Part 12

And thus Mr Thriven managed these importunate beings, termed creditors, in a manner that he, doubtless, considered highly creditable to himself, in so far as he thereby spread more widely the fact that he had been ruined by no fault of his own, at the same time that he proved himself to be a man of feeling, justice, and sentiment. Meanwhile, his agent, Mr Sharp, was as busy as ever an attorney could be, in getting out a sequestration, with the indispensable adjunct of a personal protection, which the lords very willingly granted upon the lugubrious appeal, set forth in the petition, that Mr Thriven's misfortunes were attributable to the element of fire. A fifty-pound note, too, sent his shopman, Mr Joseph Clossmuns, over the Atlantic; and, the coast being clear, Mr Thriven went through his examinations with considerable eclat.

CHAP. IV.--THE WINDFALL.

"These men," said Mr Thriven, after he got home to dinner, "have worried me so by their questions, that they have imposed upon me the necessity of taking some cooling liquor to allay the fervour of my blood. I must drink to them, besides, for they were, upon the whole, less severe than they might have been; and a bottle of cool claret will answer both ends. And now," he continued, after he drank off a bumper to the long lives of his creditors--"the greatest part of my danger being over, I can see no great risk of my failing in getting them to accept a composition of five shillings in the pound. But what then? I have no great fancy to the counter. After all, a haberdasher is at best but a species of man-milliner; and I do no see why I should not, when I get my discharge in my pocket, act the gentleman as well as the best of them. All that is necessary is to get the devout Miss Angelina M'Falzen, who regenerates the species by distributing good books, to consent to be my wife. She has a spare figure, a sharp face, and a round thousand. Her fortune will be a cover to my idleness; and then I can draw upon the sum I have made by my failure, just as occasion requires."

At the end of this monologue, a sharp broken voice was heard in the passage; and Mr Samuel Thriven's bottle of claret was, in the twinkling of an eye, replaced by a jug of cool spring water.

"Ah, how do you do, my clear Miss M'Falzen?" cried Mr Samuel, as he rose to meet his devout sweetheart.

"Sir," responded the devout distributor of tracts, stiffly and coldly, "you are in far better spirits than becomes one who is the means of bringing ruin on so many families. I expected to have found you contrite of heart, and of a comely sadness of spirits and seriousness of look."

"And yet I am only feasting on cold water," replied Samuel, letting the muscles of his face fall, as he looked at the jug. "But you know, Miss Angelina, that I am innocent of the consequences of the fire, and, when one has a clear conscience, he may be as happy in adversity over a cup of water, as he may be in prosperity over a bottle of claret."

"A pretty sentiment, Mr Thriven--la! a beautiful sentiment," replied Miss Angelina; "and satisfied as I am of your purity, let me tell you that our intercourse shall not, with my will, be interrupted by your misfortune. I would rather, indeed, feel a delight in soothing you under your affliction, and administering the balm of friendship to the heart that is contrite, under the stroke which cannot be averted."

"And does my Angelina," cried Samuel, "regard me with the same kindness and tenderness in my present reduced circumstances, as when I was engaged in a flourishing trade, which might have emboldened me to hope for a still more intimate, ay, and sacred connection?"

"Mr Thriven," replied the other, gravely, "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer." Samuel's face underwent some considerable change. "I have called in behalf of Mrs Mercer, who has reported to me some sentiments stated by you to her, of so beautiful and amiable a character, and so becoming a Christian, that I admire you for them. You promised to do your utmost, after you are discharged, to make amends to her and her poor family for the loss she will sustain by your bankruptcy. Ah, sir, that alone proves to me that you are an honest, innocent, and merely unfortunate insolvent; and to show you that I am not behind you in magnanimity, I have paid her the fifty pounds wherein you were indebted to her, and got an assignation to her debt. You may pay me when you please; and, meanwhile, I will accept of the composition you intend to offer to your creditors."

"Fifty pounds off her tocher," muttered Samuel between his teeth, and then took a drink of the cold water, in the full memory of the claret.

"It scarcely beseems a man," said he, "to be aught but a silent listener, when his praise is spoken by one he loves and respects. But, is it possible, Miss M'Falzen, that my misfortune has not changed those feelings--those--excuse me, Miss Angelina--those intentions with which, I had reason to believe, you regarded me."

