The Surgeons Daughter | Page 7

very
intelligible; and that I consider as the first point in every thing that is
intended to be understood. There are, indeed, here and there some
flights and fancies, which I comprehended with difficulty; but I got to

your meaning at last. There are people that are like ponies; their
judgments cannot go fast, but they go sure."
"That is a pretty clear proposition, my friend; but then how did you like
the meaning when you did get at it? or was that like some ponies, too
difficult to catch, and, when caught, not worth the trouble?"
"I am far from saying that, my dear sir, in respect it would be
downright uncivil; but since you ask my opinion, I wish you could have
thought about something more appertaining to civil policy, than all this
bloody work about shooting and dirking, and downright hanging. I am
told it was the Germans who first brought in such a practice of
choosing their heroes out of the Porteous Roll; [Footnote: List of
criminal indictments, so termed in Scotland.] but, by my faith, we are
like to be upsides with them. The first was, as I am credibly informed,
Mr. Scolar, as they call him; a scholar-like piece of work he has made
of it, with his robbers and thieves."
"Schiller," said I, "my dear sir, let it be Schiller."
"Schiller, or what you like," said Mr. Fairscribe; "I found the book
where I wish I had found a better one, and that is, in Kate's work-basket.
I sat down, and, like an old fool, began to read; but there, I grant, you
have the better of Schiller, Mr. Croftangry."
"I should be glad, my dear sir, that you really think I have approached
that admirable author; even your friendly partiality ought not to talk of
my having excelled him."
"But I do say you have excelled him, Mr. Croftangry, in a most
material particular. For surely a book of amusement should be
something that one can take up and lay down at pleasure; and I can say
justly, I was never at the least loss to put aside these sheets of yours
when business came in the way. But, faith, this Schiller, sir, does not let
you off so easily. I forgot one appointment on particular business, and I
wilfully broke through another, that I might stay at home and finish his
confounded book, which, after all, is about two brothers, the greatest
rascals I ever heard of. The one, sir, goes near to murder his own father,

and the other (which you would think still stranger) sets about to
debauch his own wife."
"I find, then, Mr. Fairscribe, that you have no taste for the romance of
real life--no pleasure in contemplating those spirit-rousing impulses,
which force men of fiery passions upon great crimes and great virtues?"
"Why, as to that, I am not just so sure. But then to mend the matter,"
continued the critic, "you have brought in Highlanders into every story,
as if you were going back again, velis et remis, into the old days of
Jacobitism. I must speak my plain mind, Mr. Croftangry. I cannot tell
what innovations in Kirk and State may now be proposed, but our
fathers were friends to both, as they were settled at the glorious
Revolution, and liked a tartan plaid as little as they did a white surplice.
I wish to Heaven, all this tartan fever bode well to the Protestant
succession and the Kirk of Scotland."
"Both too well settled, I hope, in the minds of the subject," said I, "to
be affected by old remembrances, on which we look back as on the
portraits of our ancestors, without recollecting, while we gaze on them,
any of the feuds by which the originals were animated while alive. But
most happy should I be to light upon any topic to supply the place of
the Highlands, Mr. Fairscribe. I have been just reflecting that the theme
is becoming a little exhausted, and your experience may perhaps
supply"----
"Ha, ha, ha!--my experience supply!" interrupted Mr. Fairscribe, with a
laugh of derision;--"why, you might as well ask my son James's
experience to supply a case" about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I
have lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek
the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and
corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove
themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should
come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a
queer story or two of estates that have been lost and recovered. But, to
tell you the truth, I think you might do with your Muse