at had fallen to decay,
according to the foretelling of the sacred prophets, until I came to the
door of Donald Gleig, the head of the Thief Society, to whom I related,
from beginning to end, the whole business of the hen-stealing. 'Od he
was a mettle bodie of a creature; far north, Aberdeen-awa like, and
looking at two sides of a halfpenny; but, to give the devil his due, in
this instance he behaved to me like a gentleman. Not only did Donald
send through the drum in the course of half an hour, offering a reward
for the apprehension of the offenders of three guineas, names concealed,
but he got a warrant granted to Francie Deep, the sherry-officer, to make
search in the houses of several suspicious persons.

The reward offered by tuck of drum failed, nobody making application to
the crier; but the search succeeded; as, after turning everything
topsy-turvy, the feathers were found in a bag, in the house of an old
woman of vile character, who contrived to make out a way of living by
hiring beds at twopence a-night to Eirish travellers--South-country
packmen--sturdy beggars, men and women, and weans of them--Yetholm
tinklers--wooden-legged sailors without Chelsea pensions--dumb
spaewomen--keepers of wild-beast shows--dancing-dog folk--spunk-makers,
and suchlike pick-pockets. The thing was as plain as the loof of my
hand; for, besides great suspicion, what was more, was the finding the
head of the muffed hen, to which I could have sworn, lying in a
bye-corner; the body itself not being so kenspeckle in its disjasket
state--as it hung twirling in a string by its legs before the fire, all
buttered over with swine's seam, and half roasted.

After some little ado, and having called in two men that were passing to
help us to take them prisoners, in case of their being refractory, we
carried them by the lug and the horn before a justice of peace.

Except the fact of the stolen goods being found in their possession, it
so chanced, ye observe, that we had no other sort of evidence whatsoever;
but we took care to examine them one at a time, the one not hearing what
the other said; so, by dint of cross-questioning by one who well knew how
to bring fire out of flint, we soon made the guilty convict themselves,
and brought the transaction home to two wauf-looking fellows that we had
got smoking in a corner. From the speerings that were put to them during
their examination, it was found that they tried to make a way of doing by
s