eman in the disguise of a Quaker. All this labour and peril,
however, had been undergone in vain. No search he could make obtained
the least intelligence of Latimer, so that he began to fear the poor lad
had been spirited abroad--for the practice of kidnapping was then not
infrequent, especially on the western coasts of Britain--if indeed he
had escaped a briefer and more bloody fate.

With a heavy heart, he delivered his horse, even Solomon, into the hands
of the ostler, and walking into the inn, demanded from the landlord
breakfast and a private room. Quakers, and such hosts as old Father
Crackenthorp, are no congenial spirits; the latter looked askew over his
shoulder, and replied, 'If you would have breakfast here, friend, you
are like to eat it where other folk eat theirs.'

'And wherefore can I not,' said the Quaker, 'have an apartment to
myself, for my money?'

'Because, Master Jonathan, you must wait till your betters be served, or
else eat with your equals.'

Joshua Geddes argued the point no further, but sitting quietly down on
the seat which Crackenthorp indicated to him, and calling for a pint
of ale, with some bread, butter, and Dutch cheese, began to satisfy the
appetite which the morning air had rendered unusually alert.

While the honest Quaker was thus employed, another stranger entered the
apartment, and sat down near to the table on which his victuals were
placed. He looked repeatedly at Joshua, licked his parched and chopped
lips as he saw the good Quaker masticate his bread and cheese, and
sucked up his thin chops when Mr. Geddes applied the tankard to his
mouth, as if the discharge of these bodily functions by another had
awakened his sympathies in an uncontrollable degree. At last, being
apparently unable to withstand his longings, he asked, in a faltering
tone, the huge landlord, who was tramping through the room in all
corpulent impatience, whether he could have a plack-pie?'

'Never heard of such a thing, master,' said the landlord, and was about
to trudge onward; when the guest, detaining him, said, in a strong
Scottish tone, 'Ya will maybe have nae whey then, nor buttermilk, nor ye
couldna exhibit a souter's clod?'

'Can't tell what ye are talking about, master,' said Crackenthorp.

'Then ye will have nae breakfast that will come within 'the compass of a
shilling Scots?'

'Which is a penny sterling,' answered Crackenthorp, with a sneer. 'Why,
no, Sawney, I can't say as we have--we c