Page:Life of Mansie Wauch tailor in Dalkeith (1).pdf/21

21 something that sounded like “Sugar, sugar, measure the cord,” and “dabble, dabble.” It was waur than the maist outrageous Gaelic evcrever [sic] spoken in the height o' passion by a HiclandHieland [sic] shearer.

‘Oho!’ thinks I, friend, ye cannot be a Christian from your lingo, that’s one thing poz; and I would wager tippence you’re a Frenchy. Who kens keep us all, but ycye [sic] may be Bonaparte himself in disguise, come over in a flat-bottomed boat, to spy the nakedness of the land. So ye may just rest content, and keep your quarters good till the morn’s morning.’

It was a wonderful business, and enough to happen to a man, in the course of his lifetime, to find Mounseer from Paris in his coal-neuk, and have the enemy of his country snug under lock and key; so, while he kept rampaging, fussing, stamping, and diabbling away, I went in, and brought out Benjie with a blanket rowed round him, and my journeyman, Tommy Bodkin,—who being an orphan, I made a kind of parlour boarder of, be sleeping on a shake-down beyond the kitchen fire—-to hold a consultation, and be witness of the transaction.

I got my musket, and Tommy Bodkin armcdarmed [sic] himself with the goose, a deadly weapon, whoever may get a clour with it, and Benjie took the poker in one hand and the tongs in the other; and out we all marched briskly, to make the Frenchman, that was locked up from the light of day in the coal house surrender. After hearkening at the door for a while, and finding all quiet, he gave a knock to rouse him up, and see