contrived to make out a way of living by hiring beds
at twopence a-night to Eirish travellers--South-country packmen--sturdy
beggars, men and women, and weans of them--Yetholm tinklers--wooden-legged
sailors without Chelsea pensions--dumb spaewomen--keepers of wild-beast
shows--dancing-dog folk--spunk-makers, and suchlike pickpockets. The
thing was as plain as the loof of my hand; for, besides great suspicion,
what was more, was the finding the head of the muffed hen, to which I
could have sworn, lying in a bye-corner; the body itself not being so
kenspeckle in its disjasket state--as it hung twirling in a string by its
legs before the fire, all buttered over with swine's seam, and half
roasted.

After some little ado, and having called in two men that were passing to
help us to take them prisoners, in case of their being refractory, we
carried them by the lug and the horn before a justice of peace.

Except the fact of the stolen goods being found in their possession, it
so chanced, ye observe, that we had no other sort of evidence whatsoever;
but we took care to examine them one at a time, the one not hearing what
the other said; so, by dint of cross-questioning by one who well knew how
to bring fire out of flint, we soon made the guilty convict themselves,
and brought the transaction home to two wauf-looking fellows that we had
got smoking in a corner. From the speerings that were put to them during
their examination, it was found that they tried to make a way of doing by
swindling folks at fairs by the game of the garter. Indeed, it was
stupid of me not to recognise their faces at first sight, having observed
both of them loitering about our back bounds the afternoon before; and
one of them, the tall one with the red head and fustian jacket, having
been in my shop in the fore part of the night, about the gloaming like,
asking me as a favour for a yard or two of spare runds, or selvages.

I have aye heard that seeing is believing; and that youth might take a
warning from the punishment that sooner or later is ever tacked to the
tail of crime, I took Benjie and Mungo to hear the trial; and two more
rueful faces than they put on, when they looked at the culprits, were
never seen since Adam was a boy. It was far different with the two
Eirishers, who showed themselves so hardened by a long course of sin and
misery, that, instead of abasing themselves in the face of a magistrate,
they scarcely almost gave a civil ans