ff them, and I wondered, in my bravery,
that a man like me could be afraid of anything. Nobody was there but a
touzy, ragged, halflins callant of thirteen, (for I speired his age,)
with a desperate dirty face, and long carroty hair, tearing a speldrin
with his teeth, which looked long and sharp enough, and throwing the skin
and lugs into the fire.

We sat for mostly an hour together, cracking the best way we could in
such a place; nor was anybody more likely to cast up. The night was now
pitmirk; the wind soughed amid the head-stones and railings of the
gentry, (for we must all die,) and the black corbies in the steeple-holes
cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. All at once we heard a lonesome
sound; and my heart began to play pit-pat--my skin grew all rough, like a
pouked chicken--and I felt as if I did not know what was the matter with
me. It was only a false alarm, however, being the warning of the clock;
and, in a minute or two thereafter, the bell struck ten. Oh, but it was
a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap went through my breast like the
dunt of a fore-hammer.

Then up and spak the red-headed laddie:--"It's no fair; anither should
hae come by this time. I wad rin awa hame, only I am frighted to gang
out my lane.--Do ye think the doup of that candle wad carry i' my cap?"

"Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now.--Leave me alane?
Lord safe us! and the yett lockit, and the bethrel sleeping with the key
in his breek pouches!--We canna win out now though we would," answered I,
trying to look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses:--"Sit
down, sit down; I've baith whisky and porter wi' me. Hae, man, there's a
cawker to keep your heart warm; and set down that bottle," quoth I,
wiping the saw-dust affn't with my hand, "to get a toast; I'se warrant it
for Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout."

The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began to fall in
perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled and rowed, and made a sad soughing;
and the branches of the bourtree behind the house, where auld Cockburn
that cut his throat was buried creaked and crazed in a frightful manner;
but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and the bumming in the lum-
head, they were past all power of description. To make bad worse, just
in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its
rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought
of our both run