“Dear, your honour,” answered Ratcliffe, “there’s muckle difference between lying in prison under sentence of death, and staying there of ane’s ain proper accord, when it would have cost a man naething to get up and rin awa—what was to hinder me from stepping out quietly, when the rabble walked awa wi’ Jock Porteous yestreen?—and does your honour really think I staid on purpose to be hanged?”
“I do not know what you may have proposed to yourself; but I know,” said the magistrate, “what the law proposes for you, and that is, to hang you next Wednesday eight days.”
“Na, na, your honour,” said Ratcliffe firmly, “craving your honour’s pardon, I’ll ne’er believe that till I see it. I have kend the law this mony a year, and mony a thrawart job I hae had wi’ her first and last; but the auld jaud is no sae ill as that comes to—I aye fand her bark waur than her bite.”
“And if you do not expect the gallows, to which you are condemned (for the fourth time to my knowledge), may I beg the favour to know,” said the magistrate, “what it is you do expect, in consideration of your not having taken your flight with the rest of the jail-birds, which I will admit was a line of conduct little to have been expected?”
“I would never have thought for a moment of staying in that auld gousty toom house,” answered Ratcliffe, “but that use and wont had just gien me a fancy to the place, and I’m just expecting a bit post in’t.”
“A post!” exclaimed the magistrate; “a whipping-post, I suppose, you mean?”
“Na, na, sir, I had nae thoughts o’ a whuppin-post. After having been four times doomed to hang by the neck till I was dead, I think I am far beyond being whuppit.”
“Then, in Heaven’s name, what did you expect?”
“Just the post of under-turnkey, for I understand there’s a vacancy,” said the prisoner; “I wadna think of asking the lockman’s* place ower his head; it wadna suit me sae weel as ither folk, for I never could put a beast out o’ the way, much less deal wi’ a man.”
* Note H. Hangman, or Lockman.