unsavoury customs which our traveller had in so many instances succeeded in abating. Guided, therefore, by his nose, the Nabob made a considerable circuit to avoid the displeasure and danger of passing this filthy puddle at the nearest, and by that means fell upon Scylla as he sought to avoid Charybdis. In plain language, he approached so near the bank of a little rivulet, which in that place passed betwixt the footpath and the horse-road, that he lost his footing, and fell into the channel of the streamlet from a height of three or four feet. It was thought that the noise of his fall, or at least his call for assistance, must have been heard in the house of Saunders Jaup; but that honest person was, according to his own account, at that time engaged in the exercise of the evening; an excuse which passed current, although Saunders was privately heard to allege, that the town would have been the quieter, “if the auld, meddling busybody had bidden still in the burn for gude and a'.”
But Fortune had provided better for poor Touchwood, whose foibles, as they arose out of the most excellent motives, would have ill deserved so severe a fate. A passenger, who heard him shout for help, ventured cautiously to the side of the bank, down which he had fallen; and, after ascertaining the nature of the ground as carefully as the darkness permitted, was at length, and not without some effort, enabled to assist him out of the channel of the rivulet.
“Are you hurt materially?” said this good Samaritan to the object of his care.
“No—no—d—n it—no,” said Touchwood, extremely angry at his disaster, and the cause of it. “Do you think I, who have been at the summit of Mount Athos, where the precipice sinks a thousand feet on the sea, care a farthing about such a fall as this is?”
But, as he spoke, he reeled, and his kind assistant caught him by the arm to prevent his falling.
“I fear you are more hurt than you suppose, sir,” said the stranger: “permit me to go home along with you.”
“With all my heart,” said Touchwood; “for though it is impossible I can need help in such a foolish matter, yet I am equally obliged to you, friend; and if the Cleikum Inn be not out of your road, I will take your arm so far, and thank you to the boot.”
“It is much at your service, sir,” said the stranger; “indeed, I was thinking to lodge there for the night.”
“I am glad to hear it,” resumed Touchwood; “you shall be my guest, and I will make them look after you in proper fashion—You seem to be a very civil sort of fellow, and I do not find your arm inconvenient—it is the rheumatism makes me walk so ill—the pest of all that have been in hot climates when they settle among these d —d fogs.”
“Lean as hard and walk as slow as you will, sir,” said the benevolent assistant—“this is a rough street.”
“Yes, sir—and why is it rough?” answered Touchwood. “Why, because the old pig-headed fool, Saunders Jaup, will not allow it to be made smooth. There he sits, sir, and obstructs all rational improvement; and, if a man would not fall into his infernal putrid gutter, and so become an abomination to himself and odious to others, for his whole life to come, he runs the risk of breaking his neck, as I have done to-night.”
“I am afraid, sir,” said his companion, “you have fallen on the most dangerous side.—You remember Swift's proverb, ‘The more dirt, the less hurt.’”
“But why should there be either dirt or hurt in a well-regulated place?” answered Touchwood—“Why should not men be able to go about their affairs at night, in such a hamlet as this, without either endangering necks or noses?—Our Scottish magistrates are worth nothing, sir—nothing at all. Oh for a Turkish Cadi, now, to trounce the scoundrel—or the Mayor of Calcutta to bring him into his court—or were it but an English Justice of the Peace that is newly included in the commission, they would abate the villain's nuisance with a vengeance on him!—But here we are—this is the Cleikum Inn.—Hallo—hilloa—house!—Eppie Anderson!—Beenie Chambermaid!—boy Boots!— Mrs. Dods!—are you all of you asleep and dead?—Here have I been half murdered, and you let me stand bawling at the door!”
Eppie Anderson came with a light, and so did Beenie Chambermaid with another; but no sooner did they look upon the pair who stood in the porch under the huge sign that swung to and fro with heavy creaking, than Beenie screamed, flung away her candle, although a four in the pound, and in a newly japanned candlestick, and fled one way, while Eppie Anderson, echoing the yell, brandished her light round her head like a Bacchante flourishing her torch, and ran off in another direction.
