Guy Mannering [177]
"Well, sir, go on."
"Then for meat and liquor, ye may have the best, and I never charge abune twenty per cent. ower tavern price for pleasing a gentleman that way--and that's little eneugh for sending in and sending out, and wearing the lassie's shoon out. And then if ye're dowie, I will sit wi' you a gliff [*Twinkling] in the evening mysell, man, and help ye out wi' your bottle.--I have drunk mony a glass wi' Glossin, man, that did you up, though he's a justice now. And then I'se warrant ye'll be for fire thir cauld nights, or if ye want candle, that's an expensive article, for it's against the rules. And now I've tell'd ye the head articles of the charge, and I dinna think there's muckle mair, though there will aye be some odd expenses ower and abune."
"Well, sir, I must trust to your conscience, if ever you happened to hear of such a thing--I cannot help myself."
"Na, na, sir," answered the cautious jailor, "I'll no permit you to be saying that--I'm forcing naething upon ye;--an ye dinna like the price ye needna take the article--I force no man; I was only explaining what civility was; but if ye like to take the common run of the house, it's a' one to me--I'll be saved trouble, that's a'."
"Nay, my friend, I have, as I suppose you may easily guess, no inclination to dispute your terms upon such a penalty," answered Bertram. "Come, show me where I am to be, for I would fain be alone for a little while."
"Ay, ay, come along then, Captain," said the fellow, with a contortion of visage which he intended to be a smile; "and I'll tell you now,--to show you that I have a conscience, as ye ca't, d-n me if I charge ye abune sixpence a day for the freedom o' the court, and ye may walk in't very near three hours a day, and play at pitch-and-toss and handba', and what not."
With this gracious promise, he ushered Bertram into the house, and showed him up a steep and narrow stone staircase, at the top of which was a strong door, clenched with iron and studded with nails. Beyond this door was a narrow passage or gallery, having three cells on each side, wretched ,vaults, with iron bed-frames and straw mattresses. But at the farther end was a small apartment, of rather a more decent appearance, that is, having less the air of a place of confinement, since, unless for the large lock and chain upon the door, and the crossed and ponderous stanchions upon the window, it rather resembled the "worst inn's worst room." It was designed as a sort of infirmary for prisoners whose state of health required some indulgence; and, in fact, Donald Laider, Bertram's destined chum, had been just dragged out of one of the two beds which it contained, to try whether clean straw and whisky might not have a better chance to cure his intermitting fever. This process of ejection had been carried into force by Mrs. Mac-Guffog while her husband parleyed with Bertram in the courtyard, that good lady having a distinct presentiment of the manner in which the treaty must necessarily terminate. Apparently the expulsion had not taken place without some application of the strong hand, for one of the bed-posts of a sort of tent-bed was broken down, so that the tester and curtains hung forward into the middle of the narrow chamber, like the banner of a chieftain, half-sinking amid the confusion of a combat.
"Never mind that being out o' sorts, Captain," said Mrs. Mac-Guffog, who now followed them into the room; then, turning her back to the prisoner, with as much delicacy as the action admitted, she whipped from her knee her ferret garter, and applied it to splicing and fastening the broken bed-post--then used more pins than her apparel could well spare to fasten up the bed-curtains in festoons--then shook the bed-clothes into something like form--then flung over all a tattered patchwork quilt, and pronounced that things were now "something purpose-like."
"And there's your bed, Captain," pointing to a massy four-posted bulk, which, owing to the inequality of the floor that had sunk considerably (the house, though new, having been built by