Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/90

80 hastily crowded round the carriage to see what luckless being was to be delivered to the prison-house out of "Glossin's braw new carriage." The door of the court-yard, after the heavy clanking of many chains and bars, was opened by Mrs Mac-Guffog, an awful spectacle, being a woman for strength and resolution capable of maintaining order among her riotous inmates, and of administering the discipline of the house, as it was called, during the absence of her husband, or when he chanced to have taken an over-dose of the creature. The growling voice of this amazon, which rivalled in harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable helpmate.

"Be sharp, man, and get out the swell, can'st thou not?"

"Hold your tongue and be d—ddamned [sic], you ," answered her loving husband, with