hen
distributed whistles, penny-trumpets, and gingerbread, and, lastly, when
the tumult of their joy and welcome got beyond bearing, exclaimed to his
guest--'This is a' the gude-wife's fault, Captain; she will gie the
bairns a' their ain way.'

'Me! Lord help me,' said Ailie, who at that instant entered with the
basin and ewer, 'how can I help it? I have naething else to gie them,
poor things!'

Dinmont then exerted himself, and, between coaxing, threats, and shoving,
cleared the room of all the intruders excepting a boy and girl, the two
eldest of the family, who could, as he observed, behave themselves
'distinctly.' For the same reason, but with less ceremony, all the dogs
were kicked out excepting the venerable patriarchs, old Pepper and
Mustard, whom frequent castigation and the advance of years had inspired
with such a share of passive hospitality that, after mutual explanation
and remonstrance in the shape of some growling, they admitted Wasp, who
had hitherto judged it safe to keep beneath his master's chair, to a
share of a dried-wedder's skin, which, with the wool uppermost and
unshorn, served all the purposes of a Bristol hearth-rug.

The active bustle of the mistress (so she was called in the kitchen, and
the gudewife in the parlour) had already signed the fate of a couple of
fowls, which, for want of time to dress them otherwise, soon appeared
reeking from the gridiron, or brander, as Mrs. Dinmont denominated it. A
huge piece of cold beef-ham, eggs, butter, cakes, and barley-meal
bannocks in plenty made up the entertainment, which was to be diluted
with home-brewed ale of excellent quality and a case-bottle of brandy.
Few soldiers would find fault with such cheer after a day's hard exercise
and a skirmish to boot; accordingly Brown did great honour to the
eatables. While the gudewife partly aided, partly instructed, a great
stout servant girl, with cheeks as red as her top-knot, to remove the
supper matters and supply sugar and hot water (which, in the damsel's
anxiety to gaze upon an actual live captain, she was in some danger of
forgetting), Brown took an opportunity to ask his host whether he did not
repent of having neglected the gipsy's hint.

'Wha kens?' answered he; 'they're queer deevils; maybe I might just have
'scaped ae gang to meet the other. And yet I 'll no say that neither; for
if that randy wife was coming to Charlie's Hope, she should have a pint
bottle o' brandy and a pound o' tobacco t