“He’s better born, I judge, than he cares to let on; he’s been a soldier, and he has been a play-actor, and I watna what he has been or hasna been, for as young as he is, sae that it had daffing and nonsense about it.”
“Pretty pranks he has played in his time, I suppose?”
“Ye may say that,” said Ratcliffe, with a sardonic smile; “and” (touching his nose) “a deevil amang the lasses.”
“Like enough,” said Sharpitlaw. “Weel, Ratcliffe, I’ll no stand niffering wi’ ye; ye ken the way that favour’s gotten in my office; ye maun be usefu’.”
“Certainly, sir, to the best of my power—naething for naething—I ken the rule of the office,” said the ex-depredator.
“Now the principal thing in hand e’en now,” said the official person, “is the job of Porteous’s; an ye can gie us a lift—why, the inner turnkey’s office to begin wi’, and the captainship in time—ye understand my meaning?”
“Ay, troth do I, sir; a wink’s as gude as a nod to a blind horse; but Jock Porteous’s job—Lord help ye!—I was under sentence the haill time. God! but I couldna help laughing when I heard Jock skirting for mercy in the lads’ hands. Mony a het skin ye hae gien me, neighbour, thought I, tak ye what’s gaun: time about’s fair play; ye’ll ken now what hanging’s gude for.”
“Come, come, this is all nonsense, Rat,” said the procurator. “Ye canna creep out at that hole, lad; you must speak to the point—you understand me—if you want favour; gif-gaf makes gude friends, ye ken.”
“But how can I speak to the point, as your honour ca’s it,” said Ratcliffe, demurely, and with an air of great simplicity, “when ye ken I was under sentence and in the strong room a’ the while the job was going on?”
“And how can we turn ye loose on the public again, Daddie Rat, unless ye do or say something to deserve it?”