The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 15. Robert Louis Stevenson
office wi’ ye. (Exeunt Brodie, Lawson, Leslie, C.)
Smith (bowing them out). Your humble and most devoted servant, George Smith, Esquire. And so this is the garding, is it? And this is the style of horticulture? Ha, it is! (At the mirror.) In that case George’s mother bids him bind his hair. (Kisses his hand.) My dearest Duchess – (To Jean.) I say, Jean, there’s a good deal of difference between this sort of thing and the way we does it in Libberton’s Wynd.
Jean. I daursay. And what wad ye expeck?
Smith. Ah, Jean, if you’d cast affection’s glance on this poor but honest soger! George Lord S. is not the nobleman to cut the object of his flame before the giddy throng; nor to keep her boxed up in an old mouse-trap, while he himself is revelling in purple splendours like these. He didn’t know you, Jean: he was afraid to. Do you call that a man? Try a man that is.
Jean. Geordie Smith, ye ken vera weel I’ll tak’ nane o’ that sort o’ talk frae you. And what kind o’ a man are you to even yoursel’ to the likes o’ him? He’s a gentleman.
Smith. Ah, ain’t he, just! And don’t he live up to it? I say, Jean, feel of this chair.
Jean. My! look at yon bed!
Smith. The carpet too! Axminster, by the bones of Oliver Cromwell!
Jean. What a expense!
Smith. Hey, brandy! The deuce of the grape! Have a toothful, Mrs. Watt. (Sings—
“Says Bacchus to Venus:
There’s brandy between us,
And the cradle of love is the bowl, the bowl!”)
Jean. Nane for me, I thank ye, Mr. Smith.
Smith. What brings the man from stuff like this to rotgut and spittoons at Mother Clarke’s? But ah, George, you was born for a higher spear! And so was you, Mrs. Watt, though I say it that shouldn’t. (Seeing Old Brodie for the first time.) Hullo! it’s a man!
Jean. Thonder in the chair. (They go to look at him, their backs to the door.)
Smith. Is he alive?
Jean. I think there’s something wrong with him.
Smith. And how was you to-morrow, my valued old gentleman, eh?
Jean. Dinna mak’ a mock o’ him, Geordie.
Old Brodie. My son – the Deacon – Deacon of his trade.
Jean. He’ll be his feyther. (Hunt appears at door C., and stands looking on.)
Smith. The Deacon’s old man! Well, he couldn’t expect to have his quiver full of sich, could he, Jean? (To Old Brodie.) Ah, my Christian soldier, if you had, the world would have been more variegated. Mrs. Deakin (to Jean), let me introduce you to your dear papa.
Jean. Think shame to yoursel’! This is the Deacon’s house; you and me shouldna be here by rights; and if we are, it’s the least we can do to behave dacent. (This is no’ the way ye’ll mak’ me like ye.)
Smith. All right, Duchess. Don’t be angry.
Hunt. Is there a gentleman here by the name of Mr. Procurator-Fiscal?
Smith (pulling himself together). D – n it, Jerry, what do you mean by startling an old customer like that?
Hunt. What, my brave ’un? You’re the very party I was looking for!
Smith. There’s nothing out against me this time?
Hunt. I’ll take odds there is. But it ain’t in my hands. (To Old Brodie.) You’ll excuse me, old gentleman?
Smith. Ah, well, if it’s all in the way of friendship!.. I say, Jean (you and me had best be on the toddle). We shall be late for church.
Hunt. Lady, George?
Smith. It’s a – yes, it’s a lady. Come along, Jean.
Hunt. A Mrs. Deacon, I believe. (That was the name, I think?) Won’t Mrs. Deacon let me have a queer at her phiz?
Jean (unmuffling). I’ve naething to be ashamed of. My name’s Mistress Watt; I’m weel kennt at the Wyndheid; there’s naething again’ me.
Hunt. No, to be sure there ain’t; and why clap on the blinkers, my dear? You that has a face like a rose, and with a cove like Jerry Hunt, that might be your born father? (But all this don’t tell me about Mr. Procurator-Fiscal.)
Smith (in an agony). Jean, Jean, we shall be late. (Going with attempted swagger.) Well, ta-ta, Jerry.
Lawson (from the door). Come your ways, Mistress Watt.
Jean. That’s the Fiscal himsel’.
Hunt. Mr. Procurator-Fiscal, I believe?
Lawson. That’s me. Who’ll you be?
Hunt. Hunt the Runner, sir; Hunt from Bow Street; English warrant.
Lawson. There’s a place for a’ things, officer. Come your ways to my office with me and this guid wife.
Brodie (aside to Jean, as she passes with a curtsey). How dare you be here? (Aloud to Smith.) Wait you here, my man.
Smith. If you please, sir. (Brodie goes out, C.)
Brodie. What the devil brings you here?
Smith. Confound it, Deakin! Not rusty?
Brodie. (And not you only: Jean too! Are you mad?
Smith. Why, you don’t mean to say, Deakin, that you have been stodged by G. Smith, Esquire? Plummy old George?)
Brodie. There was my uncle the Procurator —
Smith. The Fiscal? He don’t count.
Brodie. What d’ye mean?
Smith. Well, Deakin, since Fiscal Lawson’s Nunkey Lawson, and it’s all in the family way, I don’t mind telling you that Nunkey Lawson’s a customer of George’s. We give Nunkey Lawson a good deal of brandy – G. S. and Co.’s celebrated Nantz.
Brodie. What! does he buy that smuggled trash of yours?
Smith. Well, we don’t call it smuggled in the trade, Deakin. It’s a wink and King George’s picter between G. S. and the Nunks.
Brodie. Gad! that’s worth knowing. O Procurator, Procurator, is there no such thing as virtue? (Allons! It’s enough to cure a man of vice for this world and the other.) But hark you hither, Smith; this is all damned well in its way, but it don’t explain what brings you here.
Smith. I’ve trapped a pigeon for you.
Brodie. Can’t you pluck him yourself?
Smith. Not me. He’s too flash in the feather for a simple nobleman like George Lord Smith. It’s the great Capting Starlight, fresh in from York. (He’s exercised his noble art all the way from here to London. “Stand and deliver, stap my vitals!”) And the North Road is no bad lay, Deakin.
Brodie. Flush?
Smith (mimicking). “Three graziers, split me! A mail, stap my vitals! and seven demned farmers, by the Lard – ”
Brodie. By Gad!
Smith. Good for trade, ain’t it? And we thought, Deakin, the Badger and me, that coins being ever on the vanish, and you not over sweet on them there lovely little locks at Leslie’s, and them there bigger and uglier marine stores at the Excise Office…
Brodie (impassible). Go on.
Smith. Worse luck!.. We thought, me and the Badger, you know, that maybe you’d