wife, stating that it
was a good arrangement, by which I understood there were only two beds
in the house, and that when I was preferred to the lass's bed, she had
one to shift for.

The landlord and I accordingly retired to our homely bed, and conversed
for some time about indifferent matters, till he fell sound asleep. Not
so with me: I had that within which would not suffer me to close my
eyes; and, about the dead of night, I again heard the same noises and
contention begin outside the house as I had heard the night before; and
again I heard it was about a sovereign and peculiar right in me. At one
time the noise was on the top of the house, straight above our bed, as
if the one party were breaking through the roof, and the other forcibly
preventing it; at another it was at the door, and at a third time at
the window; but still mine host lay sound by my side, and did not
waken. I was seized with terrors indefinable, and prayed fervently, but
did not attempt rousing my sleeping companion until I saw if no better
could be done. The women, however, were alarmed, and, rushing into our
apartment, exclaimed that all the devils in hell were besieging the
house. Then, indeed, the landlord awoke, and it was time for him, for
the tumult had increased to such a degree that it shook the house to
its foundations, being louder and more furious than I could have
conceived the heat of battle to be when the volleys of artillery are
mixed with groans, shouts, and blasphemous cursing. It thundered and
lightened; and there were screams, groans, laughter, and execrations,
all intermingled.

I lay trembling and bathed in a cold perspiration, but was soon obliged
to bestir myself, the inmates attacking me one after the other.

"Oh, Tam Douglas! Tam Douglas! haste ye an' rise out frayont that
incarnal devil!" cried the wife. "Ye are in ayont the auld ane himsel,
for our lass Tibbie saw his cloven cloots last night."

"Lord forbid!" roared Tam Douglas, and darted over the bed like a
flying fish. Then, hearing the unearthly tumult with which he was
surrounded, he turned to the side of the bed, and addressed me thus,
with long and fearful intervals:

"If ye be the Deil, rise up, an' depart in peace out o' this
house--afore the bedstrae take kindling about ye, an' than it'll maybe
be the waur for ye. Get up--an' gang awa out amang your cronies, like a
good lad. There's nae body here wishes you ony ill. D'ye hear me?"

"Friend," said I,