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ye? But I'll tell you what I mean, and make gude my words. Are na ye Mr Churnley of Lincoln's Inn?"

"Well, sir, what of that?"

"Just this-that Lincoln's Inn nae mair belongs to you—that is, in the way of absolute property-than the Birkenshaws does to my father. Sae ye see, Mr Churnley, you should think twice afore ye begin to misca' folk."

This sally provoked a roar of laughter from the audience, with whom Mr Churnley was no favourite, albeit he was patronised by some solicitors on account of his pre-eminence in browbeating.

"I think," said the chairman of the committee, a mild-looking gentleman, who was evidently amused by the encounter-"I think that the learned counsel need not press that point any farther. Indeed, I happen to know that what the witness has said regarding the prevalent custom on the Scottish Border is correct."

"Very well, sir!" said Mr Churnley, with a suppressed snort. "If the members of committee are satisfied-which I am not-that this young man intended to make no misrepresentation, I shall proceed to more important matters. Now, sir, attend to me if you please. You have said that this line of railway passes for the greater portion of its length through a pastoral country. Now, I ask you what may be your estimate of the number of sheep annually reared in the district?"

"I could not answer that question with anything like precision."

"I don't expect you to inform me as to the exact number," said Churnley; "I only ask for an approximation. Speaking so confidently as you have done of the large traffic to be derived from that source, you must of course have formed an estimate." "Indeed, sir, I have formed naething of the kind," said Davie. "I am a surveyor by trade, and not a traffictaker.'

"Then, sir, will you state, for the satisfaction of the committee, the grounds upon which you rest so very confident an opinion?"

"I'll do that, sir," replied Davie, with the best good will in the world. "Ye see, sirs," said he, addressing himself to the committee, "that if

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it were a question whether London would afford sufficient traffic to maintain a line, it would be a clean waste of time to inquire how many souls dwelt within the city. glance at the streets wad satisfy ony reasonable man without condescending on particulars. Now, if you were in that district about which I was speaking, in the spring-time, you could hardly hear yourselves speak for the crying of the ewes and the bleating of the lambs, that are as thick on the hill-sides amaist as are the gowans. Nae man can count them. Ye might as weel try to count the bees that are humming by, or the butterflies that are flaunting past, or the trouts in the water, or the crows that are clavering in the wood. And what ye see for twenty lang miles on either side of the road is but a sma' portion of the stock that is bred up in the glens and high farms. This gentleman is very good at speering, but I'se wager he canna tell me how mony cab-horses there are in London, ony mair than he can specify how mony hairs there are in his wig!"

“Then, sir, you admit you have been speaking at random ?" said Mr Churnley.

"I admit naething of the kind. I never made even a rough guess at the numbers, which indeed would be a kittle job; for what wi' hoggs and gimmers

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"Aha, my friend! have I caught you tripping? Confine yourself to the question of sheep, and not of other animals."

"Weel - that's just what I'm doing."

"Not at all, sir! Take care what you are about. You were beginning to estimate the number of pigs in the district."

"Troth, sir, ye maun be dull o' hearing. Fient a word have I said about pigs this day."

"Will you have the audacity to deny, sir, that you particularly mentioned hogs?"

"Lord save us!" cried Davie, "here's a man that disna ken a hogg frae a sow!"

This caused another shout of laughter, which was not allayed by a malicious suggestion made by the counsel for the promoters of the bill,

who expressed his regret that before handling so technical a subject, his learned brother had not taken the pains to consult the well-known tractate of the Ettrick Shepherd, Hogg upon Sheep. It cost the chairman of the committee, who evidently was conversant with agricultural affairs, no little pains to persuade the discomfited and fuming Churnley that, in Scotland, a sheep of a year old was technically termed a hogg. That legal luminary seemed inclined to maintain an argument upon the interpretation given in Johnson's Dictionary, and rather imprudently indulged in some derogatory remarks on the barbarous customs and jargon of the north, whereupon the junior counsel on the opposite side, a fiery young advocate from the Scottish bar, started to his feet, and made a stinging rejoinder, noways complimentary to the called of Lincoln's Inn.

This fracas being over, Mr Churnley, who now appeared to suspect that he had caught a Tartar in the person of the redoubted Davie, continued his examination more cautiously and less offensively than before. He now shifted to another topic.

