Читать книгу The Wonder of All the Gay World - James William Barke - Страница 12

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One of the principal streets (soon to become the main thoroughfare) in the South Town was Nicolson Street. It was modern and eminently respectable. Its good sound tenement blocks housed such worthy and reverend divines as James Bain, Adam Gibb, James MacNight; such gentlemen of quality as Captain John Inglis of Redhall, William Fullerton, James Stewart Monteith, Dr. Alexander Monro the Professor of Anatomy, Colonel Thomson, Captain Robert Irvine and Sir James Wemyss. True, there were also sundry merchants and lawyers including an odd Writer to the Signet. And Angelo Tremamande, the riding master and celebrated equestrian expert, graced the street with his flamboyant personality.

At No. 160 lived Peter Hill and his high-born wife, Elizabeth Lindsay. Lizzie had married beneath her for she was the daughter of a Perthshire baronet. But even a baronet’s brat, like other folk’s bairns, must either marry or burn. So Lizzie married Peter Hill, the son of the comparatively humble collector of shore dues at Dysart on the Fifean coast.

Six years married, Lizzie was still burning and had already gone a third of the way towards bringing fifteen children into the world.

And if her ardour was not yet cooled neither had her social snobbery abated. To be married to a bookseller’s clerk, even though that bookseller was the great Mr. Creech himself, was humiliating.

“And where do you think you’re gaun?” she challenged when Peter came back from the kirk with his eldest son and did not immediately take off his sober Sunday braws of good black broadcloth.

“I told you, Lizzie, that Mr. Creech asked me to show Mr. Burns the Town.”

“Maister Burns, indeed! The Ploughman-poet! And my man’s to be seen trailing an ignorant lout o’ a ploughman round the Toon on a Sunday!”

“How can he be an ignorant lout when he’s a poet? Mr. Creech is for publishing him.”

“You and your Mr. Creech! I suppose you canna let doon your breeks withouten you ask Maister Creech? I’ve the weans to haud i’ the hoose the whole day and you go gallivanting and stravaiging wi’ a ploughman! If you canna think on your ain position, you could at least try to think on mine...”

Peter at last escaped from No. 160 with red ears and jangling nerves and cursing under his breath. He was in his thirty-third year and was six years married. But he wasn’t yet broken in to the matrimonial state. He would show Lizzie Lindsay yet that there was more to him than she thought...

He trudged up Nicolson Street, turned down to his left round the back of the College, through the Port of the Potterrow, down the Horse Wynd, across the Cowgate and up the steep Fishmarket Close to the High Street at the Cross.

Here Robert Burns was waiting for him.

The Bard had been kicking his heels about the Cross for a good half-hour; but he had not minded waiting.

It was a fine clear December morning. There had been frost in the night; but now the midday sun had thawed it away and left the air clear and sparkling. A snell but bracing east wind from the North Sea had lifted the smoke-pall from the Town. Even the stinks were somewhat in abeyance.

The Cross of Edinburgh was a fine place to stand on a clear Sabbath morning. The canyon of the High Street fell away with the falling canyon of the Canongate. From this vantage point could be seen to the east, the grey-blue waters of the Firth of Forth...

But the Bard’s great smouldering eyes saw far beyond the Firth; saw across the Tay and up through the Howe of the Mearns to Clochnahill; saw the road his father had travelled south till he too had reached the Fife shore and had stood staring in hungry anticipation at the smoke-pall above Auld Reekie lying like a cloud by day...

Douce citizens turned to stare at this strange man so strangely clad who stood with his back to the Mercat Cross and gazed into the distance with such abstracted wonder.

“Wha the deil can that fellow be?” asked John Wood, solicitor at law and surveyor of windows for the county. He addressed the question to his wife as they emerged from Borthwick’s Close where they had been visiting George Cruickshanks, the writer. But all his wife could say after staring hard was: “A stranger, whaever he is.”

