life, and mankind, he rushed back from the city into the Mahomedan camp; and entering, with a hurried step, the tent of the Caliph, he tore the turban from his brow, and cried aloud-"Oh, Abubeker! behold a God-forsaken wretch. Think not it was the fear of death that led me to abjure my religion-the religion of my fathers—the only true faith. No; it was the idol of Love that stood between my heart and heaven, darkening the latter with its shadow; and had I remained as true to God as I did to the Maiden of my love, I had not needed this." So saying, and ere the hand of Abubeker could arrest him, he drew a poniard from his embroidered vest, and the heart-blood of the renegade spouted on the royal robes of the successor of Mahomet. So grandly had James spooted this bloody story, that notwithstanding my sleepiness, his words whiles dirled through my marrow like quicksilver, and set all my flesh a grueing. In the middle of it, he was himself so worked up, that twice he pulled his Kilmarnock from his head, silk-napkin, bandage and all, and threw them down with a thump on the table, which once wellnigh capsized the candlestick. The porter and the stabbing, also, very nearly put me beside myself; and I felt so queerish and eerie when I took my hat to wish him a good-night-knowing that baith Nanse and Benjie would be neither to hold nor bind, it being now halfpast ten o'clock-that, had it not been for the shame of the thing, and that I remembered being one of the King's gallant volunteers, I fear I would have asked James for the lend of his lantern, to show me down the dark close. The reader will thus perceive that the adventure of the killing-coat, stuck alike in the measurement and in the making by Tammie Bodkin, was destined, in the great current of human events, to form a prominent feature, not only in my own history, but in that of worthy James Batter. To me it might be considered as a passing breeze-having been accustomed to see and suffer a vast deal; but my friend, I fear much, will bear marks of it to his grave. Yet I cannot blame myself with a safe conscience for James having fallen the victim to Cursecowl. I had tried every thing to solder up matters which the heart of man could suggest; and knowing that it was a catastrophe which would bring down open war and rebellion throughout the whole parish, my thoughts were all of peace, and how to stave off the eruption of the bloody heathen. I had thought over the thing seriously in my bed; and, reckoning plainly that Cursecowl was not one likely soon to hold out a flag of truce, I had come to the determination within myself to sound a parley-and offer either to take back the coat, or refund part of the purchase-money. I may add, that having an unbounded regard for his judgment and discretion, I had, in my own mind, selected James Batter to be sent as the ambassador. The same day, however, brought round the extraordinary purchase of the Willie-goat's head, and gave a new and unexpected turn to the whole business. Folk, moreover, should never be so over-proud as not to confess when they are in fault; and from what happened, I am free to admit, that James, harmless as a sucking dove, was no match in such a matter for the like of Cursecowl, who was a perfect incarnation, for devilry and cunning, of the old Serpent himself. My intentions, however, were good, and those of a Christian; for, had Cursecowl accepted the ten shillings by way of bloodmoney, which it was thus my intention to have offered, this fearful and bloody stramash would have been hushed up without the world having become a whit the wiser. But "there is many a slip," as the proverb says, "between the cup and the lip;" and the best intentions often fall to the ground, like the beggarman between the two stools. The final conclusion of the whole tragedy was, as it behoves me to mention, that Cursecowl, in consideration of a month's gratis work in the slaughter-house, made a brotherly legacy of the coat to his nephew, young Killim. The laddie was a perfect world's wonder every Sunday, and would have been laughed at out of his seven senses, had he not at last rebelled and fairly thrown it off. I make every allowance for the young man ; and am sorry to confess that it was indeed a perfect shame to be scen. At Dalkeith, where one is well known, any thing may pass; but I was always in bodily terror, that, had he gone to Edinburgh, he would have been taken up by the police, on suspicion of being either a Spanish pawtriot or a highway robber. CHAPTER XXV. A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. They steeked doors, they steeked yetts, They steeked them a' but a wee wicket, And Lammikin crap in. Ballad of the Lammikin. Hame cam our gudeman at een, And hame cam he; And there he spied a man Where a man shouldna be. Hoo cam this man, kimmer, And who can it be ; Hoo cam this carle here, YEARS wore on after the departure and death of poor Mungo Glen, during the which I had a sowd of prentices, good, bad, and indifferent, and who afterwards cut, and are cutting, a variety of figures in the world. Sometimes I had two or three at a