And, with great gallantry, he seized the fair spinster round the waist, as he had been in the habit of doing before he was a bankrupt, to show, at least, that he was now no bankrupt in affection.

"To be plain with you, sir," replied she, wriggling herself out of his hands, "my intention once was to wait until I saw whether you would come unscathed and pure out of the fiery ordeal; but, on second thoughts, I conceived that this would be unfair to one whom I had always looked upon as an honest man, though, probably, not so seriously-minded a Christian as I could have wished; therefore," she added, smiling--yet no smiling matter to Samuel--"I have, you see, trusted you fifty pounds--a pretty good earnest--he! he!--that my heart is just where it was."

Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven kissed Miss Angelina M'Falzen.

"But oh, sir," she added, by way of protest, "I hope and trust that not one single spot shall be detected in your fair fame and reputation, and that you will come forth out of trial as unsullied in the eyes of good men, as you were pure in the estimation of one who thus proves for you her attachment."

"Never doubt it," replied Mr Samuel. "Innocence gives me courage and confidence."

He placed, theatrically, his hand on his heart.

"And what think you," added Miss Angelina, "of John Bunyan's book, which I lent you, and which I now see lying here? Is it not a devout performance--an extraordinary allegory? How much good I do by that kind of books! Ha, by the by, Mrs Bairnsfather, good creature, wishes to read it. So I shall just put it in my pocket. To be plain with you, she is much cast down, poor creature, by the loss her husband has sustained through your involuntary failure; and I have said that she will find much comfort in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"

"A staunch book, madam," replied Samuel, seriously--"an extraordinary allegory, worth a piece of the vellum of the old Covenant. I have derived great satisfaction and much good from it. I have no doubt it will support her, as it has done me, under our mutual affliction."

"Oh, how I do love to hear you talk that way," replied Miss Angelina. "It is so becoming your situation. When do you think you will get a discharge? I will answer for Mr Bairnsfather agreeing to the composition; and you know I am now a creditor myself in fifty pounds. Of course you have my vote; but you will tell me all about it afterwards. Good-day, Mr Thriven."

"Good-day, Miss M'Falzen."

The which lady was no sooner out, than was the bottle of claret. In a few minutes more Mr Thriven was laughing over his replenished glass, as totally oblivious of the secret carried away by his lover, on the blank leaf of the good old tinker's book, as he was on that night when he made free with the two bottles of port as good as Ofleys.

"The matter looks well enough," said he. "I can make no manner of doubt that my composition will be accepted; and then, with the two thousand five hundred, at least, that I will make of my bankruptcy, and the round thousand possessed by Miss Angelina M'Falzen, I can perform the part of a walking gentleman on the great stage of the world."

"Is Mr Thriven within?" he now heard asked at the door.

"Ho, it is Sharp!" muttered he, as he shoved the bottle and the glass into a recess, and laid again hold of the water-jug.

"Water, Thriven!" cried the attorney, as he bounded forward, and seized the bankrupt by the hand. "Water! and Mrs Grizel M'Whirter of Cockenzie dead, of a dead certainty, this forenoon; and you her nephew, and a will in her drawers, written by Jem Birtwhistle, in your favour, and her fortune ten thousand; and the never a mortal thought the old harridan had more than a five hundred."

"The devil a drop!" cried Mr Samuel Thriven. "The devil a drop of water; for, have I not in this press a half bottle of claret, which I laid past there that day of the fire, and never had the courage to touch it since. But _me_ her heir! Ho, Mr Joseph Sharp, you are, of a verity, fooling a poor bankrupt, who has not a penny in the world after setting aside his composition of five shillings in the pound. _Me_ her heir! Why, I was told by herself that I was cut off with a shilling; and you must say it seriously ere I believe a word on't."

"I say it as seriously," replied the writer, "as ever you answered a homethrust to-day in the sheriff's office, as to the amount of stock you lost by the burning of your premises--as sure as a decree of the Fifteen. I say your loss had made her repent; so come away with the claret."

Mr Thriven emptied the whole of the half bottle, at one throw, into a tumbler.

