Page:Important passages in the life of Mansie Wauch, tailor in Dalkeith.pdf/23

23 all was safe and snug, and that the prisoner hadna shot the lock. They agreed to march sentry over him, half an hour the piece, time about, the ane stretching himsell out on a stool beside the kitchen fire, by way of a bench in the guard-house, while the other gaed to and fro like the ticker of a clock.

The back window being up a jink, I heard the twa confabbing. "We'll draw cuts," said Benjie, "which is to walk sentry first; see, here's twa straes, the langest gets the choice," "I've won," cried Tammy, "so gang you in a while, and if I need ye, or grow frghtened, I'll beat leather-typatch wi' my knuckles on the back door. But we had better see first what he is about, for he may be howking a hole through aneath the foundations; thae fiefs can work like mondiewards."—"I'll slip forrit," said Benjie, "and gie a peep,"—"Keep to a side," cried Tammy Bodkin, "for, dog on it, Moosey'll maybe hae a pistol;—and, if his birse be up, ne would think nae mair o' shooting, ye as dead as a mawkin than I would do of taking my breakfast.

"I'll rin past, and gie a knock, at the door w' the poker to rouse him up?" askit Benjie.

"Come away then," answered Tammie, "and ye'll hear him gie a yowl, and commence gabbling like a goose."

As all this was going on, I rose and took a vizzy between the chinks of the window-shutters; so, just as I got my neb to the hole, I saw Benjie, as he flew past, give the door a drive. His consternation, on finding it flee half open, may be easier imagined than described, for, expecting the Frenchman to bounce out like a roaring lion, they hurried like mad into the house, couping the creels ower ane anither, Tammie spraining his thumb against the back door, and Benjie's foot going into Tammie's coat pocket, which it carried away with it, like a cloth sandal.