wanted to send for the doctor, but I told her that when I was calmed, I
would be better; however, I got no sleep that night. In the morning I
went to see Richard, whom I found in a composed and rational state: he
confessed to his father that he was as muckle to blame as Swinton, and
begged and entreated us, if he should die, not to take any steps against
the fugitives: my brother, however, was loth to make rash promises, and
it was not till his son was out of danger that I had any ease of mind for
the part I had played. But when Richard was afterwards well enough to go
about, and the duellers had come out of their hidings, they told him what
I had done, by which the whole affair came to the public, and I got great
fame thereby, none being more proud to speak of it than poor Dick
himself, who, from that time, became the bosom friend of Swinton; in so
much that, when he was out of his time as a writer, and had gone through
his courses at Edinburgh, the laird made him his man of business, and, in
a manner, gave him a nest egg.

CHAPTER XXXVIII--AN INTERLOCUTOR

Upon a consideration of many things, it appears to me very strange, that
almost the whole tot of our improvements became, in a manner, the parents
of new plagues and troubles to the magistrates. It might reasonably have
been thought that the lamps in the streets would have been a terror to
evil-doers, and the plainstone side-pavements paths of pleasantness to
them that do well; but, so far from this being the case, the very reverse
was the consequence. The servant lasses went freely out (on their
errands) at night, and at late hours, for their mistresses, without the
protection of lanterns, by which they were enabled to gallant in a way
that never could have before happened: for lanterns are kenspeckle
commodities, and of course a check on every kind of gavaulling. Thus,
out of the lamps sprung no little irregularity in the conduct of
servants, and much bitterness of spirit on that account to mistresses,
especially to those who were of a particular turn, and who did not choose
that their maidens should spend their hours a-field, when they could be
profitably employed at home.

Of the plagues that were from the plainstones, I have given an exemplary
specimen in the plea between old perjink Miss Peggy Dainty, and the widow
Fenton, that was commonly called the Tappit-hen. For the present, I
shall therefore confine myself in this _nota bena_ to an accide