Bertram was now in the small court already mentioned. Two or three prisoners were sauntering along the pavement, and deriving as it were a feeling of refreshment from the momentary glimpse with which the opening door had extended their prospect to the other side of a dirty street. Nor can this be thought surprising, when it is considered that, unless on such occasions, their view was confined to the grated front of their prison, the high and sable walls of the courtyard, the heaven above them, and the pavement beneath their feet―a sameness of landscape which, to use the poet's expression, 'lay like a load on the wearied eye,' and had fostered in some a callous and dull misanthropy, in others that sickness of the heart which induces him who is immured already in a living grave to wish for a sepulchre yet more calm and sequestered.
Mac-Guffog, when they entered the courtyard, suffered Bertram to pause for a minute and look upon his companions in affliction. When he had cast his eye around on faces on which guilt and despondence and low excess had fixed their stigma―upon the spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor, the 'moping idiot, and the madman gay,' whom a paltry spirit of economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the contamination of their society even for a moment.
'I hope, sir,' he said to the keeper, 'you intend to assign me a place of confinement apart?'
'And what should I be the better of that?'
'Why, sir, I can but be detained here a day or two, and it would be very disagreeable to me to mix in the sort of company this place affords.'
'And what do I care for that?'
'Why then, sir, to speak to your feelings,' said Bertram, 'I shall be willing to make you a handsome compliment for this indulgence.'
'Ay, but when, Captain? when and how? that's the question, or rather the twa questions,' said the jailor.
'When I am delivered, and get my remittances from England,' answered the prisoner.
Mac-Guffog shook his head incredulously.
'Why, friend, you do not pretend to believe that I am really a malefactor?' said Bertram.
'Why, I no ken,' said the fellow; 'but if you ARE on the account, ye're nae sharp ane, that's the daylight o't.'
'And why do you say I am no sharp one?'
'Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up the siller that ye left at the Gordon Arms?' said the constable. 'Deil fetch me, but I wad have had it out o' their wames! Ye had nae right to be strippit o' your money and sent to jail without a mark to pay your fees; they might have keepit the rest o' the articles for evidence. But why, for a blind bottle-head, did not ye ask the guineas? and I kept winking and nodding a' the time, and the donnert deevil wad never ance look my way!'
'Well, sir,' replied Bertram, 'if I have a title to have that property delivered up to me, I shall apply for it; and there is a good deal more than enough to pay any demand you can set up.'
'I dinna ken a bit about that,' said Mac-Guffog; 'ye may be here lang eneugh. And then the gieing credit maun be considered in the fees. But, however, as ye DO seem to be a chap by common, though my wife says I lose by my good-nature, if ye gie me an order for my fees upon that money I daresay Glossin will make it forthcoming; I ken something about an escape from Ellangowan. Ay, ay, he'll be glad to carry me through, and be neighbour-like.'
'Well, sir,' replied Bertram, 'if I am not furnished in a day or two otherwise, you shall have such an order.'
'Weel, weel, then ye shall be put up like a prince,' said Mac-Guffog. 'But mark ye me, friend, that we may have nae colly-shangie afterhend, these are the fees that I always charge a swell that must have his lib-ken to himsell:―Thirty shillings a week for lodgings, and a guinea for garnish; half a guinea a week for a single bed; and I dinna get the whole of it, for I must gie half a crown out of it to Donald Laider that's in for sheep-stealing, that should sleep with you by rule, and he'll expect clean strae, and maybe some whisky beside. So I make little upon that.'
'Well, sir, go on.'
'Then for meat and liquor, ye may have the best, and I never charge abune twenty per cent ower tavern price for pleasing a gentleman that way; and that's little eneugh for sending in and sending out, and wearing the lassie's shoon out. And then if ye're dowie I will sit wi' you a gliff in the evening mysell, man, and help ye out wi' your bottle. I have drank mony a glass wi' Glossin, man, that did you up, though he's a justice now. And then I'se warrant ye'll be for fire thir cauld nights, or if ye want candle, that's an expensive article, for it's against the rules. And now I've tell'd ye the head articles of the charge, and I dinna think there's muckle mair, though there will aye be some odd expenses ower and abune.'
'Well, sir, I must trust to your conscience, if ever you happened to hear of such a thing; I cannot help myself.'
