late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the same form of words:
"I put my life and credit in your hands."

"Well, well," says he, "we must try to save them. And in the meanwhile
let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon my
friend, Mr. Symon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to
hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my
family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot
consent to have my young women-folk disappointed. To-morrow they will be
going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your
bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your
private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct
of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy."

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid
apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Symon rang in my memory, as a
sudden noise rings after it is over on the ear. Tales of the man's
father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I
had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the
ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by
Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to
consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
was to be represented in a court by Symon Fraser, appeared a fair second