"Drink, thou pink of an attorney!" said he, and then fell back into his chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed on the roof, and his two hands closed in each other, as if they had been two notes for five thousand each.

"Are you mad, Mr Thriven?" cried Sharp, after he had bolted the whole tumbler of claret.

"Yes!" answered Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven.

"Have you any more of this Bordeaux water in the house?"

"Yes!" answered Mr Thriven. "Open that lockfast" (pointing to a press), "and drink till you are only able to shout 'M'Whirter'--'Cockenzie'--'Thriven'--'ten thousand'--'hurra!'--and never let a word more come out of you, till you fall dead drunk on the floor."

The first part of the request, at least, was very quickly obeyed, and two bottles were placed on the table, one of which the attorney bored in an instant, and had a good portion of it rebottled in his stomach by the time that Mr Thriven got his eyes taken off the roof of the chamber.

"Hand me half-a-tumbler!" cried he, "that I may gather my senses, and see the full extent of my misfortune."

"Misfortune!" echoed Sharp.

"Ay!" rejoined Samuel, as he turned the bottom of the tumbler to the roof. "Why did Grizel M'Whirter die, sir, until I got my discharge?"

"Ah, sir!" replied Sharp, on whom the wine was already beginning to operate, "you have thus a noble opportunity of being the architect of a reputation that might be the envy of the world. You can now pay your creditors in full--twenty shillings in the pound, and retain five thousand to yourself, with the character of being that noblest work of nature--an honest man.'

"When a thing is utterly beyond one's reach," rejoined Samuel, looking, with a wry face, right into the soul of the attorney, "how beautiful it appears."

Sharp accepted coolly the cut, because he had claret to heal it, otherwise he would have assuredly knocked down Mr Samuel Thriven.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Sharp!" continued his friend; "but I felt a little pained, sir, at the high-flown expression of the great good that awaits me, as if I were not already conscious of being, and known to be, that noblest work of nature. The cut came from you, Mr Sharp, and I only returned it. All I regret, sir, is, that my aunt did not live till I got my discharge, because then, not being bound to pay my creditors one farthing, I might have paid them in full, without obligation at all, and thereby have proved myself what I am--a _generous_ man. No more of the claret. You must away with me to Cockenzie, to see that the repositories are sealed, and the will safe."

"By my faith, I forgot that!" replied Sharp; "a pretty good sign that, if you are a generous man, I am not a selfish one. We had better," he added, "let the claret alone till we return from Cockenzie. What think you?"

Now Samuel had already told Sharp that he was to have no more of the wine; and the question of the attorney, which was a clear forestaller, would have angered any man who was not an heir (five minutes old) of ten thousand. But Samuel knew better than to quarrel with the attorney at that juncture; so he answered him in the affirmative; and, in five minutes afterwards, the heir and the lawyer were in a coach, driving off to Cockenzie. The bankrupt was, in a few minutes more, in a dream--the principal vision of which was himself in the act of paying his creditors in full with their own money, and earning a splendid reputation for honesty. The sooner he performed the glorious act, the greater credit he would secure by it; his name would be in the "Courant" and "Mercury," headed by the large letters--"Praiseworthy instance of honesty coming out, in full strength, from the ordeal of fire."

"What has Miss Angelina M'Falzen been doing at the house of Mrs Bairnsfather?" cried Sharp, as he turned from the window of the carriage (now in the Canongate) to the face of Samuel, whose eyes were fixed by the charm of his glorious hallucination.

"Lending her the 'Pilgrim's Progress!'" answered Samuel, as he started from his dream.

Now Sharp could not for the life of him understand this ready answer of his friend, for he had put the query to awaken him from his dream, and without the slightest hope of receiving a reply to a question which savoured so much of the character of questions in general; so he left him to his dream, and, in a short time, they were at Cockenzie.

CHAP. V.--THE TEA-PARTY.

"Well, my dear," said Mr Bairnsfather to his wife, when he came home to tea on that same afternoon of which we have now been narrating the incidents, "I hope you are getting over our losses; yet I have no very good news for you to-day--for all that Thriven intends to offer of dividend is five shillings in the pound."

