Chapter VI: Part 6

And having made some monologue of this kind, he began to jot down particulars; laying on the table his pen, occasionally, to take another glass of the port wine, and resuming his operation again, with that peculiar zest which accompanies a playfulness of the fancy on a subject of darling interest. So he finished his arithmetical operation and dream, just about the time when the wine finished him; fell sound asleep; and awoke about two in the morning, with a headache, and no more recollection of having committed his secret to the blank leaf of the "Pilgrim's Progress," than if he had never written a word thereon at all.

CHAP. III.--THE FACING OF CREDITORS.

Of all men in the world, a bankrupt requires to wear a lugubrious look. It is proper, too, that he should keep the house, hold out the flag of distress, and pretend that he is an unfortunate mortal, who has been the prey either of adverse fate or designing rogues. Of all this Mr Thriven was well aware as ever man could be; no man could have acted the dyvour better than he, even though he had been upon the pillory, with the bankrupt's yellow cap on his head. Creditors kept calling upon him--some threatening imprisonment, and some trying to cajole him out of a preference; but Mr Samuel was a match for them all.

"It is all very well to look thus concernedly," said Mr Horner, a large creditor; "but will this pay the two hundred pounds you owe me?"

"Would to heaven that it might!" replied Mr Thriven, drawing his hand over his eyes; "but, alas! it is the peculiar feature of the misfortune of bankruptcy, that a man who has been himself ruined--ay, burned out of his stock by a fire that he had no hand in raising, and thus made a beggar of, probably for ever--receives not a single drop of sympathy in return for all the tears he sheds for his unfortunate creditors. Your case concerns me, sir, most of all; and, were it for nothing in the wide world but to make up your loss, I will strive with all my energies, even to the urging of the blood from the ends of my laborious fingers, and to the latest period of a wretched existence."

And Mr Horner being mollified, he was next attacked by Mr Wrench.

"It is but fair to inform you, sir," said the vulture-faced dealer in ginghams, "that I intend to try the effect of the prison upon you."

"That is because the most wicked of nature's elements-fire--has rendered me a beggar," replied Mr Samuel, rubbing again his eyes. "It is just the way of this world; when fate has rendered a man unfortunate, his fellow-creature, man, falls upon him to complete his wretchedness; even like the creatures of the forest, who fall upon the poor stag that has been wounded by the fall from the crags, man is ever cruellest to him who is already down. Yet you, who threaten to put me in jail, are the creditor of all others whose case concerns me most. The feeling for my own loss is nothing to what I suffer for yours; and I will never be satisfied till, by hard labour, I make up to you what I have been the unwilling and unconscious instrument of depriving you of."

And having got quit of Wrench, who declared himself not satisfied, though his threat, as he departed, was more feebly expressed, he was accosted by Mr Bairnsfather.

"Your face, sir, tortures me," said Mr Samuel, turning away his head, "even as one is tortured by the ghost of the friend he has murdered with a bloody and relentless hand. All my creditors put together do not furnish me matter of grief equal to your individual case. Do not I know that you are the father of ten children, whom probably I have ruined. Yet am I not also ruined, and all by a misfortune whose origin is beyond the ken of mortals?"

"You have spoken a melancholy truth, Mr Thriven," replied the father; "but will that truth feed my children?"

"No, sir; but I will feed them, when once discharged under a sequestration," rejoined Mr Thriven. "Your case above all the others, it shall be my care to assuage. Nor night nor day shall see my energies relaxed, till this wrong shall be made right."

"Our present necessities must be relieved," rejoined "the parent." "Could you not give us a part of our debt, in the meantime."

"And be dishonest in addition to being unfortunate!" ejaculated Mr Samuel. "That, sir, is the worst cut of all. No, no. I may be imprisoned, I may be fed on bread and water, I may be denied the benefit of the act of grace, but I shall never be forced to give an undue preference to one creditor over another. You forget, Mr Bairnsfather, that a bankrupt may have a conscience."

After much more of such converse, Mr Bairnsfather retired. And the next who came for the relief which she was not destined to receive, was Widow Mercer.

"This is a dreadful business, Mr Thriven," said she, as she ran forward in the confusion of unfeigned anguish.

"Dreadful, indeed, my good lady," answered he; "and who can feel it more than myself--that is, after you."

"You are a man, and I am a woman," rejoined the disconsolate creditor; "a woman who has struggled, since the death of her good husband, to support herself and a headless family, who, but for their mother's industry, might have, ere now, been reduced to seek their bread as the boon of pity. But ah, sir, it cannot be that you are to class me with the rest of your creditors. They are men, and may make up their losses in some other way. To me the loss of fifty pounds would be total ruin. Oh, sir, you will!--I know by that face of sympathy, you will make me an exception. Heaven will bless you for it; and my children will pray for you to the end of our lives."