“Aye,” said the window surveyor, “and a gey queer stranger.”

The Bard had bought himself a new hat with a wide curl to the brim: he had bought himself a new waistcoat bold in its horizontal stripes of buff and blue (the party colours of Charles James Fox). As a final touch he had invested in a pair of sound and extremely good-looking top-boots of highly-polished black leather with a broad band of white doeskin round the top.

His handsome rig-out was completed by his blue tailed coat with large brass buttons and his white buckskin breeches. A strong sturdy independent figure he looked as he stood there staring into the distance or when, with a sudden crack to his booted leg with his riding-crop, he took a turn and a swing about the High Street.

Peter Hill certainly thought him a commanding figure. He apologised for his lateness. But the Bard would have no apologies.

“... I’ve been enjoying the scene, Mr. Hill; and it certainly is a scene to be enjoyed. When I was here the other day I had to elbow my way through the multitude o’ folks pressing round the Cross. This morning I’ve the breadth o’ the street to myself. And mind you: I never thought that, some day, I’d be able to stand at the Cross o’ Edinburgh. And yet I should have minded! Many a time I’ve heard my father tell how he came to the shore and stood staring across at the great cloud o’ smoke that hung about Auld Reekie——”

“Oh aye: on a clear day you get a grand view frae the Cross and just as guid frae Creech’s front steps. Well now, Mr. Burns: what part o’ the Toon would you like to explore first?”

“For that I’m no’ particular, Mr. Hill. For the moment I’m puzzled wi’ the lie o’ the place. Looking down the High Street here I’m looking east ... to where?”

“Follow your nose and you follow the Canongate richt doon to the Abbey and Holyrood. Now the lie o’ the Toon, Mr. Burns, is simple enough. The Auld Toon lies on either side o’ this ridge we’re standing on. East is Holyrood: west, the Castle. On your left hand, to the north, the New Toon: to your right, the South Toon. Three Toons, Mr. Burns, divided frae each other by a valley as it were. The Nor’ Loch divides us frae the New Toon: the Cowgate—that some say is juist a dried-up loch—divides us frae the South Toon.”

“Aye ... that’s simple enough, Mr. Hill—as simple as the four points o’ the mariner’s compass... And what connects the Auld Toon with the New?”

“Doon the High Street there to your left—the North Bridge. Opposite it they’re working hard on the South Bridge over the Cowgate to connect up wi’ Nicolson Street. And a great convenience it’ll be when it’s finished—it’ll save folk the traik awa’ doon to the Cowgate juist to climb up again.”

The Bard wasn’t really listening. It was difficult to listen to Peter Hill on such a morning. What did it matter how Edinburgh lay in the sun or whether the Cowgate ran east, west, north or south, up or down, sideways or zig-zag? The Cowgate! That word had another connotation for him. The Cowgate signified Jean Armour and all that Jean Armour signified.

On the sudden he was restless. Peter Hill had a plain white pock-pitted face and eyes like a dog that had got a boot brutally planted in his rump when he was hungry and a whine had escaped from his twisted entrails. A good honest man, Peter Hill, notwithstanding...

“Let’s walk over your North Bridge then, Mr. Hill.”

Away they went swinging down the High Street of Auld Reekie, capital of Scotland, the Northern Athens. On a bright Sunday in December; about midday on the Tron steeple; about the time men in their sober Sabbath braws, having stewed themselves in Auld Reekie’s high-flown Presbyterianism, under the shadow of John Knox (made elegant by the Reverend Doctor Hugh Blair, minister of the High Kirk of Saint Giles, sometime Professor of Rhetoric and pensioner of Royal Geordie ...) about the time they were repairing, without any indecent haste, to their favourite Sabbath howffs, gin cellars and drinking dens; that they might wash out of their mouths and drive out of their consciousness the sour baby-pap of the reverend and right reverend divines—for never, since John Knox came thundering out of Geneva, had the Scots, as a race, been able to imbibe their Presbyterian theology without the aid of strong drink...

