suddenly and extremely ill, and lastly, that I had died. This report I took particular care to have conveyed to the ears of my fair debtor. She resided about two miles from the village. In a day or two, my messenger repaired to the lady, averring that I had left him, being a near relative, my heir, and that he had found a debt due by her in my books, which debt he requested her to liquidate incontinent. To this proposal Tibby opposed words and actions of the most disdainful and reproachful character, calling my agent many bad names, and at last setting him to the door by actual violence. In the meantime, knowing what was likely to occur, I hove in sight, at the further extremity of a grass field, in full uniform, with my well-known pack on my back, and my yard-wand in my hand.
"'Aweel,' says Sandy, 'if ye winna pay, I canna help it; but there he's coming to speak to you himsel. So ye can e'en settle the business atwixt ye.'
"'The Lord forbid!' exclaimed Tibby, looking towards my approach, with staring eyes, and limbs trembling like an aspen leaf—'The Lord Almighty forbid, Sandy! Come here! come here! Wait a moment till I get the key of my trunk! Here, here! there's the money, every shilling, and see ye letna the awfu' dead creature come ony nearer us.'
"And thus I recovered my just debt, and afforded a source of much good-humoured merriment to the neighbourhood for many days afterwards."
CHAPTER II.
It was on a fine morning in the latter end of the month of October, that I took yard-wand in hand, and pack on back for the first time. The sun shone slanting and sweetly over wood, and vale, and hill-side; and the light and airy gossamer (at this season only visible) lay in gleaming and floating lines, over grass fields and ploughed lands. I bent my way to the mountains, well knowing that there, at a distance from shop or market, I should most likely meet with a sale for my goods, and should, at the same time, fix the prices, without fear of check or detection. By the time that I had reached Locherben, the sun had set, and the twilight was still lingering on the tops of the twin Queensberries. The herds were coming in from the hills; the guidman was steeking some yetts in the inclosure of the in-fields; and the guidwife, with some half-a-dozen servant lasses, were busily employed in domestic arrangements. Dogs were everywhere to be seen, meeting in unity, or snarling defiance over some contested pot from which they were extracting a rather scanty meal. I leaned my pack on a fail or turf dike, which enclosed a few ill-thriven cabbages, and waited patiently an invitation from some chance inmate to enter. At last, a canny lass came out, with a tub full of sheeps entrails, which she proceeded to cleanse and scour in the passing stream. She took up her station near to where I leaned, and, blithely singing the while, proceeded, with kilted coats, and sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, to perform her work. Having cast a random glance around her, she immediately perceived that she was not alone—and, without any feeling or appearance of embarrassment, immediately proceeded to address me—
"And what are you, sitting there, like a craw in the mist? and what's that lying behint you, man?—Losh preserve us! hae ye gotten a coffin on yer back, or are ye just a kintra lad, gain hame wi' yer sister's kist on yer shoulders?—Speak, body, speak this minute, or I'll come alang yer chafts wi' a nievefu o' thairms!"—Thus saying, she actually left the pure water which she was so busy defiling, and, brandishing some score of yards of the tripe in her right hand, was in the act of accomplishing her threat, when I suddenly disengaged myself from the arm-strings of my pack, and, parrying the blow which was aimed at me, I closed at once with my fair adversary, and, ere she could raise a scream, sufficient to alarm the whole town land, I had taken as many favours from her as ever Apollo did from Daphne. To scream so loud and shrill as to bring down upon us half-a-dozen dogs, and nearly as many herds, was the work of an instant; but of an instant during which she was made distinctly to perceive that I was no lassie, but a young fellow of some spunk and mettle.
"What's the matter wi' Jenny?" said a stout figure, snugly wrapped up in the shepherd's toga.
"Matter!" replied Jenny—"matter!"—adjusting her dress, and now red from ear to ear—"why, I believe, after a', there is nae great matter—but that body frightened me sae with his kists and his coffins, I was amaist out o' my wits."