When they had all partaken of this needful refreshment, the Udaller repeated his enquiries of Halcro, and more particularly of the Factor, how they came to be nestled in such a remote corner at such an hour of night.
“Maister Magnus Troil,” said Triptolemus, when a second cup had given him spirits to tell his tale of woe, “I would not have you think that it is a little thing that disturbs me. I came of that grain that takes a sair wind to shake it. I have seen many a Martinmas and many a Whitsunday in my day, whilk are the times peculiarly grievous to those of my craft, and I could aye bide the bang; but I think I am like to be dung ower a’thegither in this damned country of yours—Gude forgie me for swearing—but evil communication corrupteth good manners.”
“Now, Heaven guide us,” said the Udaller, “what is the matter with the man? Why, man, if you will put your plough into new land, you must look to have it hank on a stone now and then—You must set us an example of patience, seeing you come here for our improvement.”
“And the deil was in my feet when I did so,” said the Factor; “I had better have set myself to improve the cairn on Clochnaben.”
“But what is it, after all,” said the Udaller, “that has befallen you?—what is it that you complain of?”
“Of every thing that has chanced to me since I landed on this island, which I believe was accursed at the very creation,” said the agriculturist, “and assigned as a fitting station for sorners, thieves, whores, (I beg the ladies’ pardon,) witches, bitches, and all evil spirits!”
“By my faith, a goodly catalogue!” said Magnus; “and there has been the day, that if I had heard you give out the half of it, I should have turned improver myself, and have tried to amend your manners with a cudgel.”
“Bear with me,” said the Factor, “Maister Fowd, or Maister Udaller, or whatever else they may call you, and as you are strong be pitiful, and consider the luckless lot of any inexperienced person who lights upon this earthly paradise of yours. He asks for drink, they bring him sour whey—no disparagement to your brandy, Fowd, which is excellent—You ask for meat, and they bring you sour sillocks that Satan might choke upon—You call your labourers together, and bid them work; it proves Saint Magnus’s day, or Saint Ronan’s day, or some infernal saint or other’s—or else, perhaps, they have come out of bed with the wrong foot foremost, or they have seen an owl, or a rabbit has crossed their path, or they have dreamed of a roasted horse—in short, nothing is to be done—Give them a spade, and they work as if it burned their fingers; but set them to dancing, and see when they will tire of funking and flinging!”
“And why should they, poor bodies,” said Claud Halcro, “as long as there are good fiddlers to play to them?”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, shaking his head, “you are a proper person to uphold them in such a humour. Well, to proceed:—I till a piece of my best ground; down comes a sturdy beggar that wants a kailyard, or a plant-a-cruive, as you call it, and he claps down an enclosure in the middle of my bit shot of corn, as lightly as if he was baith laird and tenant; and gainsay him wha likes, there he dibbles in his kail-plants! I sit down to my sorrowful dinner, thinking to have peace and quietness there at least; when in comes one, two, three, four, or half-a-dozen of skelping long lads, from some foolery or anither, misca’ me for barring my ain door against them, and eat up the best half of what my sister’s providence—and she is not over bountiful—has allotted for my dinner! Then enters a witch, with an ellwand in her hand, and she raises the wind or lays it, whichever she likes, majors up and down my house as if she was mistress of it, and I am bounden to thank Heaven if she carries not the broadside of it away with her!”
“Still,” said the Fowd, “this is no answer to my question—how the foul fiend I come to find you at moorings here?”
“Have patience, worthy sir,” replied the afflicted Factor, “and listen to what I have to say, for I fancy it will be as well to tell you the whole matter. You must know, I once thought that I had gotten a small godsend, that might have made all these matters easier.”
“How! a godsend! Do you mean a wreck, Master Factor?” exclaimed Magnus; “shame upon you, that should have set example to others!”
“It was no wreck,” said the Factor; “but, if you must needs know, it chanced that as I raised an hearthstane in one of the old chambers at Stourburgh, (for my sister is minded that there is little use in mair fire-places about a house than one, and I wanted the stane to knock bear upon,) when, what should I light on but a horn full of old coins, silver the maist feck of them, but wi’ a bit sprinkling of gold amang them too.[26] Weel, I thought this was a dainty windfa’, and so thought Baby, and we were the mair willing to put up with a place where there were siccan braw nest-eggs—and we slade down the stane cannily over the horn, which seemed to me to be the very cornucopia, or horn of abundance; and for further security, Baby wad visit the room maybe twenty times in the day, and mysell at an orra time, to the boot of a’ that.”
“On my word, and a very pretty amusement,” said Claud Halcro, “to look over a horn of one’s own siller. I question if glorious John Dryden ever enjoyed such a pastime in his life—I am very sure I never did.”
“Yes, but you forget, Jarto Claud,” said the Udaller, “that the Factor was only counting over the money for my Lord the Chamberlain. As he is so keen for his Lordship’s rights in whales and wrecks, he would not surely forget him in treasure-trove.”
“A-hem! a-hem! a-he—he—hem!” ejaculated Triptolemus, seized at the moment with an awkward fit of coughing,—“no doubt, my Lord’s right in the matter would have been considered, being in the hand of one, though I say it, as just as can be found in Angus-shire, let alone the Mearns. But mark what happened of late! One day, as I went up to see that all was safe and snug, and just to count out the share that should have been his Lordship’s—for surely the labourer, as one may call the finder, is worthy of his hire—nay, some learned men say, that when the finder, in point of trust and in point of power, representeth the dominus, or lord superior, he taketh the whole; but let that pass, as a kittle question in apicibus juris, as we wont to say at Saint Andrews—Well, sir and ladies, when I went to the upper chamber, what should I see but an ugsome, ill-shaped, and most uncouth dwarf, that wanted but hoofs and horns to have made an utter devil of him, counting over the very hornful of siller! I am no timorous man, Master Fowd, but, judging that I should proceed with caution in such a matter—for I had reason to believe that there was devilry in it—I accosted him in Latin, (whilk it is maist becoming to speak to aught whilk taketh upon it as a goblin,) and conjured him in nomine, and so forth, with such words as my poor learning could furnish of a suddenty, whilk, to say truth, were not so many, nor altogether so purely latineezed as might have been, had I not been few years at college, and many at the pleugh. Well, sirs, he started at first, as one that heareth that which he expects not; but presently recovering himself, he wawls on me with his grey een, like a wild-cat, and opens his mouth, whilk resembled the mouth of an oven, for the deil a tongue he had in it, that I could spy, and took upon his ugly self, altogether the air and bearing of a bull-dog, whilk I have seen loosed at a fair upon a mad staig;[27] whereupon I was something daunted, and withdrew myself to call upon sister Baby, who fears neither dog nor devil, when there is in question the little penny siller. And truly she raise to the fray as I hae seen the Lindsays and Ogilvies bristle up, when Donald MacDonnoch, or the like, made a start down frae the Highlands on the braes of Islay. But an auld useless carline, called Tronda Dronsdaughter, (they might call her Drone the sell of her, without farther addition,) flung herself right in my sister’s gate, and yelloched and skirled, that you would have thought her a whole generation of hounds; whereupon I judged it best to make ae yoking of it, and stop the pleugh until I got my sister’s assistance. Whilk when I had done, and we mounted the stair to the apartment in which the said dwarf, devil, or other apparition, was to be seen, dwarf, horn, and siller, were as clean gane as if the cat had lickit the place where I saw them.”