Anyway they went swinging down the High Street and Peter Hill had to shuffle his step repeatedly before he fell in with the Bard’s rhythm.

On the North Bridge they stood to survey the incredible scene. Below them to the west ran the great gully where but lately the North Loch had stretched its dirty dishclout waters.

Now the loch had been drained and in the middle, almost opposite the foot of Baxters’ Close, they had commenced to unload the carts of soil dug from the building excavations from the New Town with the object of building, by this great mound of earth and stones, a road across from the middle of Princes Street up onto the Landmarket...

Peter Hill explained the project:

“And how will they ever get access to the Landmarket?”

“Oh, they’re getting ready to demolish Upper and Lower Baxters’ Closes to mak’ way for the new road. But you get a grand view o’ the New Toon frae here, Mr. Burns. That’s Princes Street running along the top o’ the gully...”

The Bard glanced at the New Town which was well advanced in its building. The houses were certainly big and spacious looking. Big but not high. But there was a rawness and uniformity about them that did not attract; the great jagged lands of the Auld Town were far more imposing, far richer in character...

And then the Bard was conscious of the most damnable stink in his nostrils—a dead foul decaying putrefying stench. He turned away in disgust and nausea.

“That’s frae the shambles just doon below the Brig. There’s nae activity seeing it’s the Sabbath... And on a hot summer’s day the stench can be fair overpowering.”

“I shouldn’t like the stench here on a hot summer’s day, Mr. Hill... What’s on the other side o’ the Brig?”

Now the Bard had his eyes to the hills. On his immediate left rose the great steep bluff of the Calton Hill, on his right the great mass of the Salisbury Crags beetling bare and bleak and precipitous: the great ridge crowned by the peak of Arthur’s Seat. In the valley between ran the Canongate down to the Palace of Holyrood. Here the cluster of high tenement lands huddled and smoked in the hollow.

The Bard could have drunk in the scene for hours. He listened with but half an ear to Peter Hill’s running commentary. He would get the details later: meantime it was more than enough to gather the impression of this extraordinary town where every step and every turn of the head brought fresh angles and new vistas...

Below them lay the Physic Gardens, College Church and Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel... It was too much to take in: the names fell dead on his ears...

“Don’t tell me any more names, Mr. Hill: I canna take them in. Auld Reekie, I can see, will have to be wooed gently and over a long period o’ time...”

Where the North Bridge joined the ridge of the New Town, in the right-hand corner, stood the Theatre Royal dominating Shakespeare Square...

“You attend the theatre, Mr. Hill?”

“Weel ... no. No’ since I got married. A wife and weans, you ken, Mr. Burns... Oh, but there’s mony grand performances given i’ the Theatre Royal so I hear. There’s a bill on the door there, you can see what’s on.”

“Aye ... we’ll see what’s on as you put it. I’ve never been inside a theatre but I’ve aye had a hankering after it.”

They examined the Theatre Royal’s bill of fare. The Bard found it well worth examination. The entertainment offered seemed amazingly diversified. He ran his eye over the items:

THEATRE ROYAL

Last Night but Two of the Company’s Engagement

On WEDNESDAY Evening, December 6, will be exhibited,

A Variety of Performances

by a

Select Company from Sadler’s Wells,

As performed not only there, but at the Theatres

Royal of Paris, Dublin, Liverpool,

Manchester, etc., etc., etc.

TIGHT ROPE DANCING

By

The Little Devil

The Little Peire

Madam Romain,

And La Belle Espagniola

Clown, by Pietro Bologna

The Little Devil will dance on the Rope with Baskets—Madam

Romain will dance on the Rope with Swords to her feet—and La

Belle Espagniola will dance on the Rope with Fetters on her Legs,

and Likewise dance the Fandango with Castinets.

