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Johnny Grippy
The Grippys were a
very remarkable family, and it was a common saying, that they were weel
named. There were originally three brothers of them; and when I first
kenned them they were ragged, bare-legged callants, but every one of them
as keen as a Jew, and as hard as a flinty rock. Two of them were in the
cattle line; and through stinginess, cheatery, and such like means, they
amassed a power of money. But both of them died, and being unmarried,
their brother Johnny became sole heir to the property. He was a man that
would have walked ten miles to pick up a farthing. He keepit a shop, or
what the Americans would call a store in the village, for he sold
everything, new and auld, good, bad, and indifferent—eatable and wearable,
or for whatever purpose it was wanted; for everything ye could think about
was to be had for money at the shop of Johnny Grippy. Of late years, it
was weel ascertained that he dealt extensively in sending whisky into
England, and in such a way, too, that neither the dirdum, the risk, nor
the loss could land at his door. But he had dealings in many concerns,
both here and elsewhere. Wherever he heard of anything by which there was
money to be made, he always endeavoured to get his finger in. It was
affirmed that he was connected wi’ some wealthy trading companies about
London, and that he had ships upon the sea. I know for a positive fact,
that he went up to the great city every year, and that he actually begged
his way there and back again. But it is my opinion that he made the
greater part of his wealth by lending out money to usury. By this means, a
great deal of property fell into his possession, for he was as cruel as a
starving tiger. He was a despiser of both justice and mercy, and all he
cared about was—’I maun hae my bargain.’ That was always his
answer, if onybody offered to intercede wi’ him him for ony poor creature
that he was distressing.
The auld knave endeavoured
to cover his avarice wi’ the cloak o’ religion, and, as I have already
informed ye, sought to be made an elder; and, as ye have been made aware,
he never forgave our late worthy minister for the slight and
disappointment, but, even against his nature, parted wi’ money to obtain a
cruel revenge. It would tire you, if I were to inform you of the one
thousandth part of Johnny’s meanness, and the instances of his ravening
avariciousness, or the misery which he caused in the habitations of both
high and low. Indeed I may say, that he grew rich through the ruin of
others; and he sought the objects of misery on which he might fix his
devouring talons, even as a vulture seeketh out a dead carcass.
At an enormous interest, he
lent money to the auld laird; and he cunningly permitted the interest to
accumulate, year after year, until the laird’s death. He also advanced
sums to the young laird, at a rate even more unsurious, and got the entire
title deeds of the estate into his hands as security; and when the laird
fell in the duel wi’ Alexander Elliot, he seized and took possession of
the Ha’ estate, and all that was thereon, claiming them as his! The whole
parish was thunderstruck wi’ astonishment.
The next kin to the young
laird threatened to throw the case into the Court of Chancery.
‘Let them,’ said Johnny, laughing in
his sleeve, ‘they will live lang that live to see it settled there—and
‘I will hae my
bargain.’
Weel, the case was thrown
into Chancery, and Johnny did not live to see it settled, for settled it
is not until this day, and what some one said of eternity might be said of
it—it is ‘beginning to begin.’
I think ye heard that John
had acquired a habit of slipping owre to Luckie Riddle’s, on the edge of
his foot, for a dram before breakfast. He took a strong liking for her
strong bottle, and, by way of saving the expense of the dram, he left off
the practice of taking a breakfast; and when the single dram increased to
two and three in the day, he confined himself to one meal,and that of the
poorest and scantiest kind—a potatoe and salt, or maybe a herring as a
luxury. But it was more than suspected that the potatoes on which he lived
were not all honestly come by; for I myself have seen him in a field
amongst other folks, stooping down and fingering at the drills, and
slipping the potatoes into his coat pocket; and when asked what he was
doing, he would have said (quite collectedly, for there was no possibility
of confusing him), ‘Ou I am just looking what sort of a crop such a one is
going to have this year.’
But the miser’s love of
drink increased upon him, and the more he spent on liquor the more he
hungered himself. He became a living skeleton, and in the depth of a
severe winter, he was found sitting dead behind his desk, with the copy of
a letter before him, in which he had instructed his man of business to
sell off immediately, the husband of Peggy Lilly."
"The husband of Peggy
Lilly!" interrupted the stranger, who had hitherto listened to the records
of the patriarch in silence—"who was he?"
"That," resumed the old
man, "seems to interest you, and wherefore I cannot divine, as I have no
recollection of your face; but, if ye have patience and hearken ye shall
hear all that I can tell ye of the history of--- |
