in their work of devastation. I made a second effort to rise,
or at least to turn myself, for I lay with my face to the wall of
the cottage, but I found that my limbs were secured, and my motions
effectually prevented--not indeed by cords, but by linen or cloth
bandages swathed around my ankles, and securing my arms to my sides.
Aware of my utterly captive condition, I groaned betwixt bodily pain and
mental distress,

A voice by my bedside whispered, in a whining tone, 'Whisht a-ye,
hinnie--Whisht a-ye; haud your tongue, like a gude bairn--ye have cost
us dear aneugh already. My hinnie's clean gane now.'

Knowing, as I thought, the phraseology of the wife of the itinerant
musician, I asked her where her husband was, and whether he had been
hurt.

'Broken,' answered the dame, 'all broken to pieces; fit for naught but
to be made spunks of--the best blood that was in Scotland.'

'Broken?--blood?--is your husband wounded; has there been bloodshed
broken limbs?'

'Broken limbs I wish,' answered the beldam, 'that my hinnie had broken
the best bane in his body, before he had broken his fiddle, that was the
best blood in Scotland--it was a Cremony, for aught that I ken.'

'Pshaw--only his fiddle?' said I.

'I dinna ken what waur your honour could have wished him to do, unless
he had broken his neck; and this is muckle the same to my hinnie Willie
and me. Chaw, indeed! It is easy to say chaw, but wha is to gie us ony
thing to chaw?--the bread-winner's gane, and we may e'en sit down and
starve.'

'No, no,' I said, 'I will pay you for twenty such fiddles.'

'Twenty such! is that a' ye ken about it? the country hadna the like
o't. But if your honour were to pay us, as nae doubt wad be to your
credit here and hereafter, where are ye to get the siller?'

'I have enough of money,' said I, attempting to reach my hand towards my
side-pocket; 'unloose these bandages, and I will pay you on the spot.'

This hint appeared to move her, and she was approaching the bedside, as
I hoped, to liberate me from my bonds, when a nearer and more desperate
shout was heard, as if the rioters were close by the hut.

'I daurna I daurna,' said the poor woman, 'they would murder me and my
hinnie Willie baith, and they have misguided us aneugh already;--but if
there is anything worldly I could do for your honour, leave out loosing
ye?'

What she said recalled me to my bodily suffering. Agitation, and the
effects of the usage I had received,