A Favourite Song by MISS S. VERNELL

TUMBLING

By the Inimitable

Little Devil

Mr. Laurence

Mr. Fairbrother

Mr. Balmat

and Signor Pietro Bologna

Who will exhibit, this evening, a variety of New Performances;

particularly, Mr. Balmat will throw a most surprising Somerset

from off three tables and a chair; and the Little Devil will, in a

most surprising manner, fly over twelve men’s heads.

SIGNOR PIETRO BOLOGNA

will exhibit some new comic and entertaining performances

ON THE SLACK WIRE

He will balance a Straw, a Peacock’s Feather, display two Flags,

and beat two Drums, in a manner never attempted by any but himself.

A Comic Song by MR. HERMAN

To which will be added a Pantomime, never performed Here, called

THE LOVERS OF COLUMBINE

Or a Trick of the Devil

	Harlequin	by the	Little Devil
	Pantaloon		Mr. Fairbrother
	French Servant		Mr. Balmat
	Magician		Mr. Herman
	Clown		Signor Pietro Bologna
	Lover		Madam Romain
and	Columbine		La Belle Espagniola

In the Course of the Pantomime will be introduced the much-admired

Dance, called

LA FRICASSEE

After which SIGNOR SCALIONI will exhibit with the

Original Surprising

DANCING DOGS

Particularly

GENERAL JACKOO

and

THE LITTLE DESERTER

will be tried by a Court Martial; condemned and shot by a party

of his regiment.

The whole to conclude with the

Wonderful EXERTION of an English Bull Dog

Who will ascend in a PARACHUTE, surrounded by

FIRE WORKS

Tickets may be had and places for the boxes taken at the Office of

the Theatre.

Pit and Boxes 3s.—First Gallery 2s.—Second Gallery 1s.

“This is something I must see, Mr. Hill. If this La Belle Espagniola is as good as she sounds, she’ll be worth the price o’ the ticket herself.”

“Oh, I hear they give good value.”

“I should think so! And this Little Devil! Aye: a most amazing programme, Mr. Hill ... and not a Scot amang the bluidy lot...”

“I wadna be ower sure o’ that, Mr. Burns. For a’ ye ken La Belle Espagniola may hae been nae further abroad nor the foot o’ the Canongate and the Little Devil may have come oot o’ the Baijen Hole...”

Opposite the Theatre stood the almost finished Register House, a grand and imposing building—but the Bard was no longer interested in buildings.

His eyes were now on the citizens who lived in the New Town and on the folks that passed between the Old and the New by way of the North Bridge. Interest and activity was added to this corner by virtue of the fact that the road to Leith sloped away from the corner of the Register House.

It didn’t take the Bard long to notice how sharply, in so far as dress was concerned, the classes in Edinburgh were divided. The female gentry were gorgeously clad in the most extravagant of styles. Their dresses consumed yards and yards of expensive materials; and between canes, hoops, cages and enormous artificial bums they sailed about the foot-walks with the bulk of haycocks. The hats they supported were equally bulky and hideous and of the most grotesque designs.

Such were the ladies of fashion who blocked the side-walks of the New Town—the wives and daughters of the rich merchants, the landed aristocracy, the wealthy law agents...

The women of the middle classes were more soberly and less extravagantly attired. Their clothes were designed to last more than the season’s fashions and for them a bonnet had to last for several years. Here were the wives and daughters of the small tradesmen and shopkeepers, the impecunious gentry and the middling lawyers.

Then came the douce womenfolk of the artisan class. The wives were drably put on though they were invariably clean and respectable. The daughters were more daring. They liked brightly coloured silk shawls and coloured worsted stockings—when they sported the luxury of stockings; but they were outside the pale of the hoop and cage stockade. Their dresses did not sweep the causeway—indeed some of them were surprisingly high kilted and did not hesitate to display a shapely leg.