"All this just adds to my misery," replied Mr Samuel; "and that misery, Heaven knows, is great enough already. Your case is that of the mother and the widow; and what need is there for a single word to tell me that it stands apart from all the others. But, madam, were I to pay your debt, do not you see that both you and I would be acting against the laws of our country. What supports me, think ye, under my misfortune, but the consciousness of innocence. Now, you would cruelly take away from me that consciousness, whereby, for the sake of a fifty-pound note, you would render me miserable here, and a condemned man hereafter. A hotter fire, of a verity, there is than that which burned up my stock. But I am bound to make amends for the loss I have brought upon you; and you may rest assured that, as soon as I am discharged, I will do my best for you and your poor bereaved sons and daughters."

And thus Mr Thriven managed these importunate beings, termed creditors, in a manner that he, doubtless, considered highly creditable to himself, in so far as he thereby spread more widely the fact that he had been ruined by no fault of his own, at the same time that he proved himself to be a man of feeling, justice, and sentiment. Meanwhile, his agent, Mr Sharp, was as busy as ever an attorney could be, in getting out a sequestration, with the indispensable adjunct of a personal protection, which the lords very willingly granted upon the lugubrious appeal, set forth in the petition, that Mr Thriven's misfortunes were attributable to the element of fire. A fifty-pound note, too, sent his shopman, Mr Joseph Clossmuns, over the Atlantic; and, the coast being clear, Mr Thriven went through his examinations with considerable eclat.

CHAP. IV.--THE WINDFALL.

"These men," said Mr Thriven, after he got home to dinner, "have worried me so by their questions, that they have imposed upon me the necessity of taking some cooling liquor to allay the fervour of my blood. I must drink to them, besides, for they were, upon the whole, less severe than they might have been; and a bottle of cool claret will answer both ends. And now," he continued, after he drank off a bumper to the long lives of his creditors--"the greatest part of my danger being over, I can see no great risk of my failing in getting them to accept a composition of five shillings in the pound. But what then? I have no great fancy to the counter. After all, a haberdasher is at best but a species of man-milliner; and I do no see why I should not, when I get my discharge in my pocket, act the gentleman as well as the best of them. All that is necessary is to get the devout Miss Angelina M'Falzen, who regenerates the species by distributing good books, to consent to be my wife. She has a spare figure, a sharp face, and a round thousand. Her fortune will be a cover to my idleness; and then I can draw upon the sum I have made by my failure, just as occasion requires."

At the end of this monologue, a sharp broken voice was heard in the passage; and Mr Samuel Thriven's bottle of claret was, in the twinkling of an eye, replaced by a jug of cool spring water.

"Ah, how do you do, my clear Miss M'Falzen?" cried Mr Samuel, as he rose to meet his devout sweetheart.

"Sir," responded the devout distributor of tracts, stiffly and coldly, "you are in far better spirits than becomes one who is the means of bringing ruin on so many families. I expected to have found you contrite of heart, and of a comely sadness of spirits and seriousness of look."

"And yet I am only feasting on cold water," replied Samuel, letting the muscles of his face fall, as he looked at the jug. "But you know, Miss Angelina, that I am innocent of the consequences of the fire, and, when one has a clear conscience, he may be as happy in adversity over a cup of water, as he may be in prosperity over a bottle of claret."

"A pretty sentiment, Mr Thriven--la! a beautiful sentiment," replied Miss Angelina; "and satisfied as I am of your purity, let me tell you that our intercourse shall not, with my will, be interrupted by your misfortune. I would rather, indeed, feel a delight in soothing you under your affliction, and administering the balm of friendship to the heart that is contrite, under the stroke which cannot be averted."

"And does my Angelina," cried Samuel, "regard me with the same kindness and tenderness in my present reduced circumstances, as when I was engaged in a flourishing trade, which might have emboldened me to hope for a still more intimate, ay, and sacred connection?"

"Mr Thriven," replied the other, gravely, "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer." Samuel's face underwent some considerable change. "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer, who has reported to me some sentiments stated by you to her, of so beautiful and amiable a character, and so becoming a Christian, that I admire you for them. You promised to do your utmost, after you are discharged, to make amends to her and her poor family for the loss she will sustain by your bankruptcy. Ah, sir, that alone proves to me that you are an honest, innocent, and merely unfortunate insolvent; and to show you that I am not behind you in magnanimity, I have paid her the fifty pounds wherein you were indebted to her, and got an assignation to her debt. You may pay me when you please; and, meanwhile, I will accept of the composition you intend to offer to your creditors."

"Fifty pounds off her tocher," muttered Samuel between his teeth, and then took a drink of the cold water, in the full memory of the claret.

"It scarcely beseems a man," said he, "to be aught but a silent listener, when his praise is spoken by one he loves and respects. But, is it possible, Miss M'Falzen, that my misfortune has not changed those feelings--those--excuse me, Miss Angelina--those intentions with which, I had reason to believe, you regarded me."

And, with great gallantry, he seized the fair spinster round the waist, as he had been in the habit of doing before he was a bankrupt, to show, at least, that he was now no bankrupt in affection.

"To be plain with you, sir," replied she, wriggling herself out of his hands, "my intention once was to wait until I saw whether you would come unscathed and pure out of the fiery ordeal; but, on second thoughts, I conceived that this would be unfair to one whom I had always looked upon as an honest man, though, probably, not so seriously-minded a Christian as I could have wished; therefore," she added, smiling--yet no smiling matter to Samuel--"I have, you see, trusted you fifty pounds--a pretty good earnest--he! he!--that my heart is just where it was."

Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven kissed Miss Angelina M'Falzen.

"But oh, sir," she added, by way of protest, "I hope and trust that not one single spot shall be detected in your fair fame and reputation, and that you will come forth out of trial as unsullied in the eyes of good men, as you were pure in the estimation of one who thus proves for you her attachment."

"Never doubt it," replied Mr Samuel. "Innocence gives me courage and confidence."

He placed, theatrically, his hand on his heart.

"And what think you," added Miss Angelina, "of John Bunyan's book, which I lent you, and which I now see lying here? Is it not a devout performance--an extraordinary allegory? How much good I do by that kind of books! Ha, by the by, Mrs Bairnsfather, good creature, wishes to read it. So I shall just put it in my pocket. To be plain with you, she is much cast down, poor creature, by the loss her husband has sustained through your involuntary failure; and I have said that she will find much comfort in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"

"A staunch book, madam," replied Samuel, seriously--"an extraordinary allegory, worth a piece of the vellum of the old Covenant. I have derived great satisfaction and much good from it. I have no doubt it will support her, as it has done me, under our mutual affliction."

"Oh, how I do love to hear you talk that way," replied Miss Angelina. "It is so becoming your situation. When do you think you will get a discharge? I will answer for Mr Bairnsfather agreeing to the composition; and you know I am now a creditor myself in fifty pounds. Of course you have my vote; but you will tell me all about it afterwards. Good-day, Mr Thriven."

"Good-day, Miss M'Falzen."

The which lady was no sooner out, than was the bottle of claret. In a few minutes more Mr Thriven was laughing over his replenished glass, as totally oblivious of the secret carried away by his lover, on the blank leaf of the good old tinker's book, as he was on that night when he made free with the two bottles of port as good as Ofleys.

"The matter looks well enough," said he. "I can make no manner of doubt that my composition will be accepted; and then, with the two thousand five hundred, at least, that I will make of my bankruptcy, and the round thousand possessed by Miss Angelina M'Falzen, I can perform the part of a walking gentleman on the great stage of the world."

"Is Mr Thriven within?" he now heard asked at the door.

"Ho, it is Sharp!" muttered he, as he shoved the bottle and the glass into a recess, and laid again hold of the water-jug.

"Water, Thriven!" cried the attorney, as he bounded forward, and seized the bankrupt by the hand. "Water! and Mrs Grizel M'Whirter of Cockenzie dead, of a dead certainty, this forenoon; and you her nephew, and a will in her drawers, written by Jem Birtwhistle, in your favour, and her fortune ten thousand; and the never a mortal thought the old harridan had more than a five hundred."

"The devil a drop!" cried Mr Samuel Thriven. "The devil a drop of water; for, have I not in this press a half bottle of claret, which I laid past there that day of the fire, and never had the courage to touch it since. But _me_ her heir! Ho, Mr Joseph Sharp, you are, of a verity, fooling a poor bankrupt, who has not a penny in the world after setting aside his composition of five shillings in the pound. _Me_ her heir! Why, I was told by herself that I was cut off with a shilling; and you must say it seriously ere I believe a word on't."

"I say it as seriously," replied the writer, "as ever you answered a homethrust to-day in the sheriff's office, as to the amount of stock you lost by the burning of your premises--as sure as a decree of the Fifteen. I say your loss had made her repent; so come away with the claret."

Mr Thriven emptied the whole of the half bottle, at one throw, into a tumbler.

"Drink, thou pink of an attorney!" said he, and then fell back into his chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed on the roof, and his two hands closed in each other, as if they had been two notes for five thousand each.

"Are you mad, Mr Thriven?" cried Sharp, after he had bolted the whole tumbler of claret.

"Yes!" answered Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven.

"Have you any more of this Bordeaux water in the house?"

"Yes!" answered Mr Thriven. "Open that lockfast" (pointing to a press), "and drink till you are only able to shout 'M'Whirter'--'Cockenzie'--'Thriven'--'ten thousand'--'hurra!'--and never let a word more come out of you, till you fall dead drunk on the floor."

The first part of the request, at least, was very quickly obeyed, and two bottles were placed on the table, one of which the attorney bored in an instant, and had a good portion of it rebottled in his stomach by the time that Mr Thriven got his eyes taken off the roof of the chamber.

"Hand me half-a-tumbler!" cried he, "that I may gather my senses, and see the full extent of my misfortune."

"Misfortune!" echoed Sharp.

"Ay!" rejoined Samuel, as he turned the bottom of the tumbler to the roof. "Why did Grizel M'Whirter die, sir, until I got my discharge?"

"Ah, sir!" replied Sharp, on whom the wine was already beginning to operate, "you have thus a noble opportunity of being the architect of a reputation that might be the envy of the world. You can now pay your creditors in full--twenty shillings in the pound, and retain five thousand to yourself, with the character of being that noblest work of nature--an honest man.'

"When a thing is utterly beyond one's reach," rejoined Samuel, looking, with a wry face, right into the soul of the attorney, "how beautiful it appears."

