bad ends and nae gude ane!--can this be you?"

"E'en as ye see, Bailie," was the laconic answer.

"Conscience! if I am na clean bumbaized--_you_, ye cheat-the-wuddy
rogue--_you_ here on your venture in the tolbooth o' Glasgow?--What d'ye
think's the value o' your head?"

"Umph!--why, fairly weighed, and Dutch weight, it might weigh down one
provost's, four bailies', a town-clerk's, six deacons', besides
stent-masters'"--

"Ah, ye reiving villain!" interrupted Mr. Jarvie. "But tell ower your
sins, and prepare ye, for if I say the word"--

"True, Bailie," said he who was thus addressed, folding his hands behind
him with the utmost _nonchalance,_ "but ye will never say that word."

"And why suld I not, sir?" exclaimed the magistrate--"Why suld I not?
Answer me that--why suld I not?"

"For three sufficient reasons, Bailie Jarvie.--First, for auld langsyne;
second, for the sake of the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan,
that made some mixture of our bluids, to my own proper shame be it
spoken! that has a cousin wi' accounts, and yarn winnles, and looms and
shuttles, like a mere mechanical person; and lastly, Bailie, because if I
saw a sign o' your betraying me, I would plaster that wa' with your harns
ere the hand of man could rescue you!"

"Ye're a bauld desperate villain, sir," retorted the undaunted Bailie;
"and ye ken that I ken ye to be sae, and that I wadna stand a moment for
my ain risk."

"I ken weel," said the other, "ye hae gentle bluid in your veins, and I
wad be laith to hurt my ain kinsman. But I'll gang out here as free as I
came in, or the very wa's o' Glasgow tolbooth shall tell o't these ten
years to come."

"Weel, weel," said Mr. Jarvie, "bluid's thicker than water; and it liesna
in kith, kin, and ally, to see motes in ilka other's een if other een see
them no. It wad be sair news to the auld wife below the Ben of
Stuckavrallachan, that you, ye Hieland limmer, had knockit out my harns,
or that I had kilted you up in a tow. But ye'll own, ye dour deevil, that
were it no your very sell, I wad hae grippit the best man in the
Hielands."

"Ye wad hae tried, cousin," answered my guide, "that I wot weel; but I
doubt ye wad hae come aff wi' the short measure; for we gang-there-out
Hieland bodies are an unchancy generation when you speak to us o'
bondage. We downa bide the coercion of gude braid-claith about our
hinderlans, let a be breeks o' free-stone, and garters o' iron."

"Ye'll find t