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"Just as I was beginning to prosper, hooever, and to get my head aboon the water, there was ane o' my auld creditors to whom I had paid the composition of seventeen and sixpence halfpenny in the pound, wha was a hard-hearted, avaricious sort o' man, and to whom I had promised, and not only promised, but given a written pledge, to pay him the remaining two and fivepence halfpenny in the pound, together with interest, in the course of six years.
He had been fashioning two saplings into strong handspikes, and now offered one each to the gentlemen. 'Ye'll not be too proud to bear a hand wi' the mast aboon: it'll be a kittle job lugging it to the pond; so just lend us a shove now and then. The great mass was at last got into motion, by a difficult concerted starting of all the oxen at the same moment.
"'Fair, fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the pudding race: Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Paunch, tripe, or thairm; Weel are ye worthy o' a grace As lang's my arm. "This bird is excellent; whoever cooked it, 'His name should be enrolled In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's framed of gold.
Often he had to pity victims of circumstances in the sudden changes of colonial commerce; but "the gods aboon can only ken" to discriminate impartially in such cases, and duty to the bank must be done. First, the humorous twinkle in the eye sensibly abated, but it still lingered there, unless there must be still stronger stages of the ordeal, to bring the business culprit to reason.
"And how often wad that be, trow ye, my leddy? maybe no ance atween Candlemas and Yule and if a' thing were done to my hand, as if I was Sir Arthur himsell, I could never bide the staying still in ae place, and just seeing the same joists and couples aboon my head night after night. -And then I have a queer humour o' my ain, that sets a strolling beggar weel eneugh, whase word naebody minds but ye ken Sir Arthur has odd sort o' ways and I wad be jesting or scorning at them and ye wad be angry, and then I wad be just fit to hang mysell."
"But," he continued, "I do now remember that some of your ladyship's ancestors settled in Boston, for there is a monument to one of them in King's Chapel." James Otis inherited that sturdy New England pride which puts manhood above dukedoms and coronets. "A king may make a belted knight, A marquis, duke and a' that, But an honest man's aboon his might."
This happened a short way aboon the Netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which made him rather eschew this civility.
The premises I admit, namely, that when I mounted on that infernal hack, I might utter what seemed a sigh, although I deemed it lost amid the puffs and groans of the broken-winded brute, matchless in the complication of her complaints by any save she, the poor man's mare, renowned in song, that died A mile aboon Dundee.
'Sae lang, that I could weel tak a dram. 'Gudewife, bring the gill stoup. Here some compliments passed fitting the occasion, when my host of the Golden Candlestick, having, as he thought, opened his guest's heart by this hospitable propitiation, resumed his scrutiny. 'Ye'll no hae mickle better whisky than that aboon the Pass? 'I am nae frae aboon the Pass.
"A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that." "I did not know that you sung, Madame Goesler." "Only now and then when something specially requires it. And I am very fond of Scotch songs. I will sing to you now if you like it." Then she sang the whole song, "A man's a man for a' that," she said as she finished.
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