Sharp accepted coolly the cut, because he had claret to heal it, otherwise he would have assuredly knocked down Mr Samuel Thriven.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Sharp!" continued his friend; "but I felt a little pained, sir, at the high-flown expression of the great good that awaits me, as if I were not already conscious of being, and known to be, that noblest work of nature. The cut came from you, Mr Sharp, and I only returned it. All I regret, sir, is, that my aunt did not live till I got my discharge, because then, not being bound to pay my creditors one farthing, I might have paid them in full, without obligation at all, and thereby have proved myself what I am--a _generous_ man. No more of the claret. You must away with me to Cockenzie, to see that the repositories are sealed, and the will safe."

"By my faith, I forgot that!" replied Sharp; "a pretty good sign that, if you are a generous man, I am not a selfish one. We had better," he added, "let the claret alone till we return from Cockenzie. What think you?"

Now Samuel had already told Sharp that he was to have no more of the wine; and the question of the attorney, which was a clear forestaller, would have angered any man who was not an heir (five minutes old) of ten thousand. But Samuel knew better than to quarrel with the attorney at that juncture; so he answered him in the affirmative; and, in five minutes afterwards, the heir and the lawyer were in a coach, driving off to Cockenzie. The bankrupt was, in a few minutes more, in a dream--the principal vision of which was himself in the act of paying his creditors in full with their own money, and earning a splendid reputation for honesty. The sooner he performed the glorious act, the greater credit he would secure by it; his name would be in the "Courant" and "Mercury," headed by the large letters--"Praiseworthy instance of honesty coming out, in full strength, from the ordeal of fire."

"What has Miss Angelina M'Falzen been doing at the house of Mrs Bairnsfather?" cried Sharp, as he turned from the window of the carriage (now in the Canongate) to the face of Samuel, whose eyes were fixed by the charm of his glorious hallucination.

"Lending her the 'Pilgrim's Progress!'" answered Samuel, as he started from his dream.

Now Sharp could not for the life of him understand this ready answer of his friend, for he had put the query to awaken him from his dream, and without the slightest hope of receiving a reply to a question which savoured so much of the character of questions in general; so he left him to his dream, and, in a short time, they were at Cockenzie.

CHAP. V.--THE TEA-PARTY.

"Well, my dear," said Mr Bairnsfather to his wife, when he came home to tea on that same afternoon of which we have now been narrating the incidents, "I hope you are getting over our losses; yet I have no very good news for you to-day--for all that Thriven intends to offer of dividend is five shillings in the pound."

"It is but a weary world this we live in," said the disconsolate wife. "We are all pilgrims; and there is for each of us some slough of despond, through which we must struggle to the happy valley."

"What, ho!" rejoined the husband; "I have come home to tea, and you are giving me a piece of Bunyan. Come, lay down your book, for Mr Wrench and Mr Horner are to be here to get some of your souchong."

"And I," replied the good-wife, "asked Miss Angelina M'Falzen to come back and get a cup with us. I could not do less to the devout creature; for she took the trouble of going to Mr Thriven's to-day, and getting from him the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' that she might bring it to me, to reconcile me to the evils of life, and, among the rest, the loss which we have sustained by her friend's failure."

"Poh! I hate all 'Pilgrim's-Progress'-reading insolvents!" rejoined the husband, taking the book out of his wife's hands. "Go, love, and get ready the tea, while I sojourn with the Elstow tinker in the valley of humiliation, out of which a cup of China brown stout and some converse will transport me to the 'house beautiful.'"

And Mr Bairnsfather, while his wife went to prepare tea, and his many children were dispersed here and there and everywhere, got very rapidly into "Vanity Fair," of the which, being somewhat aweary, as he said, with a yawn, he turned the leaves over and over, and at last fixed his eyes on the leaf that had once been, though it was now no longer, blank. The awl of the Elstow tinker himself never could have gone with greater determination through the leather of a pair of bellows, than did Mr Bairnsfather's eye seem to penetrate that written page. Like the seer of the vision of a ghost in the night, he drew his head back, and he removed it forwards, and he shut his eyes, and opened his eyes, and rubbed his eyes; and the more he did all this, the more he was at a loss to comprehend what the writing on the said blank leaf was intended to carry to the eyes of mortals. It was of the handwriting of Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, for a certainty--he could swear to it; for the bill he had in his possession--and whereby he would lose three-fourth parts of two hundred pounds--was written in the same character. What _could_ it mean?

"What _can_ it mean?" he said, again and again.

"How should I, if you, who are a cleverer man, do not know, Mr Bairnsfather," said Mr Wrench, who was standing at his back, having entered in the meantime. "I have read the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' which Mrs B. says you are reading, more than once, and fairly admit that there are obscure passages in it. But here comes Mr Horner, who can perhaps unravel the mystery, if you can point out what limb of the centipede allegory it is which appears to you to have a limp."

"By my faith, it is in the tail," said Mr Bairnsfather, as he still bored his eyes into the end of the book.

"Let me see the passage," said Mr Horner.

And all the three began to look at the writing, which set forth the heads and particulars of Mr Samuel Thriven's gain by his bankruptcy.

