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.