“Ay, that I am,” answered she; “and dinna let your modesty wrang ye, my man, an’ ye be wise. Ye see every thing here ready to your hand; and if ye just be steady a bit, as I’m sure ye will be, wi’ me to look after baith your meat and your winnings, ye may be the snuggest painter lad in the town. What wi’ what _ye_ can make, and what wi’ what _I_ can make, we’ll be very weel, or I’m muckle mista’en.” “But, Luckie,” said Jock, “I maun get my ain consent first; and that, I’m feared, it’ll not be sae easy to get. There was a lass ——” “Oh, very weel, John,” said Mrs Wishart; “of course ae man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty winna gar him drink. There’s some folk that dinna ken what’s gude for them, and ye’re ane o’ them. But see, lad,” she added, opening up the cupboard door, “what a score ye hae here! Twa pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence. When will ye be gaun to pay that?” “I suppose I maun pay’t when I can,” said Jock, striding sturdily up stairs into the street. Next day he was served with a summons to the sheriff’s court for two pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence, and as he never appeared to dispute the claim, a writ was allowed against him, warranting either the incarceration of his person, or the distraining of his goods. Goods Jock had none; his person therefore came into immediate request among certain individuals of whose companionship he was not ambitious. It would be vain to tell all the strange miracles by which he was enabled for some weeks to elude the pursuit instituted against him. Sometimes as the officers were entering at the door, he was escaping by the back window. Once he had to drop himself down two stories into an alley. At another time, he sprang across a gulf about ten feet wide, between two garret windows, nine floors from the ground. This course of life could not continue long. He could not get rest any where to pursue his ordinary business, and of course he soon found himself upon very short allowance both as to meat and drink. Just at this crisis, Jock heard of an expedition which was about to sail from Leith, for the purpose of colonising Poyais, and through the intervention of an old chum, who was going thither, he was permitted to join the corps. On the night before the vessel was to sail, he skulked down to Newhaven, and got on board along with the family of his friend. He now, for the first time during three weeks, found himself, as he thought, safe from the avenging persecution of Luckie Wishart. For one happy night he slept amidst a parcel of sacks in a corner of the cabin, surrounded on all hands by squalid and squalling children, whose cries, however, were nothing to the dread which he had recently entertained for the fell Dido of the Canongate. Next morning, the sun rose bright, the sails were set loose, the heart of every man on board beat high with hope, and Jock’s bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne—when, oh manacles and