"It is but a weary world this we live in," said the disconsolate wife. "We are all pilgrims; and there is for each of us some slough of despond, through which we must struggle to the happy valley."

"What, ho!" rejoined the husband; "I have come home to tea, and you are giving me a piece of Bunyan. Come, lay down your book, for Mr Wrench and Mr Horner are to be here to get some of your souchong."

"And I," replied the good-wife, "asked Miss Angelina M'Falzen to come back and get a cup with us. I could not do less to the devout creature; for she took the trouble of going to Mr Thriven's to-day, and getting from him the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' that she might bring it to me, to reconcile me to the evils of life, and, among the rest, the loss which we have sustained by her friend's failure."

"Poh! I hate all 'Pilgrim's-Progress'-reading insolvents!" rejoined the husband, taking the book out of his wife's hands. "Go, love, and get ready the tea, while I sojourn with the Elstow tinker in the valley of humiliation, out of which a cup of China brown stout and some converse will transport me to the 'house beautiful.'"

And Mr Bairnsfather, while his wife went to prepare tea, and his many children were dispersed here and there and everywhere, got very rapidly into "Vanity Fair," of the which, being somewhat aweary, as he said, with a yawn, he turned the leaves over and over, and at last fixed his eyes on the leaf that had once been, though it was now no longer, blank. The awl of the Elstow tinker himself never could have gone with greater determination through the leather of a pair of bellows, than did Mr Bairnsfather's eye seem to penetrate that written page. Like the seer of the vision of a ghost in the night, he drew his head back, and he removed it forwards, and he shut his eyes, and opened his eyes, and rubbed his eyes; and the more he did all this, the more he was at a loss to comprehend what the writing on the said blank leaf was intended to carry to the eyes of mortals. It was of the handwriting of Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, for a certainty--he could swear to it; for the bill he had in his possession--and whereby he would lose three-fourth parts of two hundred pounds--was written in the same character. What _could_ it mean?

"What _can_ it mean?" he said, again and again.

"How should I, if you, who are a cleverer man, do not know, Mr Bairnsfather," said Mr Wrench, who was standing at his back, having entered in the meantime. "I have read the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' which Mrs B. says you are reading, more than once, and fairly admit that there are obscure passages in it. But here comes Mr Horner, who can perhaps unravel the mystery, if you can point out what limb of the centipede allegory it is which appears to you to have a limp."

"By my faith, it is in the tail," said Mr Bairnsfather, as he still bored his eyes into the end of the book.

"Let me see the passage," said Mr Horner.

And all the three began to look at the writing, which set forth the heads and particulars of Mr Samuel Thriven's gain by his bankruptcy.

"A very good progress for a pilgrim," said Mr Horner; and they looked at each other knowingly, and winked their six eyes, and nodded their three heads.

Miss M'Falzen and the tea came in at this moment. The three creditors were mute, and the devout spinster was talkative. Mrs Bairnsfather then filled up and handed round the tea-cups (they sat all close to the table), and her husband handed round to his two friends the book.

"What an interest that book _does_ produce," said Miss Angelina, apparently piqued by the attention shown to the genius of the tinker.

"Come, now, Miss Angelina," said Mrs Bairnsfather, "confess that that copy produces no small interest in yourself, considering the hands it was in to-day."

"Fie! fie, ma'am!" rejoined the blushing spinster. "How could the touch of a man's fingers impart a charm to mere paper. If Mr Thriven had appended some pretty piece of devout or poetical sentiment to it, why, you know, that would have made all the difference in the world, ma'am. He is really an excellent man, Mr Thriven; though we have all suffered in consequence of his loss, yet, I daresay, we all feel for his unmerited misfortune."

The three creditors were too much absorbed in Bunyan even to smile.

"When did you lend this copy to Mr Thriven?" inquired Mr Wrench; and the two others fixed their eyes, filled with awful import, on the face of the devout spinster.

"Just the day before the fire," replied she; "and ah, sir! how delighted I am that I did it! for he assures me that it has sustained him wonderfully in his affliction."

The three men smiled, rose simultaneously, and retired to a parlour, taking Bunyan with them. Their looks were ominous; and Mrs Bairnsfather could not, for the world, understand the mystery. After some time, they returned, and looked more ominously than before.

