Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XVI Part 11

"This is a dreadful business, Mr Thriven," said she, as she ran forward in the confusion of unfeigned anguish.

"Dreadful, indeed, my good lady," answered he; "and who can feel it more than myself--that is, after you."

"You are a man, and I am a woman," rejoined the disconsolate creditor; "a woman who has struggled, since the death of her good husband, to support herself and a headless family, who, but for their mother's industry, might have, ere now, been reduced to seek their bread as the boon of pity. But ah, sir, it cannot be that you are to cla.s.s me with the rest of your creditors. They are men, and may make up their losses in some other way. To me the loss of fifty pounds would be total ruin.

Oh, sir, you will!--I know by that face of sympathy, you will make me an exception. Heaven will bless you for it; and my children will pray for you to the end of our lives."

"All this just adds to my misery," replied Mr Samuel; "and that misery, Heaven knows, is great enough already. Your case is that of the mother and the widow; and what need is there for a single word to tell me that it stands apart from all the others. But, madam, were I to pay your debt, do not you see that both you and I would be acting against the laws of our country. What supports me, think ye, under my misfortune, but the consciousness of innocence. Now, you would cruelly take away from me that consciousness, whereby, for the sake of a fifty-pound note, you would render me miserable here, and a condemned man hereafter. A hotter fire, of a verity, there is than that which burned up my stock.

But I am bound to make amends for the loss I have brought upon you; and you may rest a.s.sured that, as soon as I am discharged, I will do my best for you and your poor bereaved sons and daughters."

And thus Mr Thriven managed these importunate beings, termed creditors, in a manner that he, doubtless, considered highly creditable to himself, in so far as he thereby spread more widely the fact that he had been ruined by no fault of his own, at the same time that he proved himself to be a man of feeling, justice, and sentiment. Meanwhile, his agent, Mr Sharp, was as busy as ever an attorney could be, in getting out a sequestration, with the indispensable adjunct of a personal protection, which the lords very willingly granted upon the lugubrious appeal, set forth in the pet.i.tion, that Mr Thriven's misfortunes were attributable to the element of fire. A fifty-pound note, too, sent his shopman, Mr Joseph Clossmuns, over the Atlantic; and, the coast being clear, Mr Thriven went through his examinations with considerable eclat.

CHAP. IV.--THE WINDFALL.

"These men," said Mr Thriven, after he got home to dinner, "have worried me so by their questions, that they have imposed upon me the necessity of taking some cooling liquor to allay the fervour of my blood. I must drink to them, besides, for they were, upon the whole, less severe than they might have been; and a bottle of cool claret will answer both ends.

And now," he continued, after he drank off a b.u.mper to the long lives of his creditors--"the greatest part of my danger being over, I can see no great risk of my failing in getting them to accept a composition of five s.h.i.+llings in the pound. But what then? I have no great fancy to the counter. After all, a haberdasher is at best but a species of man-milliner; and I do no see why I should not, when I get my discharge in my pocket, act the gentleman as well as the best of them. All that is necessary is to get the devout Miss Angelina M'Falzen, who regenerates the species by distributing good books, to consent to be my wife. She has a spare figure, a sharp face, and a round thousand. Her fortune will be a cover to my idleness; and then I can draw upon the sum I have made by my failure, just as occasion requires."

At the end of this monologue, a sharp broken voice was heard in the pa.s.sage; and Mr Samuel Thriven's bottle of claret was, in the twinkling of an eye, replaced by a jug of cool spring water.

"Ah, how do you do, my clear Miss M'Falzen?" cried Mr Samuel, as he rose to meet his devout sweetheart.

"Sir," responded the devout distributor of tracts, stiffly and coldly, "you are in far better spirits than becomes one who is the means of bringing ruin on so many families. I expected to have found you contrite of heart, and of a comely sadness of spirits and seriousness of look."