“Ay—I must be a bloody spectacle,” said Mr. Touchwood, letting himself fall heavily upon his assistant's shoulder, and wiping his face, which trickled with wet—“I did not think I had been so seriously hurt; but I find my weakness now—I must have lost much blood.”
“I hope you are still mistaken,” said the stranger; “but here lies the way to the kitchen—we shall find light there, since no one chooses to bring it to us.”
He assisted the old gentleman into the kitchen, where a lamp, as well as a bright fire, was burning, by the light of which he could easily discern that the supposed blood was only water of the rivulet, and, indeed, none of the cleanest, although much more so than the sufferer would have found it a little lower, where the stream is joined by the superfluities of Saunders Jaup's palladium. Relieved by his new friend's repeated assurances that such was the case, the Senior began to bustle up a little, and his companion, desirous to render him every assistance, went to the door of the kitchen to call for a basin and water. Just as he was about to open the door, the voice of Mrs. Dods was heard as she descended the stairs, in a tone of indignation by no means unusual to her, yet mingled at the same time with a few notes that sounded like unto the quaverings of consternation.
“Idle limmers—silly sluts—I'll warrant nane o' ye will ever see ony thing waur than yoursell, ye silly tawpies—Ghaist, indeed!—I'll warrant it's some idle dub-skelper frae the Waal, coming after some o' yoursells on nae honest errand—Ghaist, indeed!—Haud up the candle, John Ostler—I'se warrant it a twa-handed ghaist, and the door left on the sneck. There's somebody in the kitchen—gang forward wi' the lantern, John Ostler.”
At this critical moment the stranger opened the door of the kitchen, and beheld the Dame advancing at the head of her household troops. The ostler and humpbacked postilion, one bearing a stable-lantern and a hay-fork, the other a rushlight and a broom, constituted the advanced guard; Mrs. Dods herself formed the centre, talking loud and brandishing a pair of tongs; while the two maids, like troops not to be much trusted after their recent defeat, followed, cowering in the rear. But notwithstanding this admirable disposition, no sooner had the stranger shown his face, and pronounced the words “Mrs. Dods!” than a panic seized the whole array. The advanced guard recoiled in consternation, the ostler upsetting Mrs. Dods in the confusion of his retreat; while she, grappling with him in her terror, secured him by the ears and hair, and they joined their cries together in hideous chorus. The two maidens resumed their former flight, and took refuge in the darksome den, entitled their bedroom, while the humpbacked postilion fled like the wind into the stable, and, with professional instinct, began, in the extremity of his terror, to saddle a horse.
Meanwhile, the guest whose appearance had caused this combustion, plucked the roaring ostler from above Mrs. Dods, and pushing him away with a hearty slap on the shoulder, proceeded to raise and encourage the fallen landlady, enquiring, at the same time, “What, in the devil's name, was the cause of all this senseless confusion?”
“And what is the reason, in Heaven's name,” answered the matron, keeping her eyes firmly shut, and still shrewish in her expostulation, though in the very extremity of terror, “what is the reason that you should come and frighten a decent house, where you met naething, when ye was in the body, but the height of civility?”
“And why should I frighten you, Mrs. Dods? or, in one word, what is the meaning of all this nonsensical terror?”
“Are not you,” said Mrs. Dods, opening her eyes a little as she spoke, “the ghaist of Francis Tirl?”
“I am Francis Tyrrel, unquestionably, my old friend.”
“I kend it! I kend it!” answered the honest woman, relapsing into her agony; “and I think ye might be ashamed of yourself, that are a ghaist, and have nae better to do than to frighten a puir auld alewife.”
“On my word, I am no ghost, but a living man,” answered Tyrrel.
“Were ye no murdered than?” demanded Mrs. Dods, still in an uncertain voice, and only partially opening her eyes—“Are ye very sure ye werena murdered?”
“Why, not that ever I heard of, certainly, dame,” replied Tyrrel.
“But
