diverted with the dejection of his looks on his return. He had, it seems,
been rather too communicative to his confidential friend, the attorney;
and learned with great dismay, in return for his unsuspecting frankness,
that Mr. Touthope had, during his absence, been appointed clerk to the
peace of the county, and was bound to communicate to justice all such
achievements as that of his friend Mr. Andrew Fairservice. There was a
necessity, this alert member of the police stated, for arresting the
horse, and placing him in Bailie Trumbull's stable, therein to remain at
livery, at the rate of twelve shillings (Scotch) per diem, until the
question of property was duly tried and debated. He even talked as if, in
strict and rigorous execution of his duty, he ought to detain honest
Andrew himself; but on my guide's most piteously entreating his
forbearance, he not only desisted from this proposal, but made a present
to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined pony, in order to enable him to
pursue his journey. It is true, he qualified this act of generosity by
exacting from poor Andrew an absolute cession of his right and interest
in the gallant palfrey of Thorncliff Osbaldistone--a transference which
Mr. Touthope represented as of very little consequence, since his
unfortunate friend, as he facetiously observed, was likely to get nothing
of the mare excepting the halter.

Andrew seemed woeful and disconcerted, as I screwed out of him these
particulars; for his northern pride was cruelly pinched by being
compelled to admit that attorneys were attorneys on both sides of the
Tweed; and that Mr. Clerk Touthope was not a farthing more sterling coin
than Mr. Clerk Jobson.

"It wadna hae vexed him half sae muckle to hae been cheated out o' what
might amaist be said to be won with the peril o' his craig, had it
happened amang the Inglishers; but it was an unco thing to see hawks pike