brizzed
his back against the door like mad; as if he had been Samson pushing over
the pillars in the house of Dagon. "For the Lord's sake, prime the gun,"
he cried out, "or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug before we can
cry Jack Robison! See that there's priming in the pan."

I did the best I could; but my whole strength could hardly lift up the
piece, which waggled to and fro like a cock's tail on a rainy day; my
knees knocked against one another, and though I was resigned to die--I
trust I was resigned to die--'od, but it was a frightful thing to be out
of one's bed, and to be murdered in an old session-house, at the dead
hour of night, by unearthly resurrection men, or rather let me call them
deevils incarnate, wrapt up in dreadnoughts, with blacked faces, pistols,
big sticks, and other deadly weapons.

A snuff-snuffing was heard; and, through below the door, I saw a pair of
glancing black een. 'Od, but my heart nearly louped off the bit--a
snouff, and a gur-gurring, and over all the plain tramp of a man's heavy
tackets and cuddy-heels among the gravel. Then came a great slap like
thunder on the wall; and the laddie, quitting his grip, fell down,
crying, "Fire, fire!--murder! holy murder!"

"Wha's there?" growled a deep rough voice; "open, I'm a freend."

I tried to speak, but could not; something like a halfpenny roll was
sticking in my throat, so I tried to cough it up, but it would not come.
"Gie the pass-word then," said the laddie, staring as if his eyes would
loup out; "gie the pass-word!"

First came a loud whistle, and then "Copmahagen," answered the voice.
Oh! what a relief! The laddie started up, like one crazy with joy. "Ou!
ou!" cried he, thrawing round the key, and rubbing his hands; "by jingo,
it's the bethrel--it's the bethrel--it's auld Isaac himsell."

First rushed in the dog, and then Isaac, with his glazed hat, slouched
over his brow, and his horn bowet glimmering by his knee. "Has the
French landed, do ye think? Losh keep us a'," said he, with a smile on
his half-idiot face (for he was a kind of a sort of a natural, with an
infirmity in his leg), '"od sauf us, man, put by your gun. Ye dinna mean
to shoot me, do ye? What are ye about here with the door lockit? I just
keepit four resurrectioners louping ower the wall."

"Gude guide us!" I said, taking a long breath to drive the blood from my
heart, and something relieved by Isaac's company--"Come now, Isaac, ye're
just giein