"And yet I am only feasting on cold water," replied Samuel, letting the muscles of his face fall, as he looked at the jug. "But you know, Miss Angelina, that I am innocent of the consequences of the fire, and, when one has a clear conscience, he may be as happy in adversity over a cup of water, as he may be in prosperity over a bottle of claret."

"A pretty sentiment, Mr Thriven--la! a beautiful sentiment," replied Miss Angelina; "and satisfied as I am of your purity, let me tell you that our intercourse shall not, with my will, be interrupted by your misfortune. I would rather, indeed, feel a delight in soothing you under your affliction, and administering the balm of friends.h.i.+p to the heart that is contrite, under the stroke which cannot be averted."

"And does my Angelina," cried Samuel, "regard me with the same kindness and tenderness in my present reduced circ.u.mstances, as when I was engaged in a flouris.h.i.+ng trade, which might have emboldened me to hope for a still more intimate, ay, and sacred connection?"

"Mr Thriven," replied the other, gravely, "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer." Samuel's face underwent some considerable change. "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer, who has reported to me some sentiments stated by you to her, of so beautiful and amiable a character, and so becoming a Christian, that I admire you for them. You promised to do your utmost, after you are discharged, to make amends to her and her poor family for the loss she will sustain by your bankruptcy. Ah, sir, that alone proves to me that you are an honest, innocent, and merely unfortunate insolvent; and to show you that I am not behind you in magnanimity, I have paid her the fifty pounds wherein you were indebted to her, and got an a.s.signation to her debt. You may pay me when you please; and, meanwhile, I will accept of the composition you intend to offer to your creditors."

"Fifty pounds off her tocher," muttered Samuel between his teeth, and then took a drink of the cold water, in the full memory of the claret.

"It scarcely beseems a man," said he, "to be aught but a silent listener, when his praise is spoken by one he loves and respects. But, is it possible, Miss M'Falzen, that my misfortune has not changed those feelings--those--excuse me, Miss Angelina--those intentions with which, I had reason to believe, you regarded me."

And, with great gallantry, he seized the fair spinster round the waist, as he had been in the habit of doing before he was a bankrupt, to show, at least, that he was now no bankrupt in affection.

"To be plain with you, sir," replied she, wriggling herself out of his hands, "my intention once was to wait until I saw whether you would come unscathed and pure out of the fiery ordeal; but, on second thoughts, I conceived that this would be unfair to one whom I had always looked upon as an honest man, though, probably, not so seriously-minded a Christian as I could have wished; therefore," she added, smiling--yet no smiling matter to Samuel--"I have, you see, trusted you fifty pounds--a pretty good earnest--he! he!--that my heart is just where it was."

Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven kissed Miss Angelina M'Falzen.

"But oh, sir," she added, by way of protest, "I hope and trust that not one single spot shall be detected in your fair fame and reputation, and that you will come forth out of trial as unsullied in the eyes of good men, as you were pure in the estimation of one who thus proves for you her attachment."

"Never doubt it," replied Mr Samuel. "Innocence gives me courage and confidence."

He placed, theatrically, his hand on his heart.

"And what think you," added Miss Angelina, "of John Bunyan's book, which I lent you, and which I now see lying here? Is it not a devout performance--an extraordinary allegory? How much good I do by that kind of books! Ha, by the by, Mrs Bairnsfather, good creature, wishes to read it. So I shall just put it in my pocket. To be plain with you, she is much cast down, poor creature, by the loss her husband has sustained through your involuntary failure; and I have said that she will find much comfort in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"

"A staunch book, madam," replied Samuel, seriously--"an extraordinary allegory, worth a piece of the vellum of the old Covenant. I have derived great satisfaction and much good from it. I have no doubt it will support her, as it has done me, under our mutual affliction."

"Oh, how I do love to hear you talk that way," replied Miss Angelina.

"It is so becoming your situation. When do you think you will get a discharge? I will answer for Mr Bairnsfather agreeing to the composition; and you know I am now a creditor myself in fifty pounds. Of course you have my vote; but you will tell me all about it afterwards.

