Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XXI Part 8

"Well, buy them yoursel'," said the woman.

"Done," said he; "there's five guineas for them, and you can gie them to Meg as a present. Now, are ye firm?"

"Firm!" she cried, as she clutched the money, and gave a shrill laugh, from a nerve that was never softened by pity or penitence. "I think nae mair on't, man--sir, I mean, for ye proved yoursel' a gentleman to me afore--than I do now in spaeing twins to your wife at her next doun-lying."

A rap on the table, from the bottom of the pewter measure, brought in the landlord.

"Fill that again," said the writer.

And the man having re-entered with the pewter measure----

"You're to give this woman board and lodging for a day or two, and I will pay you before I start."

"That will be oot o' the five hundred frae her uncle," said the man, laughing. "She's my lady noo; but what will become o' the mice?"

"There's Meg Davidson pa.s.sing the window e'en noo," said the woman.

"Send her in," said the writer to the change-house keeper.

The woman going under this name was immediately introduced by the man, with a kind of mock formality; for he could not get quit of the impression that his old customer had really succeeded to the five hundred pounds--a sum, in his estimation, sufficiently large to insure respect.

"Maggy," said the writer, "tak this chair, and here's a dram. What think ye?"

"I dinna ken."

"Ye're to get the twa white mice and the cage for naething, and this dram to boot."

Meg's face cleared up like a June sun come out in a burst.

"Na," she said; "ye're joking."

"But it's upon a condition," rejoined he.

"Weel, what is't--that I'm to feed them weel, and keep them clean?"

"You'll do that too," said he, laughing, "for they're valuable creatures, and bonny; but you're to say you've had them for a year."

"For twa, if you like," replied the woman; "a puir fusionless lee that, and no worth sending a body to the deil for."

"Here they are," said the tramp; "and you're to tak care o' them.

They've been my staff for mony a day, and they're the only creatures on earth I care for and like; for they never said to me, 'Get out, ye wretch,' or banned me for a witch; but were aye sae happy wi' their pickles o' barley, and maybe a knot o' sugar, when I could get at a farmer's wife's bowl."

Even hags have pathetic moods. Meg was affected; and the writer, having appreciated the virtue, whispered in the ear of his _protegee_, "Seven o'clock on Wednesday night," and left them to the remainder of the whisky. At the door he settled with the man, and, mounting his horse, which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for, in addition to his oats, he set off at his old trot.

"Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice," he said, as he pushed on.

The writer was, no doubt, bent eagerly for home, but he seldom got to his intended destination, though we have given one or two examples of an uninterrupted course, without undergoing several stoppages, either from the sudden calls of business, which lay in every direction, or the seductions of conviviality, equally ubiquitous; and on this occasion he was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar, whose plan for draining the loch, by making toddy of it, had not, to their discomfort, been realized, but who made due retaliation by very clean drainings elsewhere. The moment he heard the shout he understood the meaning thereof, because he knew the house, the locality, and the men; and Meg Davidson and her mice were pa.s.sed into the wallet-bag of time, till he should give these revellers their satisfaction in a boon companion who could see them under the table, and then mount his horse, with a power of retention of his seat unexampled in a county famous for revolutions of heads as well as of bodies. Dismounting from his horse, he got his dinner, a meal he had expected at Dundee; and, in spite of the distance of fourteen miles which lay before him, he despatched tumbler after tumbler without being once tempted to the imprudence of letting out his extraordinary hunt, but rather with the prudence of sending, through his compotators, to the county town the fact that a woman who perambulated the country with white mice was really the murderer of the country girl. This statement he was able to make, even at that acme of his dithyrambics, when, as usual, he got upon the head of the table to make his speech of the evening. It was now eleven, and he had swallowed eight tumblers, yet he was comparatively steady when he mounted; and, though during the fourteen miles he swung like a well-ballasted barque in a gale of wind, he made sufficient headway to be home by half-past twelve.

Next morning, as ready and able as usual for the work of the day, he was at his desk about eleven, and when engaged with one client, while others were waiting to be despatched in the way in which he alone could discharge clients, he was waited on by a gentleman connected with the Crown Office. Having been yielded a preference, the official took his seat.

"I understand you are employed for Mrs. S----?" he said. "We have thought it necessary, as disinterested protectors of the lives of the king's subjects, to apprehend this woman. I need not say that our precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her as the salvation of your client."

"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her residence is where you may chance to find her."

"Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did you find her?"

"Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her.

A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find her, you will subst.i.tute her for my client, and make amends for the disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable family."

"I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant, influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the excitement of a mania."

"Then, why ask me to help you to find her?"

"For our satisfaction as public officers."

"And to my detriment as a private agent."

"Not at all."

"Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid martyrdom!--paid by whom?"

"Not necessarily by you."

"But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her own mouth, don't you?"

"Of course we would examine her."

"Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a peripatetic menagerie?"

"Ridiculous!"

"Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself, and do you not wish me to become the midwife?"

"I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman.

"You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to cannot stand the test."

"G.o.d bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her out."

Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife, with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues of his brain; and hope had a.s.sumed the character of an impossibility in the moral world of G.o.d's government.

"You must cheer up," said the writer. "Come, some milk and whisky. Move about; I have got good news for you, but cannot trust you."

The head of the man was raised up, and a slight beam was, as it were, struck from his eye by the jerk of a sudden impulse. His step, as he moved to gratify the agent, seemed to have acquired even a spring.

"Why are you here," he said, as he brought the indispensable jug, with something even more than the five-eighths of the spiritual element added to the two gla.s.ses, "if you cannot tell me the grounds of my hope? I could not comprehend what you meant about the woman and the white mice."

"Nor do I want you to understand it; it is enough if I do," replied Mr.

M----, as he put the jug to his mouth; "but this I want you to understand, in the first place, that I want an order for fifty pounds from you."