nt with pig."

"What's left in the larder?" asked one of the party.

"There's a week's good eating yet," said Mrs Bags, "and we _might_ make
it do ten days or a fortnight."

"Well!" said the other, "they may say what they like about sieges, but
this is the jolliest time ever _I_ had."

"It's very well by day," said Bags, "but the nights is cold, and the
company of that ghost ain't agreeable--I see'd it again last night."

"Ah!" said his friend, "what was it like, Tongs?"

"Something white," returned Bags in an awful whisper, "with a ghost's
eyes. You may allays know a ghost by the eyes. I was just rising up, and
thinking about getting a drink, for my coppers was hot, when it comes
gliding up from that end of the cave. I spoke to you, and then I
couldn't see it no more, because it was varnished."

"Ghosts always varnishes if you speak," said Mrs Bags. "But never mind
the spirit now--let's look after the flesh," added the lady, who
possessed a fund of native pleasantry: "the pig's done to a turn."

At this interesting juncture, and just as they were about to fall to,
the footsteps of the approaching mules struck on their ears. Owen went
to meet the party, and hastily selecting six men from it, advanced, and
desired them to secure the astounded convivialists.

On recovering from their first astonishment, Bags begged Owen would
overlook the offence; they were only, he pleaded, having a little
spree--times had been hard lately. Mrs Bags, as usual, displayed great
eloquence, though not much to the purpose. She seemed to have some idea
that an enumeration of the gentlemen's families she had lived in, and
the high estimation in which she had been held in all, would really tell
powerfully in favour of the delinquents, and persevered accordingly,
till they were marched off in custody of the escort, when she made a
final appeal to my grandfather, as the last gentleman whose family she
had lived in--with what advantage to the household the reader knows. The
Major, who could not forgive the roasting of his ham, called her, in
reply, a "horrible woman," but, at the same time, whispered to Owen that
he hoped the fellows would not be severely punished. "If we had caught
them after dinner," said he, "I shouldn't have pitied them so much."

"Never mind them," said Owen; "let us proceed to business. We must
select the driest spot we can find to put the stores in."

[Here, by way of taking leave of Mr Bags, I may remark, that he