ter half a minute's
stand-out, by way of refusal like, I agreed to a cupful of het-pint, as I
thought it would be a thing Mungo Glen might never have had the good
fortune to have tasted; and as it might operate by way of a cordial on
the callant Benjie, who kept aye smally, and in a dwining way. No sooner
said than done--and off Nanse brushed in a couple of hurries to make the
het-pint.

After the small beer was put into the pan to boil, we found to our great
mortification, that there were no eggs in the house, and Benjie was sent
out with a candle to the hen house, to see if any of the hens had laid
since gloaming, and fetch what he could get. In the middle of the mean
time, I was expatiating to Mungo on what taste it would have, and how he
had never seen anything finer than it would be, when in ran Benjie, all
out of breath, and his face as pale as a dishclout.

"What's the matter, Benjie, what's the matter?" said I to him, rising up
from my chair in a great hurry of a fright--"Has onybody killed ye? or is
the fire broken out again? or has the French landed? or have ye seen a
ghost? or are--"

"Eh, crifty!" cried Benjie, coming till his speech, "they're a' aff--cock
and hens and a'--there's naething left but the rotten nest-egg in the
corner!"

This was an awful dispensation, of which more hereafter. In the midst of
the desolation of the fire--such is the depravity of human nature--some
ne'er-do-weels had taken advantage of my absence to break open the
hen-house door; and our whole stock of poultry, the cock along with our
seven hens--two of them tappit, and one muffed--were carried away bodily,
stoop and roop.

On this subject, howsoever, I shall say no more in this chapter, but
merely observe in conclusion, that as to our het-pint, we were obligated
to make the best of a bad bargain, making up with whisky what it wanted
in eggs; though our banquet could not be called altogether a merry one,
the joys of our escape from the horrors of the fire being damped, as it
were by a wet blanket, on account of the nefarious pillaging of our
hen-house.

CHAPTER TWENTY--MANSIE'S ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE

The situation of me and my family at this time affords an example of the
truth of the old proverb, that "ae evil never comes its lane"; being no
sooner quit of our dread concerning the burning, than we were doomed by
Providence to undergo the disaster of the rookery of our hen-house. I
believe I have me