Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/136

132 exclaimed, 'Wha in the fiend's name's this ye have driven into our bit den of refuge in the desert, as ane wad drive a ratton into a trap? Deil drown me in a strong distillation, and that's an enviable death, if this lad's no a stripling exciseman, whelped in our unhappy land by the evil spirits of the government. If he's a gauger, take ye the spade and dig, and I'll take the sword and strike; for he shall never craw day again, else my name's nae mair Jock Mackleg.' And the wretch, as he spoke, proceeded to sharpen an old sword on the strake of a scythe.

Hooly, man, hooly with thy bit of rusty airn,' said his companion, 'ye're no sae handy with it when its warse needed, Jock, ye ken. I shall allow the young lad to live, be he devil, or be he gauger, and that's meikle waur, were it only that he might partake of that glorious spirit which I call "stupefy," but which wiser Jock Mackleg christened "heart's blood," and learn of what a princely beverage he would deprive this poor taxed and bleeding land.' It happened well for me that these two wretches, though born for each other's society, like bosom bones, and necessary to each other in their detestable pursuits as the bark is to the bush, chose to be of different opinions respecting the mode of managing me, and thus John Mackleg expressed his dissent from his more moderate as well as powerful associate. 'And so he's to live and to taste of the "heart's blood!" Deil turn him into our distilling-worm first, that the liquid consolation the gauger tribe seek to deprive us of may run reeking through him. Ah, Mungo Macubin, ye're soft, ye're soft; ye would give the supervisor himself our hain'd drops of distillery dew; and for fear he should drop into a ditch, ye would carry him hame. I'll tell ye what—were ye Mungo Macubin seven times told, I will cease to be longer conjunct and several with you; else may I be whipt through the lang burgh of Lochmaben, with the halter of a gauger's horse.' And still growling out anger, which he dared not more openly express, he threw himself down on a litter bed, while his companion, with a look of scorn, answered: 'Thou predestined blockhead, am I a blind stabber behind backs in the dark, like thyself? Am I to harm the white skin of this young raw haspen of a lad, unless I ken why and wherefore? Spill his sweet life indeed! Faith, if this lad threatened ye with six inches of cauld steel in his hand, though water five fathoms deep and