"'Risk!' said I, 'the woman's a fool to talk in such a manner about an every-day transaction.'
"'Weel,' answered she, 'not to say that there is the slightest risk in the matter, have ye considered, that, if ye do cash this bill, there will be a heavy discount to pay, and if ye pay it, what is to become o' your profits? Did ye tell him, that if ye took his bill ye would carry the discount to his next account?'
"'O Nancy! Nancy!' cried I, 'ye would skin the wind! Just take yoursel' away, if ye please; for really ye're tormenting me—making a perfect gowk o' me, for neither end nor purpose.'
"'Oh, if that be the way,' said she, 'I can leave ye—but I have seen the day when ye thought otherwise o' my company. Yet, the more I see o' your transactions, Nicholas, the more I am convinced in the truth o' the saying, that the simple man is the beggar's brother.'
"'Sorrow take ye, wife!' cried I, 'will ye really come owre thae words again. Are ye not aware that I detest and abhor them? Have I not said that to ye again and again?—and yet ye will repeat them in my hearing? Do ye wish to drive me mad?'
"'I would wish to see ye act,' answered she, 'so that I would ne'er need to use them again.' And, on saying that, she went out o' the room, which to me was a great deliverance.
"I got the bill cashed, and, to tell ye the plain truth, I also had it to pay. This was a dreadfu' loss to me; and I found there was naething left for me but so sit down,(if ye understand what that means,) as mony a guid man has been compelled to do. Hooever, I paid every body seventeen shillings and sixpence half-penny in the pound. Some of my creditors said it was owre meikle—that I had been simple and wronged mysel'.
"'I would wish to the utmost o' my power to be honest,' said I; 'and if I hae wronged mysel', I hae saved my conscience. If there be naething else left for me noo, as Burns says—
'Heaven be thankit! I can beg.'
"My business, hooever, had been entirely at a stand for the space o' sax weeks. I had neither journeyman nor apprentice left. My looms, and the hale apparatus connected wi' the concern, had been sold off, and I had naething in the world but a few articles o' furniture, which a freend bought back for me at the sale. I got the loan o' a loom, and in order to support my wife and family, I had to sit down to drive the shuttle again. I had wrought nane to speak o' for ten years before, and my hands were quite oot o' use. I made but a puir job o' it. The first week I didna mak aboon half-a-crown; and that was but a sma' sum for the support o' a wife and half-a-dozen hungry bairns. Hooever, I was still as simple as ever; and there wasna a wife in the countryside that was a bad payer, but brought her web to Nicholas Middlemiss. I wrought late and early; but though I did my utmost, I couldna keep my bairns' teeth gaun. Many a time it has wrung my heart, when I hae heard them crying to their mother, clinging round her, and pulling at her apron, saying—'Mother, gie's a piece!—Oh just a wee bite, mother!'