Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/276

17, 1860.] Somehow in this instance that pledge wouldn’t stand by me, but gave way.

“Give me a penn’orth, young ’un.”

“Yes, sir—they dinna smell.”

“If the lucifers don’t, the son of Lucifer does,” threw in Phillips.

“Ah, I haven’t got a copper, little ’un, nothing less than a shilling; so, never mind, my boy, I’ll buy from you to-morrow.”

“Buy them the nicht, if you please. I’m very hung-grey, sir.”

“He’ll give you his cheque for the balance, Geff.”

His little cold face, which had lightened up, now fell, for, from his bundle of papers, I saw his sales had been few that day.

“I’ll gang for change, sir.”

“Well, little ’un. I’ll try you—there is a shilling—now be a good boy, and bring me the change to-morrow morning to the hotel—ask for Mr. Turner.”

“Give my friend your word of honour, as a gentleman, as security for the bob.”

“As sure’s death, sir, I’ll bring the change the mom,” was the promise of young Lucifer before be vanished with the shilling.

“Well, Turner,” as we strolled along Princes Street, “you don’t expect to see your brimstone friend again, do you?”

“I do.”

“Your friend will dishonour his I.O.U. as sure as—”

“Well, I won’t grieve about the money; but I think I can trust yon boy.”

“Can? Why, you have trusted him; and your deliberation savours remarkably of the wisdom of the historical stable-keeper, who began to think about shutting the door when but the illustration don’t seem to strike you as a novelty.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

“Yes, wonders, but not young Brimstone and your money.”

Next morning we were on the Roslin Stage to “do” the wonderful little chapel there. It is a perfect little gem, and its tracery, and its witchery, and its flowers, and fruits, and stony stories charm and delight the civilised eye and soul as fresh to-day, as they did the rude barbarians four long centuries ago. I never visit Edinburgh, but I go and see that little chapel at Roslin, and always endeavour to have a fresh companion with me, to watch the new delight and joy he receives, and of which I am a partaker too. But to return to the Roslin Stage. We were stopped near the University by a crowd congregated round some wretch brought to grief by the race-horse pace of a butcher’s cart. A working man raised something in his arms, and, followed by the crowd, bore it off.

“It was over thereabouts, Phillips,” I said during the block-up, “that Lord Darnley, of exalted memory, was blown up in the Kirk o’ the Fields, to which sky-rocketing Mary of Scotland and the Isles, Regina, his beauteous, loving, and ill-starred spouse, was said to be a privy and consenting party.”

“Nothing peculiarly interesting or uncommon in that episode of connubial bliss, I should think, friend of mine. Blown up, my boy! One of dearest woman’s dearest privileges—that’s what you may look forward to when you pledge your plighted troth.”

“Blown up by gunpowder, Charley, Guy Faux fashion, though. That’s Damley’s garden-wall close by that public house, and that’s the door-way of it built up.”

“Quite right, too. No backways to the tap, say I. And Darnley be darned and blowed, too; but why don’t Jehu handle his ribbons, and stir up his thoroughbreds. Now, then, one o’clock, the stage waits.”

“Bid ye say ane o’clock, sir,” returned Jarvie, rustling his ribbons, after we had gone a little way. “I’m thin kin ye’re gey weel acquaint wi’ that hour, the ‘wee short hour ayont the twal,’ as Robbie says. Wad ye hae me drive on, regardless o’ life or lim, and may be render anither bairn lifeless, or an object for life. Na, na; ane o’clock kens better.”

“What’s put your pipe out, Charley, you neither smoke nor speak. Has ‘ane o’clock’ put on the stopper?”

“I houp not, sir—meant nae offence, sir,” said Coachee, who heard me. “Look ye, there’s Craigmillar Castle, where puir Queen Mary spent a few o’ her few happy days; and there’s Blackford Hill, where Sir Walter says Marmion stood and saw

And that’s Liberton, where Mr. Butler, in the Heart of Mid Lothian, was Dominie. And yonder’s Burdie House; there’s rare fossil fish and other creaturs got at its lime quarries, they tell me. Ah! I’ve mony a time seen puir Hugh Miller, wha’s dead and gone, oot here ladened wi’ bits o’ stanes that he ca’d fine specimens, and gae’d long nebbed foreign names to. Burdie House, ye ken, is Scotch for Bourdeaux House, a place where some of Mary’s foreign courtiers lived; and that village you see ow’r by my whip, was built for her French flunkeys, and is ca’d Little France to this very day.”

On our return to the inn, I inquired:

“Waiter, did a little boy call for me to-day?”

“Boy, sir?—call, sir? No, sir.”

“Of course, Geff, he didn’t. Did you really expect to see your young Arab again?”

“Indeed I did, Charley. I wish he had proved honest.”

“Then, oh Lucifer, son of the morning, how thou art fallen!”

Later in the evening a small boy was introduced, who wished to speak with me. He was a duodecimo edition of the small octavo of the previous day, got up with less outlay of capital—a shoeless, shirtless, shrunk, ragged, wretched, keen-witted Arab of the streets and closes of the city. He was so very small and cold and childlike—though with the same shivering feet and frame, thin, blue-cold face, down which tears had worn their weary channels—that I saw at once