This trick of his conscience had hitherto been unable to prevent Duncan from using his short ellwand, and acting dishonestly. The moment he got into daylight and active life, he, like all other cowards, despised the enemy from which he thought himself at the time safe. In a strong-minded man, conscience produces resolution; in a weak, it gives rise merely to fears and vacillation. It is not often that greedy, cunning men are given to intoxication; yet we are obliged to add this vice to the character of Duncan Schulebred, who, exhibiting, however, the one vice in the other, never failed to get intoxicated, if he could effect his purpose at the cost of his neighbour—a result he often achieved, by leaving the tavern after he had got enough—on pretence of returning in a few minutes to the company of his unsuspecting victim.
Like many others of the peripatetic manufacturers of Dunfermline, Duncan Schulebred sold through the country the cloth he fabricated at home; so that, for one half, the winter, of the year, he sat, and for the other, the summer, he travelled. By the same means and ratio, Duncan Schulebred was one half of the year sober, and the other inebriated; for he could fleece no pot companion in his native town, where he was known; while, throughout the country, he could walk deliberately out of every ale-house on the road, and leave his travelling companions to pay for his drink, in exchange for that society which they had enjoyed.
Now, in the course of his journey, this individual had occasion, during the latter end of a summer, to be in Edinburgh, where he usually sold a considerable part of his stock. During the day, he had been in treaty with a person of the name of Andrew Gavin, a pettifogging writer, residing near the Luckenbooths, for the sale of a web of linen, which the latter, like a trout with a bait on a clear day, approached and examined, and looked at and felt, and yet still seemed irresolute in his determination to be caught. The weaver's twinkling eye saw and admired the gudgeon; the linen, to a safe extent, was unrolled, its texture felt with a "miller's thumb," its qualities extolled, and its price wondered at by him who fixed it and smiled inwardly at his profit and the trick by which he realized it. The unwary purchaser, though a man of the law, was at last caught—the bargain was struck, the money paid; and all that remained was, that Duncan Schulebred, in addition to cheating him in the manner to be explained, should, after his usual practice, get drunk at the expense of his customer.
The two parties accordingly repaired to a tavern known by the name of The Barleycorn, where they sat down deliberately, to indulge in a deep potation. In the midst of their orgies, the customer, who had a humour of his own, took many "rises" out of his companion, who submitted to his fun, in consideration of his determination to leave him to pay "the score," which would put "the laugh on the other side." As they went on in their potations, Duncan Schulebred gradually drifted from one condition of evil to another. Originally his desire was simply to cheat the writer as a man. This was mere vulgar selfishness. He would have "done" any man after the same fashion, because it was his nature. But in this instance, he was concerned in the purpose of cheating a pettifogger, whose very occupation it was to cheat every poor litigant that came in his way. Here was a great occasion for Duncan Schulebred. He felt another motive prompting him to the gratification of his wickedness, and that was pride—the pride of circumventing those who circumvent others. Ah, Duncan Schulebred! you never thought of the ugliness of this peculiar aggravation of sin, when the evil genius rejoices in itself—when it is puffed up with the glory of exaltation, when instead of being checked by conscience, it is rather inspired by conscience "turned back side fore—all the wrong way." Neither did he consider that the said conscience has an ugly trick of springing round into the normal state, with a jerk not over pleasant to sinners. But even here Duncan Schulebred did not stop, for his pride of overcoming the "devil's limb," was inflamed by revenge, in consequence of the pettifogger having traduced Dunfermline; not that Duncan Schulebred had any patriotism, even in Dr. Johnson's sense of that virtue; but that he felt all the hits as directed against himself, just as every knave is always trying on the cap, and declaring that it is no fit. Behold selfishness, pride, and revenge, all met in one purpose; and as probably the writer had as many motives for attempting, by urging Duncan to drink, to enlarge the bill—the two were antagonists worthy of each other.
Their wordy war only made the writer and the weaver more thirsty; every argument was followed by a draught, which slaked at once both thirst and revenge. The more they drank the warmer they grew in defence of their respective towns, till they came to that condition of topers, when, by the mere operation of their potations, they become unable even to dispute. All confirmed drunkards have in their drunkenness some ruling principle, which; however far gone they may be, regulates their wayward movements. The writer's habit was to sit when he thought he could not stand—one which many sober men might do well to adopt. The weaver's, again, was to walk when he wished not to stand the reckoning—a prudent maxim which never left him, even when all other ideas had been washed from his brain. It was now about one o'clock in the morning, and they had drank so much that neither of them could tell—for neither had any interest in a matter which did not seem to concern his pocket—how much would require to be paid; it was enough for Duncan Schulebred, that he knew that something, and not little, must be paid—and now was the time for escape.
"We were speakin o' the law," said Duncan Schulebred, winking with cunning and hiccuping with drink—"I fancy they never refuse siller at the bar here, ony mair than they do in Dumfarlan. There is only this difference atween the twa—that the folk wha resort to your bar pay when they enter, we (hiccup) pay as we gae oot. Rest yersel there till I cast up the bill, and if I hae ony plea wi' the landlord, ye can come and plead it."
"That's kind, Duncan," said the writer—"it will be the only plea I ever had from a Dunfermline weaver. If I gain it, we must have a—another gill."
"Twa o' them," replied Duncan, trying to rise. "We maun, at ony rate, hae (hiccup) the stirrup-cup, ye ken"—laughing and twinkling again his reeling eyes.
"O yes, but I—I fancy I must pay for that, seeing you are the traveller, and—and are besides to pay all this tremendous bill, that lies, doubtless, on the bar like a—a lawyer's memorial."
"Ye're an example o' an honest, ay, a generous writer," said Duncan Schulebred—"wha could hae thocht ye wad hae offered to pay the stirrup-cup? I'll send yer wife a piece o' dornock for that, as weel as a screed o' huckaback and harn, to keep up a gratefu' recollection o' me after I'm awa. I'll no be a minute at the bar; for it's a place (hiccup) I dinna like."