ho were seen flying away from corners and angles where
they had nestled, for the purpose of seeing him come out in a flame of fire
from Rob Paterson's, as he had done from Will Pearson's. He strode on,
neither looking to the right nor to the left, till he came to Widow
Lindsay's.

"A good new year to thee, Dame Lindsay!" said he, as he entered the house
by opening the door, which the widow thought she had barred when she shoved
the bolt beyond the staple, and found her sitting by the fire counting her
rosary, and muttering prayers, with eyes upturned to heaven.

"Holy Mary, save me!" she muttered, as she heard him enter by the supposed
locked door. "He's come at last." And she retreated to a corner of the
room, and prayed fervently for deliverance.

"Thy throat has doubtless good memory of me and mine," continued the
stranger, as he placed on the table the same extraordinary bottle, the
shape and dimensions of which were as vivid in the mind of Dame Lindsay as
was the colour of the red cravat. "My male tosspots have forgot the taste
of my red liquor," he continued; "but what wet gossip's throat ever forgot
what nipped it. Come, dame, and let us have a right hearty jorum of this
inimitable drink." And, for want of better measure, he seized lustily a
bicker that lay near him, and dashed a quantity of the liquor into it. "Ha!
I forgot. Get thee for Meg Johnston thy gossip, dame, and let us be merry
together. Meg is a woman of a thousand. What a lusty hold she takes of a
brimming bicker, and how her eye lightens and brightens as she surveys the
swimming heaven under her nose! Come, dame--what ails?"

The only reply he got was a groan, and the rustle of Dame Lindsay's
quivering habiliments.

"By my own saint, this town of Christ's Kirk has a change upon it!" he
continued. "Last time I was here, it was as merry as King James when he
sang of it. The young and the old hailed me as the prince of good fellows,
and the wenches and wives--ha! ha!

"'To dans thir damysells them dight,
Thir lasses light of laits;
They were sae skych when I them nicht,
They squeild like ony gaits.'"

Dame Lindsay, I perceive what thou wantest, to melt thee into thy former
jollity. Thou'rt coquetting in the corner there for a kiss; and, by the
holy rude, thou shalt not want it for the space of the twinkling of thine
eye."

He rose for the purpose of applying the emollient he had threatened; but a
loud scream evinced that a