oung man's assistance in
an affair of sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was
designed to the German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in
which the latter hours of life ought to be occupied.

Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon
his staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed
the young man's sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the
transaction in which he had so lately engaged him, the old man's collar
was seized by a peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right
hand, and exclaimed, "In the king's name."

The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the
constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king's
bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith,
which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland
bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for
travelling the country.

"But his blue gown," answered the officer, "is nae protection for
assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these
crimes."

"Murder!" said Edie, "murder! wha did I e'er murder?"

"Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works."

"Murder Doustersnivel?--hout, he's living, and life-like, man."

"Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a'
be true he tells, and ye maun answer for't at the bidding of the law."

The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of
the charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and
bread and pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the
officers were about to conduct him.

"Thanks to ye! God bless ye a', bairns!--I've gotten out o' mony a snare
when I was waur deserving o' deliverance--I shall escape like a bird from
the fowler. Play out your play, and never mind me--I am mair grieved for
the puir lad that's gane, than for aught they can do to me."

Accordingly, the unresisting prisoner was led off, while he mechanically
accepted and stored in his wallets the alms which poured in on every
hand, and ere he left the hamlet, was as deep-laden as a government
victualler. The labour of bearing this accumulating burden was, however,
abridged, by the officer procuring a cart and horse to convey the old
man to a magistrate, in order to his examination and committal.

The disaster of Steenie, and the arrest