Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 3).djvu/29

 sic furs on the bonnie rigs o' Milnwood holms, that it wad be worth a pint but to look at them."

"I fear," said Morton, "there is very little chance, my good friend Cuddie, of our getting back to your old occupation."

"Hout, sir—hout, sir," replied Cuddie, "it's aye gude to keep up a hardy heart—as broken a ship's come to land. But what's that I hear?—never stir, if my auld mither is na at the preaching again! I ken the sough o' her texts, that sound just like the wind blawing through the spence; and there's Kettledrummle setting to wark, too—Lord's sake, if the sodgers anes get angry, they'll murder them baith, and us for company!"

Their farther conversation was in fact interrupted by a blatant noise which arose behind them, in which the voice of the preacher emitted, in unison with that of the old woman, tones like the grumble of a bassoon combined with the screaking of a cracked fiddle. At first, the aged pair of