, &c., and,
above all, on the cardinal offence of not having signed the protest years
before, and spurned the dishonourable trade, as we had done. Even his most
potent excuse that "a boy must live somehow," Crossthwaite treated as
contemptuously as if he had been a very Leonidas, while Mackaye chimed in
with--
"An' ye a Papist! ye talk o' praying to saints an' martyrs, that died in
torments because they wad na do what they should na do? What ha' ye to
do wi' martyrs?--a meeserable wretch that sells his soul for a mess o'
pottage--four slices per diem o' thin bread-and-butter? Et propter veetam
veevendi perdere causas! Dinna tell me o' your hardships--ye've had your
deserts--your rights were just equivalent to your mights, an' so ye got
them."
"Faix, thin, Misther Mackaye, darlint, an' whin did I desarve to pawn me
own goose an' board, an' sit looking at the spidhers for the want o' them?"
"Pawn his ain goose! Pawn himsel! pawn his needle--gin it had been worth
the pawning, they'd ha' ta'en it. An' yet there's a command in Deuteronomy,
Ye shall na tak the millstone in pledge, for it's a man's life; nor yet
keep his raiment ower night, but gie it the puir body back, that he may
sleep in his ain claes, an' bless ye.
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