“This gentleman,” said he, pointing to the last-mentioned individual, who appeared to be a singular compound of officiousness, selfishness, and benevolence, and who seemed to be at all times a standing joke with my venerable friend, “has some pretensions to honesty. He’ll do ye a good turn sometimes when ye’re no thinking o’t; and, unlike the most of other men, he likes his friends the better the longer they sit beside him. Familiarity does not breed contempt with him, but poverty does; and yet he’s no the hindmost to help misery to an awmous when he’s in a right mood for being goodhearted, and that happens aye ance or twice in a twalmonth.”
“Come, come, now,” said M‘Gowan, gravely, “we’ll hae nae mair o’ that, Mr Gray. Ye’re an unco wag. It was only yestreen ye got me into a foul scrape wi’ our friend Cleekum there, and he flang out o’ the house, swearing like a very heathen that he wad tak the law o’ me for defamation o’ character.”
“For the sake of peace and good fellowship,” said Mr Singleheart, “it will be meet and advisable for us to refrain, as much as in us lies, from profane joking and oonseasonable raillery; because joking has small yedification in it, and raillery is a sort of salt-and-pepper compound, whilk burneth up the inward man with a fervent heat, and profiteth not, neither is meet for bodily nourishment.”
“I would be o’ your thocht, Mr Sinklart,” said Donald M‘Glashlan the piper; “I would be making peace wi’ peast and pody”—
The piper was thus proceeding with his Highland exhortations to harmony, when Cleekum, who was sitting looking out at the window, started suddenly from his seat and hurried out of the house. M‘Gowan’s curiosity being roused by Cleekum’s abrupt departure, he followed him to the door, and beheld him and M‘Harrigle the cattle-dealer at some distance, earnestly engaged in conversation. All that M‘Gowan’s ear could catch of their discourse was concerning the mad bull, M‘Harrigle’s property, and the occasional mention of the dominie’s name.
“There’s mischief a-brewing down the lane there,” said M‘Gowan, when he came in. “Cleekum and that foolish passionate body M‘Harrigle are standing yonder, an’ I could hear they were sayin’ something o’ you, Mr Gray, but what it was I couldna weel mak out. He’s a doited, credulous body, that M‘Harrigle; an’ I could wager a saxpence Cleekum’s makin’ a deevil o’ him some way or anither.”
M‘Gowan’s surmises were suddenly interrupted by vociferous and clamorous exclamations at the door, and their cause did not remain long unexplained. The door of the apartment flew open, and, rattling against the wall with violence, admitted the author of this fresh disturbance. It was M‘Harrigle. He was a short, square-shouldered man, of fierce aspect, whose naturally harsh features were much exaggerated by a powerful and alarming expression of rage and resentment. The face was, indeed, at first sight indescribable, and the tumultuous feelings and passions that deepened and darkened every line of it wrought such fearful and sudden changes upon its muscular expression that the whole seemed at first a wizard compound of different identities.
Upon entering, his first salutation was a deafening and broken torrent of cursing, poured forth upon the dominie, as the fancied author of the flight and death of the mad animal, whose career had spread such consternation through the village. It was in vain that the whole company remonstrated against the rudeness, absurdity, and brutality of his conduct. He stood on the middle of the floor with his fist doubled, menaced each of us in our turn, as we interposed between him and the object of his resentment, or smiled at his folly and extravagance, and once or twice grappled the large oaken cudgel with which he impelled his horned property, as if he intended to commit the like beastly violence on those around him. Cleekum had retired to a corner to enjoy the sport his wicked waggery had created. The dominie sat composedly, and squinted at the cattle-dealer with a sly and jocular leer, which showed his soul delighted even in a very serious joke, from an inveterate habit of extracting fun from all the petty and frivolous incidents of common life. At times he seemed lost in a careless, musing mood, and at other times burst out into immoderate fits of laughter, which seemed to me perfectly unaccountable. He then, in the true spirit and feeling of an enthusiastic elocutionist, recited from Shakspeare some favourite passage, warbled out a fragment of some ancient ditty, every now and then interspersing it with shrill and fitful passages of a new sonnata, which he had been practising on the violin, whose shrill treble fell in between the intervals of M‘Harrigle’s bass notes, like loose sand or gravel strewed over a rude foundation of ruble work. “D—— ye,” said M‘Harrigle, rising in his wrath at every fresh interruption of the dominie, and maddened at his really provoking coolness and indifference, “d—— ye, ye think it a’ a joke to hunt a man’s cattle to destruction, and then mak a fool o’ himsel wi’ your blackguard and unknown tongues! Confound your hide, you glee’d, fiddling vagabond, an it werna for your coat, I would harle your hide ower your lugs like a sark! Pay me my siller—pay me my siller for the beast, or I’ll turn the nose on your face like the pin o’ a hand-screw. Down wi’ the dust—I’ll no leave the room till I hae satisfaction o’ ye ae way or ither, that’s for certain.”
“Let there be peace,” said Mr Singleheart, “for out of strife cometh a multitude of evils; and he who in vain taketh the name of his Maker shall not be held guiltless. You are an evil person, M‘Harrigle; and if you refrain not from that profane and heathenish habit of cursing, we will, by the advice and council of our Kirk-Session, be obligated to debar you from all kirk preevileges, and leave you to be devoured and swallowed up by the evil one.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the credulous and superstitious cattle-dealer; “I didna mean offence to you or ony man in the room; but I’ll hae my ain. But it’s you, sir—it’s you, sir,” continued he, addressing the dominie repeatedly, and extending the tone of his voice at every repetition, till he had strained it to the most astounding pitch of vociferation; “it’s you, sir, that set ane o’ your mischievous vagabonds to hunt the poor dumb animal, till he ran red wud wi’ rage, and flew ower the craig head. And now he’s at the bottom o’ the linn, and fient be licket’s to be seen o’ him, but an ill-faured hash o’ hide, an’ banes, and harrigles, sooming an’ walloping at the bottom o’ the pool.”