Good-day, Mr Thriven."

"Good-day, Miss M'Falzen."

The which lady was no sooner out, than was the bottle of claret. In a few minutes more Mr Thriven was laughing over his replenished gla.s.s, as totally oblivious of the secret carried away by his lover, on the blank leaf of the good old tinker's book, as he was on that night when he made free with the two bottles of port as good as Ofleys.

"The matter looks well enough," said he. "I can make no manner of doubt that my composition will be accepted; and then, with the two thousand five hundred, at least, that I will make of my bankruptcy, and the round thousand possessed by Miss Angelina M'Falzen, I can perform the part of a walking gentleman on the great stage of the world."

"Is Mr Thriven within?" he now heard asked at the door.

"Ho, it is Sharp!" muttered he, as he shoved the bottle and the gla.s.s into a recess, and laid again hold of the water-jug.

"Water, Thriven!" cried the attorney, as he bounded forward, and seized the bankrupt by the hand. "Water! and Mrs Grizel M'Whirter of c.o.c.kenzie dead, of a dead certainty, this forenoon; and you her nephew, and a will in her drawers, written by Jem Birtwhistle, in your favour, and her fortune ten thousand; and the never a mortal thought the old harridan had more than a five hundred."

"The devil a drop!" cried Mr Samuel Thriven. "The devil a drop of water; for, have I not in this press a half bottle of claret, which I laid past there that day of the fire, and never had the courage to touch it since.

But _me_ her heir! Ho, Mr Joseph Sharp, you are, of a verity, fooling a poor bankrupt, who has not a penny in the world after setting aside his composition of five s.h.i.+llings in the pound. _Me_ her heir! Why, I was told by herself that I was cut off with a s.h.i.+lling; and you must say it seriously ere I believe a word on't."

"I say it as seriously," replied the writer, "as ever you answered a homethrust to-day in the sheriff's office, as to the amount of stock you lost by the burning of your premises--as sure as a decree of the Fifteen. I say your loss had made her repent; so come away with the claret."

Mr Thriven emptied the whole of the half bottle, at one throw, into a tumbler.

"Drink, thou pink of an attorney!" said he, and then fell back into his chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed on the roof, and his two hands closed in each other, as if they had been two notes for five thousand each.

"Are you mad, Mr Thriven?" cried Sharp, after he had bolted the whole tumbler of claret.

"Yes!" answered Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven.

"Have you any more of this Bordeaux water in the house?"

"Yes!" answered Mr Thriven. "Open that lockfast" (pointing to a press), "and drink till you are only able to shout 'M'Whirter'--'c.o.c.kenzie'--'Thriven'--'ten thousand'--'hurra!'--and never let a word more come out of you, till you fall dead drunk on the floor."

The first part of the request, at least, was very quickly obeyed, and two bottles were placed on the table, one of which the attorney bored in an instant, and had a good portion of it rebottled in his stomach by the time that Mr Thriven got his eyes taken off the roof of the chamber.

"Hand me half-a-tumbler!" cried he, "that I may gather my senses, and see the full extent of my misfortune."

"Misfortune!" echoed Sharp.

"Ay!" rejoined Samuel, as he turned the bottom of the tumbler to the roof. "Why did Grizel M'Whirter die, sir, until I got my discharge?"

"Ah, sir!" replied Sharp, on whom the wine was already beginning to operate, "you have thus a n.o.ble opportunity of being the architect of a reputation that might be the envy of the world. You can now pay your creditors in full--twenty s.h.i.+llings in the pound, and retain five thousand to yourself, with the character of being that n.o.blest work of nature--an honest man.'

"When a thing is utterly beyond one's reach," rejoined Samuel, looking, with a wry face, right into the soul of the attorney, "how beautiful it appears."

Sharp accepted coolly the cut, because he had claret to heal it, otherwise he would have a.s.suredly knocked down Mr Samuel Thriven.