``Deil haet do I expect--excepting that a' the gentles will come to the gaberlunzie's burial; and maybe ye'll carry the head yoursell, as ye did puir Steenie Mucklebackit's.--What trouble was't to me? I was ganging about at ony rate--Oh, but I was blythe when I got out of Prison, though; for I thought, what if that weary letter should come when I am closed up here like an oyster, and a' should gang wrang for want o't? and whiles Ithought I maun mak a clean breast and tell you a' about it;but then I couldna weel do that without contravening Mr.Lovel's positive orders; and I reckon he had to see somebody at Edinburgh afore he could do what he wussed to do for Sir Arthur and his family.''
``Well, and to your public news, Edie--So they are still coming are they?''
``Troth they say sae, sir; and there's come down strict orders for the forces and volunteers to be alert; and there's a clever young officer to come here forthwith, to look at our means o'
defence--I saw the Bailies lass cleaning his belts and white breeks--I gae her a hand, for ye maun think she wasna ower clever at it, and sae I gat a' the news for my pains.''
``And what think you, as an old soldier?''
``Troth I kenna--an they come so mony as they speak o', they'll be odds against us.But there's mony yauld chields amang thae volunteers; and I mauna say muckle about them that's no weel and no very able, because I am something that gate mysell--But we'se do our best.''
``What! so your martial spirit is rising again, Edie?
Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires!
I would not have thought you, Edie, had so much to fight for?''
``_Me_ no muckle to fight for, sir?--isna there the country to fight for, and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o'the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?--Deil!'' he continued, grasping his pike-staff with great emphasis, ``an I had as gude pith as I hae gude-will, and a gude cause, I should gie some o' them a day's kemping.''
``Bravo, bravo, Edie! The country's in little ultimate danger, when the beggar's as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land.''
Their further conversation reverted to the particulars of the night passed by the mendicant and Lovel in the ruins of St.
Ruth; by the details of which the Antiquary was highly amused.
``I would have given a guinea,'' he said, ``to have seen the scoundrelly German under the agonies of those terrors, which it is part of his own quackery to inspire into others; and trembling alternately for the fury of his patron, and the apparition of some hobgoblin.''
``Troth,'' said the beggar, ``there was time for him to be cowed; for ye wad hae thought the very spirit of Hell-in-Harness had taken possession o' the body o' Sir Arthur.But what will come o' the land-louper?''
``I have had a letter this morning, from which I understand he has acquitted you of the charge he brought against you, and offers to make such discoveries as will render the settlement of Sir Arthur's affairs a more easy task than we apprehended--So writes the Sheriff; and adds, that he has given some private information of importance to Government, in consideration of which, I understand he will be sent back to play the knave in his own country.''
``And a' the bonny engines, and wheels, and the coves, and sheughs, doun at Glenwithershins yonder, what's to come o'
them?'' said Edie.
``I hope the men, before they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a siege.And as for the holes, Edie, Iabandon them as rat-traps, for the benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance to snatch at a shadow.''
``Hech, sirs! guide us a'! to burn the engines? that's a great waste--Had ye na better try to get back part o' your hundred pounds wi' the sale o' the materials?'' he continued, with a tone of affected condolence.
``Not a farthing,'' said the Antiquary, peevishly, taking a turn from him, and making a step or two away.Then returning, half-smiling at his own pettishness, he said, ``Get thee into the house, Edie, and remember my counsel, never speak to me about a mine, nor to my nephew Hector about a _phoca,_ that is a sealgh, as you call it.''
``I maun be ganging my ways back to Fairport,'' said the wanderer; ``I want to see what they're saying there about the invasion;--but I'll mind what your honour says, no to speak to you about a sealgh, or to the Captain about the hundred pounds that you gied to Douster''--``Confound thee!--I desired thee not to mention that to me.''
``Dear me!'' said Edie, with affected surprise; ``weel, Ithought there was naething but what your honour could hae studden in the way o' agreeable conversation, unless it was about the Pr<ae>torian yonder, or the bodle that the packman sauld to ye for an auld coin.''
``Pshaw! pshaw!'' said the Antiquary, turning from him hastily, and retreating into the house.
The mendicant looked after him a moment, and with a chuckling laugh, such as that with which a magpie or parrot applauds a successful exploit of mischief, he resumed once more the road to Fairport.His habits had given him a sort of restlessness, much increased by the pleasure he took in gathering news; and in a short time he had regained the town which he left in the morning, for no reason that he knew himself, unless just to ``hae a bit crack wi' Monkbarns.''