“Buckskin breeches!” said I; “and did he really and actually boil siccan trash to his dinner?”
“Nae sae far south as that yet, friend,” answered Thomas. “Duncan wasna sae bowed in the intellect as ye imagine, and had some spice of cleverality about his queer manœuvres.—Eat siccan trash to his dinner! Nae mair, Mansie, than ye intend to eat that iron guse ye’re rinning alang that piece claith; but he wantit to make his offishers believe that his pay gaed the right way—like the Pharisees of old that keepit praying, in ell-lang faces, about the corners of the streets, and gaed hame wi’ hearts full of wickedness and a’ manner of cheatrie.”
“And what way did his pay gang then?” askit I; “and hoo did he live?”
“I telled ye before, frien,” answered Thomas, “that he was a deboshed creature; and, like ower mony in the warld, likit weel what didna do him ony good. It’s a wearyfu’ thing that whisky. I wish it could be banished to Botany Bay.”
“It is that,” said I. “Muckle and nae little sin does it breed and produce in this world.”
“I’m glad,” quo’ Thomas, stroking down his chin in a slee way. “I’m glad the guilty should see the folly o’ their ain ways: it’s the first step, ye ken, till amendment;—and indeed I tell’t Maister Wiggie, when he sent me here, that I could almost become gude for yer being mair wary o’ yer conduct for the future time to come.”
This was like a thunder-clap to me, and I didna ken, for a jiffy, what to feel, think, or do, mair than perceiving that it was a piece of devilish cruelty on their pairts, taking things on this strict. As for myself, I could freely take sacred oath on the Book, that I hadna had a dram in my head for four months before; the knowledge of which made my corruption rise like lightning, as a man is aye brave when he is innocent; so, giein’ my pow a bit scart, I said briskly, “So ye’re after some session business in this veesit, are ye?”
“Ye’ve just guessed it,” answered Thomas Burlings, sleeking down his front hair with his fingers, in a sober way; “we had a meeting this forenoon; and it was resolved ye should stand a public rebuke in the meeting-house, on Sunday next.”
“Hang me, if I do!” answered I, thumping my nieve down with all my might on the counter, and throwing back my cowl behind me, into a corner.
“No, man!” added I, snapping with great pith my finger and thumb in Thomas’s een; “no for all the ministers and elders that ever were cleckit. They may do their best; and ye may tell them sae if ye like. I was born a free man; I live in a free country; I am the subject of a free king and constitution; and I’ll be shot before I submit to such rank diabolical papistry.”