Page 174 - A Jacobite Exile

"Now, lad, tell me all about it," Allan Ramsay said. "Jock tells me you are
here on a mission, which he would leave it to yourself to explain; but it is

no business of mine, and, if you would rather keep it to yourself, I will ask
no questions."

"There is no secret about it, as far as you are concerned, Mr. Ramsay, for it
is to you and to other merchants here that I have come to talk it over;" and

he then went fully into the subject.

The Scotchman sat, smoking his pipe in silence, for some minutes after he
had concluded.

"We do not much meddle with politics here. We have neither voice nor part
in the making of kings or of laws, and, beyond that we like to have a

peace-loving king, it matters little to us whom the diet may set up over us.
If we were once to put the tips of our fingers into Polish affairs, we might
give up all thought of trade. They are forever intriguing and plotting, except

when they are fighting; and it would be weary work to keep touch with it
all, much less to take part in it. It is our business to buy and to sell, and so

that both parties come to us, it matters little; one's money is as good as the
other. If I had one set of creditors deeper in my books than another, I might
wish their party to gain the day, for it would, maybe, set them up in funds,

and I might get my money; but, as it is, it matters little. There is not a
customer I have but is in my debt. Money is always scarce with them; for

they are reckless and extravagant, keeping a horde of idle loons about them,
spending as much money on their own attire and that of their wives as
would keep a whole Scotch clan in victuals. But, if they cannot pay in

money, they can pay in corn or in cattle, in wine or in hides.

"I do not know which they are fondest of--plotting, or fighting, or feasting;
and yet, reckless as they are, they are people to like. If they do sell their
votes for money, it is not a Scotchman that should throw it in their teeth;

for there is scarce a Scotch noble, since the days of Bruce, who has not
been ready to sell himself for English gold. Our own Highlanders are as

fond of fighting as the Poles, and their chiefs are as profuse in hospitality,
and as reckless and spendthrift.