sion; when Tommy Staytape, giving
his elbow a rub, said, "Od, maister, I wager something that he's broken
loose frae Penicuik. We have him like a rotten in a fa'."

On Penicuik being mentioned, we heard the foreign creature in the
coal-house groaning out, "och," and "ochone," and "parbleu," and "Mysie
Rabble,"--that I fancy was his sweetheart at home, some bit French quean,
that wondered he was never like to come from the wars and marry her. I
thought on this, for his voice was mournful, though I could not
understand the words; and kenning he was a stranger in a far land, my
bowels yearned within me with compassion towards him.

I would have given half-a-crown at that blessed moment to have been able
to wash my hands free of him; but I swithered, and was like the cuddie
between the two bundles of hay. At long and last a thought struck me,
which was to give the deluded simple creature a chance of escape;
reckoning that, if he found his way home, he would see the shame and
folly of fighting against us any more; and, marrying Mysie Rabble, live a
contented and peaceful life, under his own fig and bay tree. So wishing
him a sound sleep, I cried through the door, "Mounseer, gooda nighta";
decoying away Benjie and Tommy Staytape into the house. Bidding them
depart to their beds, I said to them after shutting the door, "Now,
callants, we have the precious life of a fellow-creature in our hand, and
to account for. Though he has a yellow jacket on, and speaks nonsense,
yet, nevertheless, he is of the same flesh and blood as ourselves. Maybe
we may be all obliged to wear green foraging-caps before we die yet!
Mention what we have seen or heard to no living soul; for maybe, if he
were to escape, we would be all taken up on suspicion of being spies, and
hanged on a gallows as high as Haman."--After giving them this wholesome
advice, I dispatched them to their beds like lamplighters, binding them
to never fash their thumbs, but sleep like tops, as I would keep a sharp
look-out till morning.

As soon, howsoever, as I heard them sleeping, and playing on the pipes
through their noses, I cried first "Tommy," and syne "Benjie," to be
sure; and, glad to receive no answer from either, I went to the aumrie
and took out a mutton-bone, gey sair pyked, but fleshy enough at the
mouse end; and, putting a penny row beside it, crap out to the coal-house
on my tiptaes. All was quiet as pussie,--so I shot them through the hole
at the corne