It was in this more advanced state of proficiency, when Dick
had soared above his original line of business, and highly disdained any
allusion to it, that, after having been estranged for several years,
we again met in the village of Gandercleugh, I holding my present
situation, and Dick painting copies of the human face divine at a guinea
per head. This was a small premium, yet, in the first burst of business,
it more than sufficed for all Dick's moderate wants; so that he occupied
an apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest with impunity even
upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and observance with the
chambermaid, hostler, and waiter.
Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the
Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister,
the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some
round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality
by Tinto's brush, custom began to slacken, and it was impossible to
wring more than crowns and half-crowns from the hard hands of the
peasants whose ambition led them to Dick's painting-room.
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