uld
scarcely credit the callant, though I knew he would not tell a lie for
sixpence; and I said to him, "Now be sure, Benjie, before ye speak. The
tongue is a dangerous weapon, and apt to bring folk into trouble--it
might be another woman."

It was real cleverality in the callant. He said, "Ay, faither, but it
was her; and she contrived to bring herself into trouble without a tongue
at a'."

I could not help laughing at this, it showed Benjie to be such a genius;
so he said,

"Ye needa laugh, faither; for it's as true's death it was her. Do you
think I didna ken in a minute our cheese-toaster, that used to hing
beside the kitchen fire; and that the sherry-offisher took out frae
beneath her grey cloak?"

The smile went off Nanse's cheek like lightning, she said it could not be
true; but she would go to the kitchen to see. I'fegs it was too true;
for she never came back to tell the contrary.

This was really and truly a terrible business, but the truth for all
that; the cheese-toaster casting up not an hour after, in the hands of
Daniel Search, to whom I gave a dram. The loss of the tin cheese-toaster
would have been a trifle, especially as it was broken in the handle--but
this was an awful blow to the truth of the thieving dumbie's grand
prophecy. Nevertheless, it seemed at the time gey puzzling to me, to
think how a deaf and dumb woman, unless she had some wonderful gift,
could have told us what she did.

On the next day, the Friday, I think, that story was also made as clear
as daylight to us; for being banished out of the town as a common thief
and vagabond, down on the Musselburgh Road, by order of a justice of the
peace, it was the bounden duty of Daniel Search and Geordie Sharp to see
her safe past the kennel, the length of Smeaton. They then tried to make
her understand by writing on the wall, that if ever again she was seen or
heard tell of in the town, she would be banished to Botany Bay; but she
had a great fight, it seems, to make out Daniel's bad spelling, he having
been very ill yedicated, and no deacon at the pen.

Howsoever, they got her to understand their meaning, by giving her a
shove forward by the shoulders, and aye pointing down to Inveresk.
Thinking she did not hear them, they then took upon themselves the
liberty of calling her some ill names, and bade her good-day as a bad
one. But she was upsides with them for acting, in that respect, above
their commission; for she wheeled round