body, nor for any lady's favour in the land.

When we reached Edinburgh, I went immediately to decent lodgings in the
West Bow, to which I had been directed by my mother; but Walter, saying
that the West Bow was no fit lodging for a gentleman, went on to settle
himself in one of the fashionable closes off the Lawnmarket.

As soon as we were by ourselves, my man, Hugh Kerr, came to me, and
began to ask if I knew anything of John Scarlet, the serving man that
accompanied my cousin.

I replied that I knew nothing of him, save that my cousin had past all
endurance cried him up to me as a mighty sworder.

"Weel," said Hugh Kerr, "it may be, but it's my opeenion that he is a
most mighty leer, an' a great scoundrel forbye."

I asked him why, and at the first go-off he would give me no better
answer than that he opined that his name was not John Scarlet but John
Varlet, as better denoting a gentleman of his kidney.

But when I pressed him, he told me that this serving man had told him
that he had committed at least half-a-dozen murders--which he called
slaughters and justified, that he had been at nigh half a hundred
killings in the fields, yet that he could pray like Mr. Kid himself at a
Societies' Meeting, and be a leader among the hill-folk when it seemed
good to him.

"An' the awesome thing o't a' is that the ill deil declared that he had
half-a-dizzen wives, and that he could mainteen the richts o' that too.
So I reasoned with him, but faith! the scoundrel had the assurance to
turn my flank wi' Abraham and the patriarchs. He said that he wadna cast
up Solomon to me, for he wasna just prepared to uphaud the lengths that
Solomon gaed to i' the maitter o' wives."

But I told Hugh to give his mind no concern about the sayings or doings
of Master John Scarlet or Varlet, for that it was all most likely lies;
and if not, neither he nor I was the man's master, to whom alone he
stood or fell.

But for all that I could see that Hughie was much dashed by his
encounter with my cousin's follower, for Hughie accounted himself a
great hand at the Scripture. We heard afterwards that John Scarlet had
been a sometime follower of Muckle John Gib, and that it was in his
company that he learned notions, which is a thing exceedingly likely.
But this was before Anton Lennox of the Duchrae took John in hand and
sorted him to rights, that day in the moss of the Deer-Slunk between
Lowthian and Lanark.

Then with my cousin's interest to