now,« said old Saddletree, who
was confined to his chair by the gout - »clean prescribed and out of date.«
    »I am not clear of that, neighbour,« said Plumdamas, »for I have heard them
say twenty years should rin, and this is but the fifty-ane - Porteous's mob was
in thretty-seven.«
    »Ye'll no teach me law, I think, neighbour - me that has four gaun pleas,
and might hae had fourteen, an it hadna been the gudewife? I tell ye, if the
foremost of the Porteous mob were standing there where that gentleman stands,
the King's Advocate wadna meddle wi' him - it fa's under the negative
prescription.«
    »Haud your din, carles,« said Mrs. Saddletree, »and let the gentleman sit
down and get a dish of comfortable tea.«
    But Sir George had had quite enough of their conversation; and Butler, at
his request, made an apology to Mrs. Saddletree, and accompanied him to his
lodgings. Here they found another guest waiting Sir George Staunton's return.
This was no other than our reader's old acquaintance, Ratcliffe.
    This man had exercised the office of turnkey with so much vigilance,
acuteness, and fidelity, that he gradually rose to be governor, or captain of
the Tolbooth. And it is yet to be remembered in tradition, that young men, who
rather sought amusing than select society in their merry-meetings, used
sometimes to request Ratcliffe's company, in order that he might regale them
with legends of his extraordinary feats in the way of robbery and escape.70 But
he lived and died without re- suming his original vocation, otherwise than in
his narratives over a bottle.
    Under these circumstances, he had been recommended to Sir George Staunton by
a man of the law in Edinburgh, as a person likely to answer any questions he
might have to ask about Annaple Bailzou, who, according to the colour which Sir
George Staunton gave to his cause of inquiry, was supposed to have stolen a
child in the west of England, belonging to a family in which he was interested.
The gentleman had not mentioned his name, but only his official title; so that
Sir George Staunton, when told that the captain of the Tolbooth was waiting for
him in his parlour, had no idea of meeting his former acquaintance, Jem
Ratcliffe.
    This, therefore, was another new and most unpleasant surprise, for he had no
difficulty in recollecting this man's remarkable features. The