Scotland/Scots > Wilson's tales of the Borders and of Scotland > Volume 3

DUKCAN SCIIULEBIU'D S VISION OF JUDGMENT. 1G3
some time ago, a person of the name of Duncan Schulebred,
by trade a weaver—or, as be chose rather to be called, a
manufacturer, a term which the inhabitants love to apply
to every man who can boast the property of a loom and its
restless appendage. We believe the people of that town to
be as honest and industrious as those of any mercantile
place in the kingdom; but they have too much good sense
to think of claiming for their entire community, a total
exemption from the inroads of dishonesty and deceit—vices
which prevail in every comer of this land. Unhappily, the
individual we have mentioned had allowed himself to
become a slave to those evil propensities which are con¬
cerned in the collecting together of ill-gotten wealth, and
never left any feasible plan unattempted, which might pre¬
sent any chance of gratifying the ruling passion by which
he was mastered. He was a little man, with a florid
complexion, and the small twinkling eye which almost
invariably accompanies cunning. His walk was that of a
man accustomed to carry under his left arm a web of huck¬
aback, and in his right hand a staff ellwand; and his style
of speech, bland, conciliating, and persuasive, was derived
from the habit of wheedling customers into exorbitant
terms. He was a great coward, as well physical as
moral—the consequence, doubtless, of being a dishonest
trader. Altogether too contemptible to be hated, his
greatest enemy was his own conscience, of which he stood
in such terrible awe, that his wife was often obliged, dur¬
ing the dark hours of the reign of that mysterious agent,
Vo rise and light a lamp for the purpose of exorcising the
spirit which, seated on his heart, tormented him with the
gnawing inflictions of its pain.
This trick of his conscience had hitherto been unable
to prevent Duncan from using his short ellwand, and acting
dishonestly. The moment he got into daylight and active
life, he, like all other cowards, despised the enemy from which