"A very good progress for a pilgrim," said Mr Horner; and they looked at each other knowingly, and winked their six eyes, and nodded their three heads.

Miss M'Falzen and the tea came in at this moment. The three creditors were mute, and the devout spinster was talkative. Mrs Bairnsfather then filled up and handed round the tea-cups (they sat all close to the table), and her husband handed round to his two friends the book.

"What an interest that book _does_ produce," said Miss Angelina, apparently piqued by the attention shown to the genius of the tinker.

"Come, now, Miss Angelina," said Mrs Bairnsfather, "confess that that copy produces no small interest in yourself, considering the hands it was in to-day."

"Fie! fie, ma'am!" rejoined the blushing spinster. "How could the touch of a man's fingers impart a charm to mere paper. If Mr Thriven had appended some pretty piece of devout or poetical sentiment to it, why, you know, that would have made all the difference in the world, ma'am. He is really an excellent man, Mr Thriven; though we have all suffered in consequence of his loss, yet, I daresay, we all feel for his unmerited misfortune."

The three creditors were too much absorbed in Bunyan even to smile.

"When did you lend this copy to Mr Thriven?" inquired Mr Wrench; and the two others fixed their eyes, filled with awful import, on the face of the devout spinster.

"Just the day before the fire," replied she; "and ah, sir! how delighted I am that I did it! for he assures me that it has sustained him wonderfully in his affliction."

The three men smiled, rose simultaneously, and retired to a parlour, taking Bunyan with them. Their looks were ominous; and Mrs Bairnsfather could not, for the world, understand the mystery. After some time, they returned, and looked more ominously than before.

"It is worth three thousand pounds, if it is worth a penny," said Mr Horner, seriously.

"Every farthing of it," rejoined Mr Wrench. "The most extraordinary book I ever saw in my life."

"An exposition miraculous, through the agency of Heaven," added Mr Bairnsfather.

Now all this time their tea was cooling, and the hostess examined and searched the eyes of her husband and guests. Have they all got inspired or mad, thought she; but her thought produced no change, for the men still looked and whispered, and shook their heads, and nodded, and winked, and left their tea standing, till she began to think of the state of the moon.

"How delighted I am," ejaculated Miss M'Falzen; "for I never saw such an effect produced by the famous allegory in any family into which I ever introduced it. You see the effect of agitation in devout matters, Mrs Bairnsfather."

"You know not half the effect it has produced on us, ma'am," said Mr Horner. "It has electrified us--so much so, indeed, that we cannot remain longer to enjoy your excellent society. You will, therefore, ladies, excuse us if we swallow our tea cleverly, and go to promulgate in the proper quarters the information afforded us by this wonderful production."

"The sooner we are away the better," added Mr Wrench, drinking off his cup. "We must call a private meeting, and lay it secretly before them."

"Certainly," added Mr Bairnsfather; "and you, Miss M'Falzen, authorise us to tell the peregrinations of the book--into whose hands it has been--and how it came here."

"Bless you, sir!" cried the devout spinster; while Mrs Bairnsfather kept staring at her husband and guests, unable to solve the strange mystery, "you do not know a tithe of the good that this little book has achieved. It has been in half the houses in the Cowgate and Canongate. It is relished by the poor, and sought after by the rich; it mends the heart, improves the understanding, and binds up the wounds of those that are struck by the hands of the archers. Oh! I agitate in the good work mightily with it, and others of the same class; and may all success attend your efforts, also, in so excellent a cause. Call meetings by all means, read, expound, examine, exhort, entreat, and, hark ye, take Mr Samuel Thriven with you, for his heart is in the cause of the improvement of his fellow-creatures, and he knows the value of the allegory of the devout tinker of Elstow.

"We cannot do without Mr Thriven," replied Mr Bairnsfather, with a smile; and while Mrs Bairnsfather was calling out to them to take another cup, and explain to her the meaning of their conduct, the creditors rose all together, and, taking their hats and Bunyan, were on the point of leaving the room, in great haste and manifest excitement, when the door opened, and the soft voice of Widow Mercer saluted them.

"Have you heard the news?" said she.

"Does it concern Mr Thriven?" replied more than one.

"Yes, to be sure it does," rejoined she. "We will all now get full payment of our debts; what think ye of that, sirs?"

"Hush, hush," said Mr Bairnsfather, in the ear of the widow. "Say nothing of the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' You know Miss M'Falzen is a friend of Mr Thriven's."

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress!'" ejaculated the widow.

"Alas! he is, of a verity, mad," rejoined Mrs Bairnsfather.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress,'" again cried Mrs Mercer.

"Tush, we knew all about it," whispered Mr Wrench. "You also have seen the book?"

"Yes," replied the widow, "I have, as who hasn't? but Lord bless me!"--and she whispered in his ear--"what, in the name of wonder, has the 'Pilgrim's Progress' to do with Mr Thriven having got ten thousand pounds left him by Mrs Grizel M'Whirter."