Then there were the poor; and the poor predominated. Auld Reekie’s poor were indeed very poor. Dirt, poverty, ill-health, undernourishment, beggary and destitution were stamped on them. They were bundled in hideous evil-smelling rags. And yet the New Town gentry did not hesitate to recruit from them their lowest menials. For cleanliness and elementary hygiene, except in odd individuals, was something unknown in the Athens of the North, even as it was unknown in London or Paris ... or Saint Petersburg.

The Bard had seen poverty in Ayrshire: he had even seen beggary and destitution. But he had never seen such a mass of suppurating poverty as he witnessed in Edinburgh.

And on this bright December Sunday, at the point where life flowed betwixt the Old and the New Towns, it was seen in the most glaring contrasts.

He commented upon this to his companion. But Peter did not seem to be affected by it.

“There’s rich and poor no matter where you go, Mr. Burns. The Book says that the poor shall always be with us. But, now that you mention it, I think I see what you mean. Still, apart frae that, Mr. Burns—what d’you think o’ Edinburgh?”

“Oh, I’m impressed, Mr. Hill: impressed more than I can say—now! You get a wonderful view of the Auld Toon from Princes Street here. You can almost hear poor Fergusson’s glorious lines singing in the air...”

Viewed from Princes Street, across the drained but still marshy bed of the North Loch, the old tenement lands rose fantastically out of the rock like great ragged-edged blocks. It was difficult to believe that they looked up to what were the principal dwellings of Edinburgh, those precipices of stone and lime and narrow slits of windows that until a few years ago had sheltered the entire population of the Capital.

And then the whole jagged fantastic panorama was crowned by the Castle—the Rock terminating abruptly and falling sheer into the morass below. Grey rock and grey stone. Grim austere hard and enduring—but massively, impressively so.

Peter Hill saw that the Bard was impressed.

“It gars you think, Mr. Burns.”

“Aye ... and gars you dream too. That’s the Capital of Scotland without doubt; and a fitting monument to our race. What a tragedy it was that robbed us of our parliament and our independence. I doubt if there’s another country in the world could boast such an inspiring capital!”

“Ah well: them that’s been in London says it’s just a flat overcrowded midden o’ a place. And them that’s been in Paris say it stinks worse than either o’ them. I’ve heard Mr. Creech tell about his travels abroad wi’ the Earl o’ Glencairn...”

“Yes: I’ve read about those places—and seen prints of them. But no: I can imagine nothing finer than Edinburgh. It lifts up the mind and the heart even as it lifts up its palaces and towers.”

“Maybe you’ll write a poem on it, Mr. Burns?”

“Aye: did my Muse feel adequate to my inspiration I might do that. Well... much as I like the clean tidiness of your New Town, I doubt if I would care to live out my life in it. I am a countryman and I’ll gladly return to my rural shades when I’ve completed my business with your master—but, had I on compulsion to choose a city to dwell in, I would choose Auld Chuckie Reekie. What a pity you didn’t know Fergusson! If you only knew how I loved that poor lad’s gift for rhyme. Listen: ‘Auld Reekie! thou’rt the canty hole, a bield for mony a cauldrife soul, wha snugly at their ingle loll, baith warm and couth; while round they gar the bicker roll to weet their mouth... Auld Reekie! wale o’ ilka Toon that Scotland kens beneath the moon; where couthy chiels at e’ening meet their bizzing craigs and mou’s to weet; and blythly gar auld Care gae by wi’ blinkit and wi’ bleering eye... Now morn, with bonnie purpie-smiles, kisses the air-cock o’ Saint Giles... On Sunday here, an altered scene o’ men and manners meets our een. In afternoon, a’ brawly buskit, the joes and lassies lo’e to frisk it. Some take a great delight to place a modest bon-grace o’er the face. Though you may see, if so inclined, the turning o’ the leg behind. Now Comeley Garden and the Park refresh them after forenoon’s walk ... while dandering cits delight to stray to Castlehill, or public way, let me to Arthur’s Seat pursue, whare bonnie pastures meet the view; and mony a wild-lorn scene accrues befitting Willie Shakespeare’s muse’—

“Befitting Willie Shakespeare’s muse ... aye: puir Fergusson—his words and rhymes drip like honey from the tongue. And I suppose from Fergusson and Allan Ramsay I’ve had Edinburgh bright and clear in my mind’s eye. And yet, Mr. Hill, Edinburgh in all the majesty o’ its naked stone is finer than ony description o’ it could be—no’ excluding Willie Shakespeare’s muse.”