"On referring to my notes, Mr Osett," he said, "I find you state that you expect a considerable traffic in wood and timber. That, I think, was the purport of your evidence in chief."

"That is what I said, undoubtedly.'

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Sheep you consider to be one of the staples of the district?"

"That I stand by."

"And wood also is a commodity which, in your opinion, will be conveyed along the line?" ́

"That also is my opinion."

"Then, Mr Osett, will you inform the committee whether, in that district, there is any tract of planted land which can with propriety be called a forest?"

"As to propriety I cannot weel say; but the whole district is known, and has been known for hundreds of years, by the name of The Forest."

"Then am I to understand you to say that there is much valuable timber growing in the neighbourhood?" "That ye never heard me say.

There might be natural wood enough, if the sheep didna eat it down; but beyond auld thorn-trees, and a wheen elms, and birks, and rowans that are gey and plenty in the cleughs, and some young larch plantations, I can hardly say that you will find muckle standing timber."

"Enough to make sleepers for the railway-eh, Mr Osett?'

"Indeed no, sir. There's barely enough to shelter the gowks and cushie-doos."

"And I presume there is not much extent of the other kinds of wood you have specified. An American, no doubt, would consider that the country was very well cleared?"

"I'm thinking that would be his view," replied Davie.

"Then, sir, answer me distinctly -how do you reconcile these admissions with the statement that you expect a traffic in timber?" And Mr Churnley rested his hands on bis hips, and glared on his victim.

"How do I reconcile it?" said Davie. "Why, of course, on the principles of political economy."

"Oho! I have brought you to that, have I? Well, Mr Scot, expound your theory. I am curious to learn how you will contrive to conjure a trade out of nothing."

"It's not to be supposed," said Davie," that a gentleman like you can be ignorant of the leading doctrine, propounded by Adam Smith, and supported by other able writers, of demand and supply."

Come, come, Mr Osett! you are following the disreputable practice of your countrymen, who, whenever they find it inconvenient to answer a plain question, skulk into a thicket of metaphysics. You admit that there is no timber, or next to none, in the district-how then can you expect a traffic in that commodity?"

"Just because, as we grow no timher ourselves, we must get it from elsewhere. Can ye no see that a railway must thrive by the wants as weel as the produce of a district? Is there ony cotton grown in Manchester? and yet what keeps that wealthy city afloat, and gives good dividends to the railway company, but the transmission of American bales? In the Forest, though it may be a contradiction of terms, we want

timber, and must have it for many purposes, building and agricultural, and this railway will bring it to our doors far cheaper than by ony other conveyance. If you want to examine me further, Mr Churnley, since that's your name, ye may go on as long as ye like, but I warn you it's no in your power, clever as ye may be, to catch me in ony contradiction."

The ringing of the bell, as an intimation that the Speaker had gone to prayers, broke up the sitting of the committee; and on the following day Mr Churnley declined to proceed further with the examination of the acute surveyor.

Such fencing-matches as that which I have just described were very common; but beyond relieving the monotony of details as to gradients and sections, and affording some amusement to the audience, they were of little use. The fact is, that members of committees, being for the most part strangers to the districts through which it was proposed to carry the lines, were very much influenced by the opinions, of course cautiously expressed, of other members of Parliament who were intimately connected with the localities. As it frequently was the case that the latter had a direct pecuniary interest in the success of these enterprises, they were not scrupulous as to the means they employed for advancing them; and a good deal of delicate negotiation and private earwigging was practised, which hardly would have stood the test of a rigid investigation before a court of honour.

In the course of those visits to Westminster I occasionally fell in with Mr Ewins, who had scraped acquaintance with some Radical M.P.'s, whose exquisite good taste led them to prefer American institutions to our own. My Yankee friend, however, gave me to understand that he had no very great admiration for those gentlemen.

"They ain't no good," he said. "They ain't sound on the goose. They're a low set, and as greedy as snapping-turtles in a bayou. It's a mean thing for a man to run down his own country, as I heerd those critters do; and that out of sheer envy, because folks won't allow that they are as big bugs as the aristocracy.

