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Pleydell, there is only one case upon record, Torrence and Waldie. They were, you remember, resurrection-women, who had promised to procure a child's body for some young surgeons. Being upon honour to their employers, rather than disappoint the evening lecture of the students, they stole a live child, murdered it, and sold the body for three shillings and sixpence.
But the common life of the modern Romans, the games, customs, habits of the people, the everyday of To-day, has been only touched upon here and there, sometimes with spirit and accuracy, as by Charles McFarlane, sometimes with great grace, as by Hans Christian Andersen, and sometimes with great ignorance, as by Miss Waldie.
I canna forget the trouble he took on my appointment to the honourable office o' boxmaster." "It was I that made ye boxmaster, Andrew," said Mrs Jean Todd. "I commanded the suffrages o' the hail corporation. Deacon Waldie couldna hae opposed me.
This sensible speech had, as the sun does the fire, extinguished Andrew's mental cogitations, and put out his courage. A silence had reigned for several minutes, when Mr Deacon Waldie entered. Drawing in a chair, he commenced "The boxmaster would doubtless be tellin ye, madam," said he, "that I wanted a sma' favour aff him.
The deacon of the incorporation again, Murdoch Waldie, was a man of a very different cast from the boxmaster. He was a person of considerable parts; but his conceit, which led him to conceive himself cleverer than nature had made him, produced often all the consequences which result from a deficiency of mental parts.
He still remained silent; his agitation increased, and he trembled in every limb. "There's something wrang, Andrew," said she. "Tell me what it is. I'm no angry. By tryin to conceal it, ye may ruin us baith; by tellin me, we may hae a chance o' bein saved. Come, now, has Deacon Waldie the key?" "Ay," said Andrew, in a low tone.
"I canna promise, Mrs Deacon Waldie," said he to his wife, according to the fashion of address that suited his dignity "I canna promise to get the boxmaster to gie his name to yer faither's bond. He's sae completely, puir cratur! under the power and direction o' a woman, that he daurna tak sae muckle liberty wi' his ain.
The naïvete of his statement, that "she shouldna hae left him unprotected," was quite enough to have mollified a much sterner woman than Mrs Jean Todd, and during that same night they were a far happier couple than Deacon Waldie and his fair spouse.
But it was more easy for Mrs Waldie to ask, and give thanks and tears, and for her husband to vouchsafe his own name as cautioner, than for him to get out of the clutches of Mrs Jean Todd the consent of her husband. The deacon knew how his brother-official was ruled by his wife, and lustily despised the white-livered caitiff for his pusillanimity.
"How are you, Mr Deacon Waldie?" said she, repeating her curtsey, and looking at him with an eye that pierced him to the heart.
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