With the exception of one unhappy failing, delicately hinted at in the title of this sketch, there was nothing really bad in the character of Mr. James Murdieston. He was an honest, civil, inoffensive, and obliging man; but—we neither can nor will conceal the fact—a most determined inventor. Yet his lies had no malevolence in them. They were all of the vainglorious kind, and never bore reference to any man or woman's character or affairs. On the whole, as defensible as lies can be, they were also as harmless. To profession, an enlightener of the world, not as a philosopher or teacher of science, but simply as a candle-maker, he was so far a benefactor of mankind, but on a very humble scale—having only the wants of a very small village to supply with the produce of his manufacture.
With this preamble, we proceed to say, that it happened once upon a time that Jamie Murdieston had to go to Glasgow, on some particular business—we believe it was to make a purchase of tallow. On this occasion, as on all others when his presence was necessary in the western metropolis, Jamie took the coach—an opportunity which he always prized highly, as affording him admirable scope for the exercise of his talent for romancing. At home, where his propensity was well known, he could get few listeners and still fewer believers; but, on the top of a coach, where he was not known, he was always sure of finding both; and he never failed to make an excellent use of his advantage. It was a great comfort and satisfaction to Jamie, when he stumbled on an unwincing believer. It was a perfect treat to him, since it was one which he rarely enjoyed. On the occasion of which we are speaking—namely, Jamie's visit to Glasgow—he found himself, on ascending the coach, seated beside a very engaging young lady, who had preferred the outside to the inside, on account of the extreme warmth of the weather, and also for the purpose, as she herself informed Jamie, of more fully enjoying the scenery through which they might pass.
"Quite richt, mem," replied Jamie, on his fair and frank fellow-traveller informing him of this last particular, as they rolled along. "Quite right, mem; for the kintra hereawa is just uncommon beautifu—just uncommon. Do ye see, mem, that bit glisk o' the Clyde, there?—that's a spot I should mind weel, and I will mind it till the day o' my death."
"Indeed, sir!" said the young lady to whom these remarks were addressed. "Pray, what circumstance is it, may I ask, which so solemnly binds your recollections to that particular locality?"
"A melancholy aneugh are, I assure ye mem; that's to say, it micht hae been melancholy, an it warna that Providence had sent me just in time to save the life o' a fellow-cratur."
On this communication being made to her, the young lady for whose edification it was intended discovered a degree of agitation and surprise, for which the circumstance itself would hardly account. As it escaped Jamie's notice, however, and she was aware that it did so, she merely said—"Dear me, sir, what was the occurrence you allude to, and when did it happen?" But there was an eagerness and an anxiety in her manner, when putting these queries, which she could not altogether conceal. Jamie observed it with inward satisfaction, hailing it as an assurance that whatever he might communicate would be at once taken for gospel. Feeling thus encouraged, Jamie replied—
"I'll tell ye a' aboot it, mem. Ye see it was just aboot this time twelmonth, I think—yes, just exactly aboot this time—that, as I was ae day fishin in the Clyde, at the spot I pointed oot to ye, I was suddenly startled by hearin an awful scream, and, immediately after, a tremendous splash in the water. 'Somebody fa'en in!' says I; and I instantly flang doon my rod, on which I had, at the moment, a saumont fifty pun wecht, if he was an unce—and ran roun the bit projectin bank that had keepit me frae actually seein what had happened. A weel, on doin this, doesna I see a woman's bonnet floatin on the water—it was a' I could see—and gann fast doun wi' the stream, which was geyley swelled at the time. Soon becomin aware that the bonnet was on the head o' some unfortunate person, and that she maun perish in a few seconds, if no attempt was made to rescue her, I, without a moment's thocht, threw aff my coat and shoon, and jumped in after her; and, as gude luck wad hae't, was the means o' savin her life; but it was a teuch job, for, by the time I reached her, she had sunk, and it wasna till I had dived three times that I got haud o' her. But I did get a grup o' her; and I assure ye I held it, and never let it go till I had her safely on the bank, puir thing, and a bit bonny cratur she was."
Thus far had Jamie got in his interesting story, and much further he would have gone, had he not been suddenly interrupted by his fair auditor, who, seizing him by the hand, in a transport of joy and surprise, exclaimed—
"O my deliverer, my deliverer!—I was the person whom you saved; and delighted will my father, who's inside the coach, be, when he learns we have found you at last. But why, why," continued the grateful girl, looking all the gratitude she felt in Jamie's face—"why did you so abruptly and suddenly withdraw yourself, after having done such a generous and noble deed? We could never find you out, nor obtain the smallest trace of you, although hardly a day has passed since then that we have not made some attempt to accomplish either the one or the other. It was cruel of you not to afford us an opportunity of evincing the deep and everlasting gratitude we felt towards you."
We leave the reader to conjecture what was Jamie's amazement on finding himself thus addressed by his fair companion; for we suppose we need hardly say that every word of his story about rescuing a young lady from drowning was a lie—an unmitigated, and, so far as he knew certainly, an utterly foundationless lie. Well may we then, we think, call on the reader to conceive, if he can, Jamie's surprise, when he found his narrative thus strangely converted into truth. He by no means liked it, for it threatened to lead to some awkward discoveries; and, under this impression, he endeavoured to back out, and to separate the two cases by some additional remarks.