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The cheap tea might not have aroused their enthusiasm, but at the mention of a free glass of whisky the deepest emotions of the Vennel were stirred. "Tea at elevenpence halfpenny," cried Tinkler Tam, who jogged round the country with petty wares, which he sold in exchange for rabbit-skins, old clothes, and other débris of a house, "and a glass of whisky free!
The king's highway, as I have related in the foregoing, ran through the Vennel, which was a narrow and a crooked street, with many big stones here and there, and every now and then, both in the spring and the fall, a gathering of middens for the fields; insomuch that the coal-carts from the Douray moor were often reested in the middle of the causey, and on more than one occasion some of them laired altogether in the middens, and others of them broke down.
Malise, do you hear, great dour cuif that ye are, what says my lord? And you to think so little of your married wife as ye do! Think shame, you being what ye are, and me the ain sister to that master o' merchandise and Bailie o' Dumfries, Maister Ninian Halliburton o' the Vennel!" And with that she vanished into the black oblong of the door opposite the smithy.
By their robes of decent brown they seemed merchants on a journey, portly of figure, and consequential of bearing. As Sholto rapidly made up to them, with his better horse and lighter weight, he perceived that the travellers were those two admirable and noteworthy magistrates of Dumfries, Robert Semple and his own uncle Ninian Halliburton of the Vennel.
"He gave me six days in the court," said Jess Mitchell, who had had a difference of opinion with another lady in the Vennel and received the Bailie's best attention from the Bench, "and if I hadna to hear him preach a sermon as long as my leg besides confound him for a smooth-tongued, psalm-singin', bletherin' old idiot!
Whether he made this departure and return twenty or a hundred times in a night, he nor any one else could have told. Sometimes he would for a change extend his trot along the Widdiehill, sometimes along the parallel Vennel, but never far from Jink Lane and its glowing window. Never moth haunted lamp so persistently.
"Troth, sir, I'se no lee about the matter," answered Moniplies. "I was coming along the street here, and ilk ane was at me with their jests and roguery. So I thought to mysell, ye are ower mony for me to mell with; but let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I could gar some of ye sing another sang.
Come, get you out, or I will put you to the door with head and shoulders forward." "Ha ha!" exclaimed Oliver, laughing with some constraint, "thou art such a groom! But in sadness, gossip Henry, wilt thou not take a turn with me to my own house, in the Meal Vennel?" "Curse thee, no," answered the smith. "I will bestow the wine on thee if thou wilt go," said Oliver.
It was sure enough in the manner of an old woman with a face peat-tanned to crinkled leather who ran out of the Vennel or lane, and, bending to the Marquis his lace wrist-bands, kissed them as I've seen Papists do the holy duds in Notre Dame and Bruges Kirk. This display before me, something of a stranger, a little displeased Gillesbeg Gruamach.
That worthy could give no information about the remarkable placard, not even from whom he received it; but he was quite sure that he was to take it through the Vennel and neighbouring streets for two hours, and that he had received a shilling for his labour, which he proposed to spend at Bailie MacConachie's when his task was done.
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