The whisper was communicated to the two other creditors by Mr Wrench. The three merchants, stimulated at the same moment by the same impulse of joy, laid hold of the good widow, and whirled her like a top round the room, snapping their fingers the while, and exhibiting other perfectly innocent demonstrations of gladness.

"The most extraordinary method of proselytising," said the spinster, "that I, who have carried on the trade of mending the species for many years, have ever yet seen."

"It is all beyond my poor wits together," added the wife.

And beyond her poor wits the creditors allowed it to remain; for they immediately went forth upon their intended mission. In some hours afterwards, accordingly, there was a secret meeting in the "White Horse," not less dangerous to Mr Samuel Thriven than was that held in the Trojan one to old Troy.

CHAP. VI.--THE PAYMENT.

Now all this time, while Mr Thriven's creditors were in the "White Horse," he himself was in heaven; for Sharp and he having found all right at Cockenzie, returned, and sat down to finish the claret which had been forestalled by the attorney before setting out. They resolved upon consigning Mrs Grizel M'Whirter to the cold earth a day sooner than custom might have warranted; and the reason for this especial care was simply that Mr Samuel wished, with all the ardour inspired by the Bordeaux waters, to make a grand and glorious display of his honesty, by calling all his creditors together, and paying them principal and interest--twenty shillings in the pound. They even, at this early period, set about making a draft of the circular letter which was to announce the thrilling intelligence.

"Heavens! what a commotion this will produce among the trade!" said Samuel, as he threw himself back in his chair, and fixed his enchanted eye on Sharp's copy. "It will electrify them; and, sir, the editors of the newspapers are bound, as patrons of public virtue, to set it forth as an example to others, to induce them to do the same in time coming. And now, since we have discussed so much business and claret, we will retire to our beds; I to enjoy the satisfaction of having resolved on a noble action, and you the hope of making a few six-and-eightpences by the death of Grizel M'Whirter of Cockenzie."

"_A few!_" cried Sharp, in an attorney's heroics. "You will see, when you count them, I am not less honest or generous than yourself."

The friends thereupon separated, to enjoy in their beds the two pleasures incident to their peculiar situations.

At the end of the period--less by one day than the customary time of corpses being allowed to remain on the face of the earth--Mrs Grizel M'Whirter was buried; and as her will contained a specific assignation to the greater part of her money, the same was in a day or two afterwards got hold of by Mr Thriven, and out went the round of circulars to the creditors, announcing that on the following Thursday, Mr Thriven would be seated in his house, ready to pay all his creditors their debts, and requesting them to attend and bring with them their receipts. Among these circulars was one to Miss Angelina M'Falzen--the very woman he had promised, before he succeeded to Mrs Grizel M'Whirter's fortune, to make a wife of; a pretty plain proof that now, when he had become rich, he intended to shake off the devout spinster who had attempted to reform him by lending him the allegory of the Tinker of Elstow. The eventful day at length arrived, when Mr Thriven was to enjoy the great triumph he had panted for--namely to pay the creditors in full every farthing, with their own money; and at the hour appointed a considerable number arrived at his house, among whom not a few knew, as well as they did the contents of their own Bibles, the nefarious device of the haberdasher. When the creditors were seated--

"It ill becomes a man," said Mr Thriven, affecting a comely modesty--"it ill becomes one who resolves merely to do an act of ordinary justice, to take credit to himself for the possession of uncommon honesty. Therefore, I say, away with all egotistical assumption of principles, which ought to belong to a man, merely (as we say in trade), as part and parcel of humanity; for, were it a miracle to be honest, why should we not tolerate dishonesty, which yet is, by the voice of all good men, condemned and put down. The debts due to you I incurred, why then should I not pay them? It makes not a _nail_ of difference that I lost three-fourths of the amount thereof by fire; because, what had you to do with the fire? _You_ were not the incendiaries. No; the fault lay with me; I should have insured my stock, in gratitude for the credit with which you honoured me. It is for these reasons that I now disdain to take any credit to myself for coming thus cleverly forward to do you an act of justice, which the will of Heaven has put in my power, by the demise of that lamented woman, Mrs Grizel M'Whirter, and which you could by law have forced me to do, though, probably, not so soon as I now propose to do of my own free will and accord."

Mr Thriven paused, for a burst of applause; and Mr Bairnsfather, with a smile on his face, stood up.

"It is all very well," said he, glancing to his friends, "for Mr Thriven to pretend that no merit attaches to one who acts in the noble and generous way he has resolved to follow on this occasion. Every honest act deserves applause, were it for nothing else in the world than to keep up the credit of honesty. No doubt we might have compelled Mr Thriven to pay us out of the money to which he has succeeded, and to this extent we may admit his plea of no merit; but the readiness, if not precipitancy, he has exhibited on the measure, is not only in itself worthy of high commendation, but, by a reflex effect, it satisfies us all of that of which we probably were not very sceptical, that his failure was an honest one, and that he is not now making a display of paying us out of any other money than his own."

