“Why, were it in the case of any other person, I own I should say it looked, prima facie, a little ugly; but I cannot allow anybody to be in the wrong for beating Dousterswivel—Had I been an hour younger, or had but one single flash of your warlike genius, Bailie, I should have done it myself long ago. He is nebulo nebulonum, an impudent, fraudulent, mendacious quack, that has cost me a hundred pounds by his roguery, and my neighbour Sir Arthur, God knows how much. And besides, Bailie, I do not hold him to be a sound friend to Government.”
“Indeed?” said Bailie Littlejohn; “if I thought that, it would alter the question considerably.”
“Right—for, in beating him,” observed Oldbuck, “the bedesman must have shown his gratitude to the king by thumping his enemy; and in robbing him, he would only have plundered an Egyptian, whose wealth it is lawful to spoil. Now, suppose this interview in the ruins of St. Ruth had relation to politics,—and this story of hidden treasure, and so forth, was a bribe from the other side of the water for some great man, or the funds destined to maintain a seditious club?”
“My dear sir,” said the magistrate, catching at the idea, “you hit my very thoughts! How fortunate should I be if I could become the humble means of sifting such a matter to the bottom!—Don’t you think we had better call out the volunteers, and put them on duty?”
“Not just yet, while podagra deprives them of an essential member of their body. But will you let me examine Ochiltree?”
“Certainly; but you’ll make nothing of him. He gave me distinctly to understand he knew the danger of a judicial declaration on the part of an accused person, which, to say the truth, has hanged many an honester man than he is.”
“Well, but, Bailie,” continued Oldbuck, “you have no objection to let me try him?”
“None in the world, Monkbarns. I hear the sergeant below—I’ll rehearse the manual in the meanwhile. Baby, carry my gun and bayonet down to the room below—it makes less noise there when we ground arms.” And so exit the martial magistrate, with his maid behind him bearing his weapons.
“A good squire that wench for a gouty champion,” observed Oldbuck.— “Hector, my lad, hook on, hook on—Go with him, boy—keep him employed, man, for half-an-hour or so—butter him with some warlike terms—praise his dress and address.”
Captain M’Intyre, who, like many of his profession, looked down with infinite scorn on those citizen soldiers who had assumed arms without any professional title to bear them, rose with great reluctance, observing that he should not know what to say to Mr. Littlejohn; and that to see an old gouty shop-keeper attempting the exercise and duties of a private soldier, was really too ridiculous.