zed a moment
at each other with some surprise, they in the same breath expressed their
conviction that Dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since he
summoned them both to his presence at once. Ere the servant could usher
them to his apartment, the party was augmented by a man of law, Nichil
Novit, writing himself procurator before the sheriff-court, for in those
days there were no solicitors. This latter personage was first summoned
to the apartment of the Laird, where, after some short space, the
soul-curer and the body-curer were invited to join him.

Dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best bedroom, used
only upon occasions of death and marriage, and called, from the former of
these occupations, the Dead-Room. There were in this apartment, besides
the sick person himself and Mr. Novit, the son and heir of the patient, a
tall gawky silly-looking boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, a
good buxom figure of a woman, betwixt forty and fifty, who had kept the
keys and managed matters at Dumbiedikes since the lady's death. It was to
these attendants that Dumbiedikes addressed himself pretty nearly in the
following words; temporal and spiritual matters, the care of his health
and his affairs, being strangely jumbled in a head which was never one of
the clearest.

"These are sair times wi' me, gentlemen and neighbours! amaist as ill as
at the aughty-nine, when I was rabbled by the collegeaners.*

* Immediately previous to the Revolution, the students at the Edinburgh
College were violent anti-catholics. They were strongly suspected of
burning the house of Prestonfield, belonging to Sir James Dick, the Lord
Provost; and certainly were guilty of creating considerable riots in
1688-9.

--They mistook me muckle--they ca'd me a papist, but there was never a
papist bit about me, minister.--Jock, ye'll take warning--it's a debt we
maun a' pay, and there stands Nichil Novit that will tell ye I was never
gude at paying debts in my life.--Mr. Novit, ye'll no forget to draw the
annual rent that's due on the yerl's band--if I pay debt to other folk, I
think they suld pay it to me--that equals aquals.--Jock, when ye hae
naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be
growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping.*

* The Author has been flattered by the assurance, that this _naive_ mode
of recommending arboriculture (which was actually delivered in these very
words by a Highland laird, while