time; for the increase of business that flowed in upon me with a full stream was tremendous, enabling me—who say it that should not say it-to lay by a wheen bawbees for a sore head, or the frailties of old age. Somehow or other, the clothes made on my shopboard came into great vogue through all Dalkeith, both for neatness of shape and nicety of workmanship; and the young journeymen of other masters did not think themselves perfected, or worthy a decent wage, till they had crooked their houghs for three months in my service. With regard to myself, some of my acquaintances told me, that if I had gone into Edinburgh to push my fortune, I could have cut half the trade out of bread, and maybe risen, in the course of nature, to be Lord Provost himself; but I just heard them speak, and kept my wheisht. I never was overly ambitious; and I remembered how proud Nebuchadnaazer ended with eating grass on all-fours. Every man has a right to be the best judge of his own private matters; though, to be sure, the advice of a true friend is often more precious than rubies, and sweeter than the Balm of Gilead. It was about the month of March, in the year of grace anno Domini eighteen hundred, that the whole country trembled, like a giant ill of the ague, under the consternation of Buonaparte, and all the French vagabonds emigrating over, and landing in the Firth. Keep us all! the folk, doitit bodies, put less confidence than became them in what our volunteer regiments were able and willing to do; yet we had a remnant among us of the true blood, that with loud laughter laughed the creatures to scorn; and I, for one, kept up my pluck, like a true Highlander. Does any living soul believe that Scotland-the land of the Tweed, and the Clyde, and the Tay-could be conquered, and the like of us sold, like Egyptian slaves, into captivity? Fie, fic-I despise such haivers. Are we not descended, father and son, from Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace, having the bright blood of freemen in our veins, and the Pentland Hills, as well as our own dear homes and firesides, to fight for? The rascal that would not give cut-and-thrust for his country as long as he had a breath to draw, or a leg to stand on, should be tied neck and heels, without benefit of clergy, and thrown over Leith pier, to swim for his life like a mangy dog! Hard doubtless it is-and I freely confess it-to be called by sound of bugle, or tuck of drum, from the counter and the shopboard-men, that have been born and bred to peaceful callings, to mount the red-jacket, soap the hair, buckle on the buff-belt, load with ball-cartridge, and screw bayonets; but it's no use talking. We were ever the free British; and before we would say to Frenchmen that we were their humble servants, we would either twist the very noses off their faces, or perish in the glorions struggle. It was aye the opinion of the Political folk, the Whigs, the Black-nebs, the Radicals, the Papists, and the Friends of the People, together with the rest of the clan-jamphrey, that it was a done battle, and that Buonaparte would lick us back and side. All this was in the heart and heat of the great war, when we were struggling, like drowning men, for our very life and existence, and when our colours-the true British flag—were nailed to the mast-head. One would have thought these rips were a set of prophets, they were all so busy prophesying, and never any thing good. They kent (believe them) that we were to be smote hip and thigh; and that to oppose the vile Corsican was like men with strait-jackets out of Bedlam. They could see nothing brewing around them but death, and disaster, and desolation, and pillage, and national bankruptcy-our brave Highlanders, with their heads shot off, lying on the bloody field of battle, all slaughtered to a man; our sailors, handcuffed and shackled, musing in a French prison on the bypast days of Camperdown, and of Lord Rodney breaking through the line; with all their fleets sunk to the bottom of the salt sea, after being raked fore and aft with chain-shot; and our timber, sugar, teaand treacle merchants, all fleeing for safety and succour down to lodgings in the Abbey Strand, with a yellow stocking on the ae leg and a black one on the other, like a wheen mountebanks. Little could they foresee, with their spentacles of prophecy, that a battle of Waterloo would ever be fought, to make the confounded fugies draw in their horns, and steek up their scraighing gabs for ever. Poor fushionless creatures! I do not pretend to be a politician,-having been bred to the tailoring line syne ever I was a callant, and not seeing the Adverteezer Newspapers, or the Edinburgh Evening Courant, save and except at an orra time, so I shall say no more, nor pretend to be one of the thousand-and-one wise men, able and willing to direct his Majesty's Ministers on all matters of importance regarding Church or State. One thing, howsoever, I trust I ken, and that is, my duty to my King as his loyal subject, to old Scotland as her unworthy son, and to my family as their prop, support, and bread winner ;-so I shall stick to all |