Neither the bailie, nor those that were then sitting with him, could speak any French language, and "the alien enemy" was as little master of our tongue.I have often wondered how the bailie did not jealouse that he could be no spy, seeing how, in that respect, he wanted the main faculty.But he was under the enchantment of a panic, partly thinking also, perhaps, that he was to do a great exploit for the government in my absence.
However, the man was brought before him, and there was he, and them all, speaking loud out to one another as if they had been hard of hearing, when I, on my coming home from Kilmarnock, went to see what was going on in the council.Considering that the procedure had been in handsome time before my arrival, I thought it judicious to leave the whole business with those present, and to sit still as a spectator; and really it was very comical to observe how the bailie was driven to his wit's-end by the poor lean and yellow Frenchman, and in what a pucker of passion the pannel put himself at every new interlocutor, none of which he could understand.At last, the bailie, getting no satisfaction--how could he?--he directed the man's portmanty and bundle to be opened; and in the bottom of the forementioned package, there, to be sure, was found many a mystical and suspicious paper, which no one could read; among others, there was a strange map, as it then seemed to all present.
"I' gude faith," cried the bailie, with a keckle of exultation, "here's proof enough now.This is a plain map o' the Frith o'
Clyde, all the way to the tail of the bank o' Greenock.This muckle place is Arran; that round ane is the craig of Ailsa; the wee ane between is Plada.Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is a sore discovery;there will be hanging and quartering on this." So he ordered the man to be forthwith committed as a king's prisoner to the tolbooth;and turning to me, said:- "My lord provost, as ye have not been present throughout the whole of this troublesome affair, I'll e'en gie an account mysel to the lord advocate of what we have done." Ithought, at the time, there was something fey and overly forward in this, but I assented; for I know not what it was, that seemed to me as if there was something neither right nor regular; indeed, to say the truth, I was no ill pleased that the bailie took on him what he did; so I allowed him to write himself to the lord advocate; and, as the sequel showed, it was a blessed prudence on my part that I did so.For no sooner did his lordship receive the bailie's terrifying letter, than a special king's messenger was sent to take the spy into Edinburgh Castle; and nothing could surpass the great importance that Bailie Booble made of himself, on the occasion, on getting the man into a coach, and two dragoons to guard him into Glasgow.
But oh! what a dejected man was the miserable Bailie Booble, and what a laugh rose from shop and chamber, when the tidings came out from Edinburgh that, "the alien enemy" was but a French cook coming over from Dublin, with the intent to take up the trade of a confectioner in Glasgow, and that the map of the Clyde was nothing but a plan for the outset of a fashionable table--the bailie's island of Arran being the roast beef, and the craig of Ailsa the plum-pudding, and Plada a butter-boat.Nobody enjoyed the jocularity of the business more than myself; but I trembled when Ithought of the escape that my honour and character had with the lord advocate.I trow, Bailie Booble never set himself so forward from that day to this.
