Chapter 5 - Page 2

having somewhat of the RUS IN URBE which I was ambitious
of enjoying. Enough: I went, as aforesaid, to the Canongate.

I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly spoken, and, my
mind being at ease, my bodily organs were more delicate. I was
more sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in
MEASURE FOR MEASURE,--it did in some sort--pah an ounce of civet,
good apothecary! Turning from thence, my steps naturally
directed themselves to my own humble apartment, where my little
Highland landlady, as dapper and as tight as ever, (for old women
wear a hundred times better than the hard-wrought seniors of the
masculine sex), stood at the door, TEEDLING to herself a Highland
song as she shook a table napkin over the fore-stair, and then
proceeded to fold it up neatly for future service.

"How do you, Janet?"

"Thank ye, good sir," answered my old friend, without looking at
me; "but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na
a'body's Shanet--umph."

"You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me?
Do you not remember Chrystal Croftangry?"

The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the open
door, skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at once,
seized me by the hands--both hands--jumped up, and actually
kissed me. I was a little ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere
inclining to sixty could resist the advances of a fair
contemporary? So we allowed the full degree of kindness to the
meeting--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE--and then Janet entered
instantly upon business. "An ye'll gae in, man, and see your
auld lodgings, nae doubt and Shanet will pay ye the fifteen
shillings of change that ye ran away without, and without bidding
Shanet good day. But never mind" (nodding good-humouredly),
"Shanet saw you were carried for the time."

By this time we were in my old quarters, and Janet, with her
bottle of cordial in one hand and the glass in the other, had
forced on me a dram of usquebaugh, distilled with saffron and
other herbs, after some old-fashioned Highland receipt. Then was
unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper, the reserved sum
of fifteen shillings, which Janet had treasured for twenty years
and upwards.

"Here they are," she said, in honest triumph, "just the same I
was holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey. Shanet
has had siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since
that. And the gauger has come, and the factor has come, and the
butcher and baker--Cot bless us just like to tear poor auld
Shanet to pieces; but she took good care of Mr. Croftangry's
fifteen shillings."

"But what if