again to them, and snapping her
fingers at their noses, gave a curse, and bade them go home for a couple
of dirty Scotch vermin.

The two men were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing the tongue-tied wife
speaking as good English as themselves; and could not help stopping to
look after her for a long way on the road, as every now and then she
stuck one of her arms a-kimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the
whirling-jig way, louping like daft, and lilting like a grey-lintie.
From her way of speaking, they also saw immediately that she too was an
Eirisher.--They must be a bonny family when they are all at home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE--ANENT THE YOUNG CALLANT MUNGO GLEN

Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties
as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight.
To say nothing connected with the play-acting business, which was
immediately before--first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the
blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his
transactions, and a bad omen--next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the
saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of
the poor cat--syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish
ne'er-do-weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks--and lastly, the
hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the
banishment of the spaewife.

These were awful signs of the times, and seemed to say that the world was
fast coming to a finis; the ends of the earth appearing to have combined
in a great Popish plot of villany. Every man that had a heart to feel,
must have trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calamitous
events. As for my own part, the depravity of the nations, which most of
these scenes showed me, I must say, fell heavily upon my spirit; and I
could not help thinking of the old cities of the plain, over the
house-tops of which, for their heinous sins and iniquitous abominations,
the wrath of the Almighty showered down fire and brimstone from heaven
till the very earth melted and swallowed them up for ever and ever.

These added to the number, to be sure; but not that I had never before
seen signs and wonders in my time. I had seen the friends of the
people,--and the scarce years,--and the bloody gulleteening over-bye
among the French blackguards,--and the business of Watt and Downie nearer
home, at our own doors almost, in Edinburgh like,