The two men seemed a something dumfoundered with what they heard; and I
began to think them, if they were highway robbers, a wee slow at their
trade; when, what think ye did they turn out to be--only guess? Nothing
more nor less than two excise officers, that had got information of some
smuggled gin, coming up in a cart from Fisherrow Harbour, and were
lurking on the road-side, looking out for spuilzie!!

When they quitted us giggling, I could not keep from laughing too; though
the sights I had seen, and the fright I had got, made me nervish and
eerie; so blithe was I when the cart rattled on our own street, and I
began to waken Benjie, as we were not above a hundred yards from our own
door.

In this day's adventures, I saw the sin and folly of my conduct visibly,
as I jumped out of the cart at our close mouth. So I determined within
myself, with a strong determination, to behave more sensibly for the
future, and think no more about limekilns and coal-pits; but to trust,
for Benjie's recovery from the chincough, to a kind Providence, together
with Daffy's elixir, and warm blankets.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN--TAILOR MANSIE AND THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE

It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o'clock, when I
wakened from my night's rest, and was about thinking to bestir myself,
that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard stretching south from
our back windows. I listened--and I listened--and I better listened--and
still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct, now in a
fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones, as if some quarrelsome
disagreement had taken place. I had not the comfort of my wife's company
in this dilemmy; she being away, three days before, on the top of Tammie
Trundle the carrier's cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her
mother (my gudemother like) having been for some time ill with an income
in her leg, which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age, the
two doctors there--not speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely old
women--being able to make nothing of the business; so nobody happened to
be with me in the room saving wee Benjie, who was lying asleep at the
back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a
top. Nevertheless, I looked for my clothes; and, opening one half of the
window shutter, I saw four young birkies, well dressed--indeed three of
them customers of my own--all belonging to the town; two of them yo