"Shall we not accord to these sentiments of our brother creditor?" said Mr Wrench, rising with great seriousness. "How seldom is it, in the ordinary affairs of life, that we find the true Mr Greatheart of the 'Pilgrim's Progress!' But when we do find him, shall we not say to him, let him have his reward--and what shall that reward be? Empty praise? No! Mr Thriven needs not that, because he has the voice of conscience sounding within him--far more musical, I deem, to the ear of honesty than the hollow notes of external applause. A piece of plate? Very good for praise-devouring politicians to place on the table when the clique is carousing and settling the affairs of the state, but altogether unsuitable for the gratification of meek, self-denied, retiring honesty. A book of morals? What say ye to that, friends? I throw it out merely as a hint."

"And I second the suggestion," said Mr Horner, "with the amendment, that there shall be an _inscription on a blank leaf_, setting forth in detail the merits of the individual; and where could we find a better than the allegory of the progress of the pilgrim, written by the tinker of Elstow?"

A round of applause, fully suitable to the appetite of Mr Samuel, followed Mr Horner's amendment. The process of payment commenced, and was completed to the satisfaction of all parties; and when the creditors went away, Mr Thriven sat down to consider the position in which he stood. He had got applause; but he did not well understand it. Above all, he could not comprehend the allusion to the book written by John Bunyan.

"Well," he said, as he took up the "Mercury," "it is beyond my comprehension; and, after all, the good people may only mean to present me with some suitable gift, in consideration of the act of justice I have this day done them. Let me see if there be any news." And he fell back in his chair in that delightful _langueur d'esprit_ to which a newspaper of all things is the most acceptable. "Why," he continued, as he still searched for some racy bit, "did not Sharp undertake to get a notice inserted, by way of an editor's advertisement of three lines, to immortalise me, and pave my way to the hand of Miss Clarinda Pott?" And he wrung the muscles of his face as if they had been a dish-clout filled with the humour of his bile. At length his eye stood in his head, his mouth opened, and he became what artists would call "a living picture." The part of the paper which produced this strange effect consisted of merely a few lines, to this import:--

"_New Light._--The matter which the fire in ----- Street failed to illumine has, we understand, been illustrated by no less an individual than John Bunyan, Tinker at Elstow. Everything may be reduced to an allegory; the world itself is an allegory; and this scrap of ours is nothing but an allegory."

Samuel laid down the paper.

"What can this mean?" said he. "If this be not an allegory, I know not what is."

"Ah, sir, you are a man this day to be envied," said Miss M'Falzen, who now entered. "You have proved yourself to be an honest man. I was sure of it; and you know, Samuel, when all deserted you, I stuck fast by you, and even gave the--the--excuse me, sir--the consent you asked of me, while you had no prospect before you in this bad world other than beggary."

"What consent, ma'am?" replied Mr Thriven, with a face that displayed no more curiosity than it did love.

"Bless me, Mr Thriven, do you forget?--Is it possible that you can have forgotten so _interesting_ an occasion?"

"I believe, by the by, ma'am, you have called for your debts," said Mr Thriven.

"Debt!" ejaculated the devout spinster. "Why should there be any debt between two people situated as we are. Why should not all claims be extinguished by the mixture of what Mr Sharp calls _the goods in communion_. If I take this money from you to-day, won't I be giving it back after the ceremony. True, my small fortune is now nothing to yours; yet I will remember with pleasure, and you will never surely forget, that all I had was at your service when you had lost all you had in the world; so, you see, my dear Samuel, if you have this day proved yourself to have a noble spirit, I am not behind you."

"What is the exact amount of your claim, Miss M'Falzen?" said Mr Thriven, with a determination to distance sentiment.

"And would you really pay it, cruel, cruel man?" said she, somewhat alarmed.

"Certainly, ma'am," replied he, dryly.

"Are you serious?" said she again, looking him full and searchingly in the face.

"Yes," answered he, more dryly than ever.

"Can it be possible that your sentiments towards me have undergone a change, Mr Thriven?" rejoined she. "Ah! I forgot. You are now a man of ten thousand pounds, and I have only one. The film is falling off my eyes. O deluded Angelina!"

"Then you will see the better to count the money I am to pay you," said he, attempting to laugh. "Fifty pounds, ma'am. Here it is; I will thank you for Mr Mercer's bill."

"Well, sir, since it has come to this, I will none of the money. Alas! this is the effect of John Bunyan's famous book. Good-day--good-day, Mr Samuel;" and the spinster, covering her face with her handkerchief, rushed out of the room.

CHAP. VII.--THE DENOUEMENT.

"Thus have I got quit of the spinster," said Mr Thriven, "and thus have I too got quit of my creditors. But how comes this? She also talks of Bunyan; everybody talks of Bunyan. But this paper? No, spite--spite--let them present me with an inscription on a blank leaf. It will do as well as a piece of plate. I will get the words of praise inserted in another newspaper, and then begin to act the gentleman in earnest on my ten thousand. I shall instantly engage a buggy with a bright bay; and a man-servant, with a stripe of silver lace round his hat, shall sit on my sinister side. Let them stare and point at me. They can only say, there rides an honest man, who failed, and paid his creditors twenty shillings the pound. Ho! here comes Sharp."

"What is the meaning of this?" said he, holding out the paper. "Some wretched joke of an editor who would take from me the honour intended for me by my creditors. I see by your face that you smell an action of damages."

