The party, consisting of the Antiquary, his nephew, and the old beggar, now took the sands towards Mussel-crag--the former in the very highest mood of communicating information, and the others, under a sense of former obligation, and some hope for future favours, decently attentive to receive it.The uncle and nephew walked together, the mendicant about a step and a half behind, just near enough for his patron to speak to him by a slight inclination of his neck, and without the trouble of turning round.(Petrie, in his Essay on Good-breeding, dedicated to the magistrates of Edinburgh, recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor in a family of distinction, this attitude to all led captains, tutors, dependants, and bottle-holders of every description.)Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge a broadside upon his followers.
``And so it is your opinion,'' said he to the mendicant, ``that this windfall--this _arca auri,_ as Plautus has it, will not greatly avail Sir Arthur in his necessities?''
`Unless he could find ten times as much,'' said the beggar, ``and that I am sair doubtful of;--I heard Puggie Orrock, and the tother thief of a sheriff-officer, or messenger, speaking about it--and things are ill aff when the like o' them can speak crousely about ony gentleman's affairs.I doubt Sir Arthur will be in stane wa's for debt, unless there's swift help and certain.''
``You speak like a fool,'' said the Antiquary.--``Nephew, it is a remarkable thing, that in this happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for debt.''
``Indeed, sir?'' said M`Intyre; ``I never knew that before--that part of our law would suit some of our mess well.''
``And if they arena confined for debt,'' said Ochiltree, ``what is't that tempts sae mony puir creatures to bide in the tolbooth o' Fairport yonder?--they a' say they were put there by their creditors--Od! they maun like it better than I do, if they're there o' free will.''
``A very natural observation, Edie, and many of your betters would make the same; but it is founded entirely upon ignorance of the feudal system.Hector, be so good as to attend, unless you are looking out for another--Ahem!'' (Hector compelled himself to give attention at this hint.) ``And you, Edie, it may be useful to you _reram cognoscere causas._ The nature and origin of warrant for caption is a thing _haud alienum a Sc<ae>vol<ae> studiis._--You must know then, once more, that nobody can be arrested in Scotland for debt.''
``I haena muckle concern wi' that, Monkbarns,'' said the old man, ``for naebody wad trust a bodle to a gaberlunzie.''
``I pr'ythee, peace, man--As a compulsitor, therefore, of payment, that being a thing to which no debtor is naturally inclined, as I have too much reason to warrant from the experience I have had with my own,--we had first the letters of four forms, a sort of gentle invitation, by which our sovereign lord the king, interesting himself, as a monarch should, in the regulation of his subjects' private affairs, at first by mild exhortation, and afterwards by letters of more strict enjoinment and more hard compulsion--What do you see extraordinary about that bird, Hector?--it's but a seamaw.''
``It's a pictarnie, sir,'' said Edie.
``Well, what an if it were--what does that signify at present?
--But I see you're impatient; so I will waive the letters of four forms, and come to the modern process of diligence.--You suppose, now, a man's committed to prison because he cannot pay his debt? Quite otherwise: the truth is, the king is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor, and to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice within a certain time--fifteen days, or six, as the case may be.Well, the man resists and disobeys: what follows? Why, that he be lawfully and rightfully declared a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, and that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place of Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland.
And he is then legally imprisoned, not on account of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful contempt of the royal mandate.
What say you to that, Hector?--there's something you never knew before.''<*>
* The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil * debt in Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and * admitted to be correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on 5th * December 1828, in the case of Thom _v._ Black.In fact, the Scottish law * is in this particular more jealous of the personal liberty of the subject than * any other code in Europe.
``No, uncle; but, I own, if I wanted money to pay my debts, I would rather thank the king to send me some, than to declare me a rebel for not doing what I could not do.''
``Your education has not led you to consider these things,''
replied his uncle; ``you are incapable of estimating the elegance of the legal fiction, and the manner in which it reconciles that duress, which, for the protection of commerce, it has been found necessary to extend towards refractory debtors, with the most scrupulous attention to the liberty of the subject.''