"It is worth three thousand pounds, if it is worth a penny," said Mr Horner, seriously.

"Every farthing of it," rejoined Mr Wrench. "The most extraordinary book I ever saw in my life."

"An exposition miraculous, through the agency of Heaven," added Mr Bairnsfather.

Now all this time their tea was cooling, and the hostess examined and searched the eyes of her husband and guests. Have they all got inspired or mad, thought she; but her thought produced no change, for the men still looked and whispered, and shook their heads, and nodded, and winked, and left their tea standing, till she began to think of the state of the moon.

"How delighted I am," ejaculated Miss M'Falzen; "for I never saw such an effect produced by the famous allegory in any family into which I ever introduced it. You see the effect of agitation in devout matters, Mrs Bairnsfather."

"You know not half the effect it has produced on us, ma'am," said Mr Horner. "It has electrified us--so much so, indeed, that we cannot remain longer to enjoy your excellent society. You will, therefore, ladies, excuse us if we swallow our tea cleverly, and go to promulgate in the proper quarters the information afforded us by this wonderful production."

"The sooner we are away the better," added Mr Wrench, drinking off his cup. "We must call a private meeting, and lay it secretly before them."

"Certainly," added Mr Bairnsfather; "and you, Miss M'Falzen, authorise us to tell the peregrinations of the book--into whose hands it has been--and how it came here."

"Bless you, sir!" cried the devout spinster; while Mrs Bairnsfather kept staring at her husband and guests, unable to solve the strange mystery, "you do not know a tithe of the good that this little book has achieved. It has been in half the houses in the Cowgate and Canongate. It is relished by the poor, and sought after by the rich; it mends the heart, improves the understanding, and binds up the wounds of those that are struck by the hands of the archers. Oh! I agitate in the good work mightily with it, and others of the same class; and may all success attend your efforts, also, in so excellent a cause. Call meetings by all means, read, expound, examine, exhort, entreat, and, hark ye, take Mr Samuel Thriven with you, for his heart is in the cause of the improvement of his fellow-creatures, and he knows the value of the allegory of the devout tinker of Elstow.

"We cannot do without Mr Thriven," replied Mr Bairnsfather, with a smile; and while Mrs Bairnsfather was calling out to them to take another cup, and explain to her the meaning of their conduct, the creditors rose all together, and, taking their hats and Bunyan, were on the point of leaving the room, in great haste and manifest excitement, when the door opened, and the soft voice of Widow Mercer saluted them.

"Have you heard the news?" said she.

"Does it concern Mr Thriven?" replied more than one.

"Yes, to be sure it does," rejoined she. "We will all now get full payment of our debts; what think ye of that, sirs?"

"Hush, hush," said Mr Bairnsfather, in the ear of the widow. "Say nothing of the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' You know Miss M'Falzen is a friend of Mr Thriven's."

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress!'" ejaculated the widow.

"Alas! he is, of a verity, mad," rejoined Mrs Bairnsfather.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress,'" again cried Mrs Mercer.

"Tush, we knew all about it," whispered Mr Wrench. "You also have seen the book?"

"Yes," replied the widow, "I have, as who hasn't? but Lord bless me!"--and she whispered in his ear--"what, in the name of wonder, has the 'Pilgrim's Progress' to do with Mr Thriven having got ten thousand pounds left him by Mrs Grizel M'Whirter."

The whisper was communicated to the two other creditors by Mr Wrench. The three merchants, stimulated at the same moment by the same impulse of joy, laid hold of the good widow, and whirled her like a top round the room, snapping their fingers the while, and exhibiting other perfectly innocent demonstrations of gladness.

"The most extraordinary method of proselytising," said the spinster, "that I, who have carried on the trade of mending the species for many years, have ever yet seen."

"It is all beyond my poor wits together," added the wife.

And beyond her poor wits the creditors allowed it to remain; for they immediately went forth upon their intended mission. In some hours afterwards, accordingly, there was a secret meeting in the "White Horse," not less dangerous to Mr Samuel Thriven than was that held in the Trojan one to old Troy.

CHAP. VI.--THE PAYMENT.