"
"Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw," said the turnkey elect, "that's
what I am not free to do."
"Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?--I thought we had settled a'
that?"
"I dinna ken, sir," said Ratcliffe; "I hae spoken to this Effie--she's
strange to this place and to its ways, and to a' our ways, Mr.
Sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she's breaking her
heart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean's o' taking
him, she wad break it outright."
"She wunna hae time, lad," said Sharpitlaw; "the woodie will hae it's ain
o' her before that--a woman's heart takes a lang time o' breaking."
"That's according to the stuff they are made o' sir," replied
Ratcliffe--"But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake the job.
It gangs against my conscience."
"_Your_ conscience, Rat?" said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader
will probably think very natural upon the occasion.
"Ou ay, sir," answered Ratcliffe, calmly, "just my conscience; a'body has
a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel
out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of
my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner."
"Weel, Rat," replied Sharpitlaw, "since ye are nice, I'll speak to the
hussy mysell."
Sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the little
dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate Effie Deans.
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