And ain't they darned hypocrites! I could laugh fit to burst to see them turning up the whites of their eyes at basket meetings, and hollering about the Nigger question, when every one of them has made his pile by caving up white gals in their factories like birds in a pigeon-roost, and, if they don't work double tides, treating them to a touch of the billyroller. We manage such matters very differently in the States, I can tell you. You should see the young ladies at Lowell works, each of them as straight as a loon's leg, and as smiling as a basket of chips, sweet as sugar apples, and winking at you like a star in the firmament. swamp it, if they don't cap all! But them Manchester chaps have no bowels for their own flesh and blood. They go for nothing but dimes; and if you hint to them that their poor helps are worse off than the niggers, who never want hog and hominy, don't they go thrashing round like short-tailed bulls in fly-time?"

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But Mr Ewins had other acquaintances; for I more than once observed him in company with Speedwell the Jew, engaged, as it appeared to me, in very earnest colloquy. Now, as my opinion of the flashy Hebrew was very low indeed, and as I meant, if possible, to keep an eye on his motions, believing that he was intimately bound up with the fate of the unfortunate Littlewoo, of whom I had seen nothing for a long time, I resolved to ascertain whether my Yankee friend could throw any light upon his avocations and pursuits. I knew, of course, that Ewins was not usually communicative; still he had a sort of liking for me, probably because I was amused with his talk, and was a patient listener, and I did not despair of extracting from him some kind of information.

Accordingly, one evening I had the descendant of the Maormors at my rooms, supplied him copiously with fluids and cigars, allowed him the monopoly of the sofa, and led the conversation to the all-engrossing topic of railway shares.

"It's a pity, Squire Sinclair," said Ewins, knocking the ash from his third cigar-"it's a pity you won't take a hand in the grand game that is going on. I swear it's like hitting

fortune a slap on the face; and fortune does not come every day knocking at the door, I can tell you. I happen to know a thing or two that would suit you-sure cards as any in the pack-and if you only say the word and go in for it, I'll insure you an almighty heap of dollars."

"The fact is, Mr Ewins, that I am not of a speculative turn, and therefore am not fitted to enter into such transactions. I fear that success at the beginning would turn my head, and prompt me to increase my stake rashly, without calculating the chances. Liquor tells more powerfully upon a man who is unaccustomed to it than on a habitual toper; and I suspect the same remark applies to all kinds of speculation."

"But, Squire, what if you had a sure card offered you?" said Ewins"a card you could play down with perfect certainty of winning? I guess that's a pretty considerable advantage."

"Are there such cards?" said I. "I was under the impression that certainty, at least, was excluded from any such dealings."

"That's all you know!" replied Ewins. "Now, Squire Sinclair, sir, I feel a push to tell you something that I wouldn't tell to any one else in this darned city. I've a kinder respect for you, sir, because you've kept your head above water when other men would have gone down among the snags, and I call that good swimming, and no mistake. Besides, there ain't a man here that I can talk to freely except yourself. I've got to deal, I notion, with a sort of sinners as hard as hiccory-nuts. It's skin hunter or skin bear with them; and I don't feel quite as sure of my feet as if they were planted on the Broadway. I'll tell you what, Squire we're up to a dodge or two in the States, and ain't mighty particular; but I've tumbled in with men here that make me feel vartuous in comparison."

As I did not feel myself called on to insinuate that Mr Ewins might, through an excess of modesty, be doing injustice to himself, I kept silence, and the American proceeded.

"Yes, Squire; it's been my way hitherto to go on my own hook, and

to hitch horses with nobody. But, somehow or other, in a strange place one gets out of his reckoning; so I've been among the curb-stone brokers, and it's my belief that if the devil himself were in the market, they'd somehow manage to circumvent him. You see, Squire, I wanted to do a bit of cornering, and that's a kind of transaction that a man can't take on hand himself-it requires a squad to do it. So, the other day, I went down to the city to cast about for a likely chap with the grit in him, to put on the rubber. I dad! didn't I fall in with a thoroughbred honey- fogler, a real plug-ugly as ever gave a turn to the screws! I ain't scrumptious, Squire; but, darn me if I wasn't well-nigh skeared to go into the water with such a right ravenous alligator!"

"But surely, Mr Ewins, if you conceived so bad an opinion of the man, you did not prosecute his acquaintance?"