“Well, sir, I’ve never heard poetry spoken with such meaning before—and I’ve heard poetry spoken about Mr. Creech’s shop mony a time. You must have had a great admiration for Fergusson—as weel as a great memory—to say his lines like that. You ken: the literati hereabouts never mention him.”

“There’s not one of them—or a dozen of them together—could write poetry like Fergusson. He was my first real master—and he may well be my last. Believe me, Mr. Hill, and I say this in all truth and modesty—my verses are poor stuff compared to the glorious lines of Auld Reekie’s Bard... Could you take me to his grave?”

“No ... that I couldna, Mr. Burns—and sorry I am to say that. He might be buried in the Canongate Kirkyard. You see, I wasna in Edinburgh when he died and, well, I never thocht he was important—never heard onybody about the shop talking about him. Though I did hear, elsewhere, that Henry MacKenzie doesna like him.”

“I can understand that—though Fergusson’s satire on his Man of Feeling was harmless. MacKenzie should have been big enough to look over it. But if you can’t direct me to his grave I’ll need to make enquiries elsewhere. Smellie should be able to tell me.”

“Oh aye: Mr. Smellie kens a’ aboot the Toon and a’bodies in it. He’s a verra clever man is Mr. Smellie. Indeed, between ourselves, Mr. Burns, I doubt if there’s a cleverer man i’ the Toon for learning o’ a’ kinds. Of course, there’s some clever law lords. Lord Monboddo is a great scholar though plenty think he’s clean gyte——”

“What’s your own opinion, Mr. Hill?”

“Weel, Lord Monboddo’s nae doubt clever—but I think he’s a bit gyte too. I’ve watched him coming up the street to the Parliament House—that’s where the Law Courts are held—behind Saint Giles’s. As I say, I’ve seen him coming up from Saint John Street and the rain coming on; and he would hire a chair and place his meikle wig in it and walk beside the chairmen—and ne’er fash about getting drookit himsel’. You see: he doesna believe that folk should tak’ advantage o’ modern conveniences—because the Ancients—the auld Greeks—hadna onything like them. And he’ll travel on nothing but horse-back. I heard him mysel’ telling Mr. Creech, when he was for London one time, that it was degrading for a man to be dragged at a horse’s tail instead o’ sitting manfully on its back as master. And he’s no’ a young man—he’ll be over sixty. Makes his dochter ride wi’ him to London and up Aberdeen way to his estate—in a’ weathers; and I wadna say she’s a strong lass though she’s a good-looking one.”

“So that’s Lord Monboddo—and his daughter!”

“Aye, but they’re a’ a bit touched. You’ll need to visit the Court o’ Session and see and hear them. The like o’ some o’ the arguments baith in defence and prosecution you wadna believe till you heard them wi’ your own ears. Of course, Mr. Burns, this is a’ verra confidential atween you and me. Mr. Creech wadna like to think I was saying ocht aboot the Law Lords—they a’ come aboot the shop even them he doesna publish.

“And it’s the same wi’ the professors doon at the College. Some o’ them are right enough—some o’ the younger men. But among the older generation there’s some queer characters. The like o’ Doctor Adam Ferguson. He resigned the Chair o’ Moral Philosophy that Professor Dugald Stewart took up last year. He used to be Professor o’ Mathematics—John Playfair tak’s that now.”

“But are they able to change from one Chair to another as if they were chairs at a table?”

