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Keep the siller, lad yell hae need o't, I'se warrant ye, and I hae nane my claes is nae great things, and I get a blue gown every year, and as mony siller groats as the king, God bless him, is years auld you and I serve the same master, ye ken, Captain Taffril; there's rigging provided for and my meat and drink I get for the asking in my rounds, or, at an orra time, I can gang a day without it, for I make it a rule never to pay for nane; so that a' the siller I need is just to buy tobacco and sneeshin, and maybe a dram at a time in a cauld day, though I am nae dram-drinker to be a gaberlunzie; sae take back your gowd, and just gie me a lily-white shilling."
This, however, was clear, that he did not intend to stand again himself, and that he professed himself ready to put forward Alaric Tudor as a worthy successor, and to give him the full benefit and weight of the Gaberlunzie interest. But not for nothing was Alaric to receive such important assistance.
But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar." With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to the door through which her ambassador had departed.
"Not at all, not at all," said Oldbuck, resuming the subject of his disquisition "the human mind is to be treated like a skein of ravelled silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you can make any progress in disentangling it." "I ken naething about that," said the gaberlunzie; "but an my auld acquaintance be hersell, or anything like hersell, she may come to wind us a pirn.
"Indeed, my sweet leddy," said the gaberlunzie, "ye maun just trust that bit secret to auld Edie's grey pow, and ask nae questions about it. Certainly if I wad hae wared my life for you yon night, I can hae nae reason to play an ill pliskie t'ye in the day o' your distress." "Well, Edie, follow me then," said Miss Wardour, "and I will try to get you sent to Tannonburgh."
But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar." With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to the door through which her ambassador had departed.
"Ou ay I'll aye come for my awmous as usual, and whiles I wad be fain o' a pickle sneeshin, and ye maun speak to the constable and ground-officer just to owerlook me; and maybe ye'll gie a gude word for me to Sandie Netherstanes, the miller, that he may chain up his muckle dog I wadna hae him to hurt the puir beast, for it just does its office in barking at a gaberlunzie like me.
He cam' here as a gaberlunzie, and on stating that he was indoctrinated in the sceence o' buttany, his honor garred me employ him. De'il hae't but the truth I'll tell he's a clever buttanist, and knows a' the sceentific names aff hand." "So that's all you know about him?" said Sir Robert. "He has a devil of a beard, and is shockingly dressed. Why doesn't he shave?"
"It would do your heart good," continued he, "to see a number of our poor country people seated round the ingle nook, which is generally capacious enough, and passing the long dark dreary winter nights listening to some old wife, or strolling gaberlunzie, dealing out auld world stories about bogles and warlocks, or about raids and forays, and border skirmishes; or reciting some ballad stuck full of those fighting names that stir up a true Scotchman's blood like the sound of a trumpet.
How he flourished for a while with ambiguous success; how he talked to the young English tourists of what he had done when in Parliament, especially for the rights of married women; how he poked his 'Honourable' card in every one's way, and lugged Lord Gaberlunzie into all conversations; how his face became pimply and his wardrobe seedy; and how at last his wretched life will ooze out from him in some dark corner, like the filthy juice of a decayed fungus which makes hideous the hidden wall on which it bursts, all this is unnecessary more particularly to describe.
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