"Joke!" echoed Sharp. "That copy of Bunyan which Miss M'Falzen was lending to Mrs Bairnsfather that day when we went to Cockenzie, is now in the hands of the procurator-fiscal."

"Oh, the devout maiden lends it to everybody," replied Samuel. "She will be to get the fiscal to reclaim sinners by it, rather than to punish them by the arm of the law."

"Is it possible, Mr Thriven, that you can thus make light of an affair that involves banishment?" said Sharp. "Did you really write on a blank leaf of that book the details of the profit you were to make of the burning?"

Samuel jumped at least three feet from the floor; and when he came down again, he muttered strange things, and did strange things, which no pen could describe, because they were unique, had no appropriate symbols in language, had never been muttered or done before since the beginning of the world, and, probably, will never be again. It might, however, have been gathered from his ravings, that he _had_ some recollection of having scribbled something about his failure, but that he thought it was in the blank leaf of a pocket-book, the which book he grasped and examined, but all was a dead blank. He then threw himself on a chair, and twisted himself into all possible shapes, cursing Miss Angelina M'Falzen, himself, his creditors, every one who had the smallest share in this tremendous revolution from wealth, hopes of a high match, buggy, servant with silver lace, even to disgrace, confiscation, and banishment.

"You are renowned for the quickness, loopiness, subtleness, of thy profession. Can you not assist me, Sharp? A man's scrawls are not evidence of themselves."

"But, with the testimony of Clossmuns, who has returned from Liverpool, they will be conclusive," replied the attorney, whose game now lay in Mr Samuel's misfortunes. "Such evidence never went before a jury since the time of the _regiam majestatem_.

"What then is to be done?" inquired Samuel.

"Fly! fly! and leave me a power of attorney to collect your moneys. There is two thousand of Grizel M'Whirter's fortune still to uplift--your stock in trade is to be disposed of--I will manage it beautifully for you, and, in spite of an outlawry, get the proceeds sent to you wheresoever you go."

"Dreadful relief!" ejaculated the other, "to fly one's country, and leave one's affairs in the hands of an attorney!"

"Better than banishment," replied Sharp, grinding his teeth as if sharp set for the quarry that lay before him. "What do you resolve on? Shall I write out the power of attorney, or will you wait till the officers are on you?" muttering to himself, in conclusion, "A few six-and-eight-pences! I'faith I have him now!"

"Then there is no alternative?" rejoined Samuel.

"None," replied Sharp. "I have it on good authority that the warrant against you was in the act of being written out, when I hurried here, as you find, to save you. Shall I prepare the commission?"

"Yes, yes! as quick as an ellwand that leaps three inches short of the yard."

And, while he continued in this extremity of his despair, Sharp set about writing out the factory--short and general--giving all powers of uplifting money, and reserving none. It was signed. In a few minutes more, Mr Thriven was in a post-chaise, driving on to a seaport in England. The news of the flight of the honest merchant, with all the circumstances, soon reached the ear of the devout spinster, even as she was weeping over the result of the interview she had had with her cruel lover. She wiped her eyes and repressed her sobs, and congratulated herself on the consequences of her devout labours. Mr Thriven was not heard of again; neither was his cash.

THE MAN-OF-WAR'S MAN.

In the calm clear evenings of June and July, when the heat of the day has been abated, it has been my custom to walk forth to brace my nerves after the cares and fatigues of the day. Pent up for these thirty years in one of the dingy shops of the Luckenbooths, I have toiled to gain wealth enough to enable me to exchange the chimes of St Giles' bells for the singing of the larks; but, alas! I fear my ears will be too hard, and my eyes too dim, ere that time come when I may seek to enjoy the melody of the songsters, or the verdure of their habitations. Gradually already have they been becoming less cheering to me than they were in those young sunny days of my apprenticeship, when I used to sally forth as soon as I had given the keys to my master. I have still, however, the impressions of memory; and this summer they are as vivid as when they were real perceptions. While sitting at my desk, I wander, in fond recollection, around Arthur Seat, and fondly think that such evenings in June may be yet for me as I have enjoyed them. Such is the folly of men of business. From the month I commenced for myself, the lark has been singing less sweetly, and my loved haunts have been becoming less and less engaging. Have the vocalists of these times degenerated, and the fields become aged? The change cannot be in me; I am still in my vigour, and a bachelor. Fifty-two is not an old man--so spoke the heart's wishes--yet this fact is otherwise. Since that period when I took the cares of the world upon my own shoulders, I have, in general, been lost to everything else around me. The incubus of the counter and desk mounts upon my shoulders, and whispers in my ears of bills and debts unpaid, or to pay; and immediately, in place of the visions of my youth, ledgers and slips of paper, spangled with columns of figures, occupy what were once the sad recesses of love. Thus hag-ridden, yet still in search of happiness, have I stalked over the loveliest of the lovely scenes that abound around Edinburgh, almost unconscious of where I have been. And what has been the reward of all my cares? I have accumulated three thousand pounds, and some properties that yield what some would call good interest; and the making of this has been the unmaking of the sensibilities of enjoyment, without which it is nothing.