She speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up to fit their own thoughts.
Hamlet.
Like the digressive poet Ariosto, I find myself under the necessity of connecting
the branches of my story, by taking up the adventures of another of the
characters, and bringing them down to the point at which we have left those of
Jeanie Deans. It is not, perhaps, the most artificial way of telling a story, but it
has the advantage of sparing the necessity of resuming what a knitter (if
stocking-looms have left such a person in the land) might call our "dropped
stitches;" a labour in which the author generally toils much, without getting credit
for his pains.
"I could risk a sma' wad," said the clerk to the magistrate, "that this rascal
Ratcliffe, if he were insured of his neck's safety, could do more than ony ten of
our police-people and constables to help us to get out of this scrape of
Porteous's. He is weel acquent wi' a' the smugglers, thieves, and banditti about
Edinburgh; and, indeed, he may be called the father of a' the misdoers in
Scotland, for he has passed amang them for these twenty years by the name of
Daddie Rat."
"A bonny sort of a scoundrel," replied the magistrate, "to expect a place under
the city!"
"Begging your honour's pardon," said the city's procurator-fiscal, upon whom the
duties of superintendent of police devolved, "Mr. Fairscrieve is perfectly in the
right. It is just sic as Ratcliffe that the town needs in my department; an' if sae be
that he's disposed to turn his knowledge to the city service, yell no find a better
man.--Ye'll get nae saints to be searchers for uncustomed goods, or for thieves
and sic like;--and your decent sort of men, religious professors, and broken
tradesmen, that are put into the like o' sic trust, can do nae gude ava. They are
feared for this, and they are scrupulous about that, and they arena free to tell a
lie, though it may be for the benefit of the city; and they dinna like to be out at
irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like a clout ower the crown far
waur; and sae between the fear o' God, and the fear o' man, and the fear o'
getting a sair throat, or sair banes, there's a dozen o' our city-folk, baith waiters,
and officers, and constables, that can find out naething but a wee bit skulduddery
for the benefit of the Kirk treasurer. Jock Porteous, that's stiff and stark, puir
