chapter, remained there, absent from us altogether about the space
of six weeks; and when he came home, he was plainly an altered man,
being sometimes very jocose, and at other times looking about him as
if he had been haunted by some ill thing. Moreover, Mrs Spell, that
had the post-office from the decease of her husband, Deacon Spell,
told among her kimmers, that surely the bailie had a great
correspondence with the king and government, for that scarce a week
passed without a letter from him to our member, or a letter from the
member to him. This bred no small consideration among us; and I was
somehow a thought uneasy thereat, not knowing what the bailie, now
that he was out of the guildry, might be saying anent the use and
wont that had been practised therein, and never more than in his own
time. At length, the babe was born.

One evening, as I was sitting at home, after closing the shop for
the night, and conversing concerning the augmentation of our worldly
affairs with Mrs Pawkie and the bairns--it was a damp raw night; I
mind it just as well as if it had been only yestreen--who should
make his appearance at the room door but the bailie himself, and a
blithe face he had?

"It's a' settled now," cried he, as he entered with a triumphant
voice; "the siller's my ain, and I can keep it in spite of them; I
don't value them now a cutty-spoon; no, not a doit; no the worth of
that; nor a' their sprose about Newgate and the pillory;"--and he
snapped his fingers with an aspect of great courage.

"Hooly, hooly, bailie," said I; "what's a' this for?" and then he
replied, taking his seat beside me at the fireside--"The plea with
the custom-house folk at London is settled, or rather, there canna