“Change? No’ so much now, of course. But tak’ Adam Ferguson. I understand he was an army chaplain at one time. When he left the army he was made librarian of the Advocates’ Library—that’s just about the most important collection in Scotland. Then he was appointed to the first Chair in the College that fell vacant—and that happened to be the Chair o’ Natural Philosophy. Of course he knew nothing about that. But he took it over and they tell me he made no’ a bad job o’ it. And then he took over Moral Philosophy; and about ten or twelve years ago he published his Institutes of Moral Philosophy—and made a name for himsel’. Then for a while he was away travelling abroad wi’ Lord Chesterfield—met Voltaire and a’ the literati abroad. That wasna the finish o’ him. About ’78 he went on the Commission to America to see what could be settled wi’ the rebels—and came back empty-handed. But the purse would be well filled! Then he manipulated the Chair o’ Mathematics. But he did better than that: he gave the Chair to Mr. Playfair and kept the salary—draws it still.”

“And what does Mr. Playfair live on?”

“Oh, Playfair gets the students’ fees—and they come to a bit if you’re onyway good at tutoring—and Mr. Playfair’s good they tell me.”

“And how much is the salary?”

“Over a hundred pounds.”

“And is this a proper proceeding?”

“You wadna think so. But then it’s managed wi’ the consent o’ the magistrates. There’s wheels within wheels a’ the time, Mr. Burns. But I meant to tell you about the way he goes about—summer or winter. Lord kens how many clothes he wears. But at least he wears twa great-coats—one o’ them fur-lined—a fur hat and a great meikle pair o’ fur-lined boots. You’d think he was biding at the North Pole. Just a piece o’ nonsense if you ask me. I saw a lot o’ him when he published his History of the Roman Republic two years ago. And I thocht he was about the oddest man ever I saw. Aye: shivering wi’ his way o’ it—and the sweat running down the sides o’ his wizened cheeks on a hot summer’s day. And as crabbit as Auld Nick. Flare up in a temper about the least thing that didna please him. I’m telling you, Mr. Burns—and I don’t mean this to flatter you in ony way or to insult you either—you’re the first sensible-speaking, sensible-looking man that’s been connected in ony way wi’ the literati.”

“I’m a ploughman who writes poetry for his own amusement.”

“That’s your modesty, sir. And it becomes you. But your poetry amuses—and instructs—everybody that can read. And you’re not just a poet—you’re Scotland’s poet now, sir. I think your book will do well in Scotland——”

“We’ll see what we’ll see, Mr. Hill.”

“And you’ll make money too—though I don’t know exactly what Mr. Creech and you have arranged on the financial side. But you should clear a good three hundred pounds.”

“A fortune, eh? I’ll be pleased if I clear my expenses. Don’t forget that I’ll have to pay Smellie for the printing and Willie Scott for the binding—apart altogether from what Mr. Creech will need for his share in the business.”

“Ah weel ... Mr. Creech will be looking for something.”

“And I’ll not grudge him it. I don’t expect him to be a philanthropist in this matter: he has his living to make even as you and I have to make ours. And without Creech to publish—or act as my agent in the matter—I’d go abegging.”

“That’s your modesty again, Mr. Burns... Weel: will we hae a bit look at the South Toon?”

“If you have no objection, Mr. Hill, I’d rather for the moment look at a pint o’ ale. There’s plenty o’ questions I want to ask you—the kind o’ questions that are better discussed round a tavern table. Is there such a place convenient to us?”

“That’s one thing aboot Edinburgh, Mr. Burns: a dozen steps in ony direction’ll land you at a howff o’ some kind. So we’ll just turn into Shakespeare Square here behind the Theatre. Bayle’s is as good a tavern as you’ll find in the Toon. Mind you: it’s a superior place to Dawney Douglas’s or John Dowie’s though there’s plenty wouldna like to hear me say so. But there’s mair room aboot Bayle’s...”

“Lead on then to Bayle’s, Mr. Hill. For I have plenty to ask you concerning Mr. Creech and the literati.”