t again on the braes o'
Yarrow--if we iver meet there, which is by no means sure, for thae
Englishers'll be the death o' me afore I git hame, if they gang on as
they've begood. Here's the ootline:--

"I've been thick wi' thieves, burglars, pickpockets, an' the like.
Veesitin' at their dens, an' gaun aboot the streets wi' them, an' I've
stolen a fifty-pun' note, an' it's been fund i' the pouch inside my bag.
That's the warst o't; but it seems that I've also resistet the poliss
in the dischairge o' their duty, which means that I flang ane ower a
sofa an' stappit anither into a coal-scuttle--though I didna mean it,
puir falla, for his breeks suffered in the way that ye've aften seen
mine whan I was a wee laddie. But I was roused to that extent whan they
first gruppit me that I couldna help it!

"I wadna mind it muckle if it wasna that I've no a freend to help me--

"I was interruptit to receive a veesiter--an' a rebuik at the same time,
for he turned oot to be a freend, though a stranger, a Colonel Brentwud,
wha's been cheetit by that blagyird lawyer that's tryin' to play the
mischief wi' _me_. But he'll fin' that I'm teuch! The Colonel says
they'll hae nae diffeeculty in clearin' me, so let that comfort ye,
mither.--Yer ill-doin' son, DAVID.

"P.S.--There's a wee laddie I've faw'n in wi' since I cam' to Bawbylon,
they ca' him Tammy Splint. O woman, but he _is_ a queer bairn. He's
jist been to see me i' my cell, an' the moment he cam' in, though he was
half greetin', he lookit roond an' said, `_Isn't_ this a sell!' Eh, but
he _is_ auld-farrant! wi' mair gumption than mony full-grown men, to say
naething o' women."

But David Laidlaw had more friends in London than he was aware of. At
the very time that he was penning the foregoing epistle to his mother, a
number of disreputable-looking men were bewailing his fate and
discussing his affairs in the thieves' den, and two equally disreputable
women were quarrelling over the same subject in a wretched dwelling in
the presence of a third woman, who presided over a teapot.

One of the women, whose visage exhibited marks of recent violence,
struck her fist on the table and exclaimed, "No, Mrs Rampy, you are
wrong, as usual. The story I 'eard about 'im was quite different an' I
believes it too, for them Scotsmen are a rough lot--no better than they
_should_ be."

"Mrs Blathers," remarked Mrs Rampy, in a soft sarcastic tone which she
was wont to assume when stung to