"It's a rum world!" replied the Ewins, sententiously. "It's like the grog-tub the traders use for making Injun liquor! There may be in it about a bucketful of right good Monongahela whisky, such as a Christian might take for a legstretcher, but there's four times that quantity of rain-water, stiffened up with dog-leg tobacco, red pepper, and hot root; and when the stuff's mixed you can't separate it nohow. I guess it's no use being particular when you want to make a deal. And it's my notion that some of them sanctified chaps that wear white chokers, and have prayer meetings before going to business, are just as likely to land you in a hole as any regular Sucker or Roper that ever played the Patent Safe Game of Operation. But, for all that, I allow that this Jewish chap is as black a scallawag as ever whipped the devil round a stump!"

"So then," said I, "your friend is of the Hebrew persuasion?"

"I guess you're right. Speedwell's his name; and an owdacious customer he is."

"And you have had dealings with this very unscrupulous person?"

"Wall-I own to one or two, and they didn't turn out bad, neither; though I had to keep my eye on

the skunk, otherwise he'd have overjewed me. But I ain't a baby in business, 'specially when I'm in team with a vicious sinner like that."

"Well; but, Mr Ewins, you were about to tell me something relative to a proposed speculation-at least so I understood. Was that in any way connected with this man Speedwell?"

"Hark ye, Squire!" said Ewins, lowering his voice. "There's a lot o' things it don't do to be hollering about; and this is one of them. I tell it you as a dead secret, and I ain't jest sartain I would have mentioned it at all if I had any way made up my mind to go through with it. I am not particular, I allow. I began life as a poor man; and I had to bushwhack my way through a pretty stiff cane-brake before I came to a clearing. The worst of that kind of bringing up is, that a man loses the knack of looking straight before him. He gets a kinder squint in his mind, and don't very well see the difference between what's right and what's wrong, or how far he may stretch out handsomely without walking into a regular quagmire. I don't want to do anything that's downright wicked; and if you think this dodge is one that no honest man should tie to, I'll drop the ticket and be done with it."

I assured Mr Ewins of my entire readiness to give a candid opinion after being made acquainted with the nature and merits of the scheme.

"I daresay you've heerd," said Mr Ewins, "that the British Government is going to do something by way of stopping this run of specila tion. I guess it would be as sensible to try to put a dam across the Mississippi. Wall; there's to be a select board, and all new railway projects are to be referred to it; and according as the board reports, the lines will be allowed to go on, or be sent to eternal smash."

"I have heard a rumour to that effect; and have reason to believe that something of the kind will be attempted."

"Now, Squire, don't you see that the members of that board will have a pesky hold of the share-market? They have only to make up their

minds as to which line shall go ahead, and then step down to their brokers. My what would I not give for such a chance! I guess I'd make prices dance like the barometer mercury in a tornado!"

"You seem to forget, Mr Ewins, that such a duty will be imposed only on men of the highest character and probity, who would scorn to betray their trust, or do anything that might be deemed dishonourable."

Wall; I allow that may be true," replied Ewins. "The chaps of the upper crust here do stand stiff on their honour, that's a fact. But it's an almighty temptation! We could nohow venture on such an experiment in the States."

"I can assure you, Mr Ewins," said I, "that you are utterly mistaken if you suppose that there is the slightest chance of procuring a hint as to the resolutions of the board, before these are announced to the public. That, I think, is the mark at which you aim."

Ewins gave event to a low, dry, chuckling, and somewhat sinister laugh.

"Don't wake up your dander, Squire, if I hint that you ain't quite as 'cute as a beaver. Look ye here, now. When a London cracksman wants to know the whereabouts of the plate-chest in a gentleman's house, and what kind of shutters there are to the windows, he doesn't ring the bell and ask the master for information. He slips quietly down the airey-stair, makes love to the housemaid, and soft-sawders the critter so that she can deny him nothing. In that way he worms out of her all that he wants, as you'd picka grub out of a sugar-tree. Now, in all public offices there are a lot of chaps loafing about, pretending to be mending pens, and bringing in letters, and looking for books, and what not; but all the while they keep their ears cocked like a rifle, and it's curious if they don't get an inkling of what the bigwigs are after. There are more uses for a key-hole than one, I can tell you; and a clever fellow has found out a secret before now, by taking a good squint at the blotting-paper."

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I perceive your meaning now, Mr Ewins. You think that the subordinates may be bribed."

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