"'Od Jamie Bowie
was a real ane. He wadna let them light a candle by his bedside to let
him see to dee; he gied them a curse, and said that was needless
extravagance."

Dog on it, thought I to myself, the further in the deeper. This beats
the round-shouldered horse-couper with the Japan hat, skinning his
reeking horse, all to sticks; and so I again fell into a gloomy sort of a
musing; when, just as we came opposite the Duke's gate, with the deers on
each side of it, two men rushed out upon us, and one of them seized
Tammie's horse by the bridle, as the other one held his horse-pistol to
my nose, and bade me stop in the King's name!

"Hold your hand, hold your hand, for the sake of mercy!" cried I. "Spare
the father of a small family that will starve on the street if ye take my
life!! Hae--hae--there's every coin and copper I have about me in the
world! Be merciful, be merciful; and do not shed blood that will not,
cannot be rubbed out of your conscience. Take all that we have--horse
and cart and all if ye like; only spare our lives, and let us away home!"

"De'il's in the man," quo' Tammie, "horse and cart! that's a gude one!
Na, na, lads; fire away gin ye like; for as lang as I hae a drap o' bluid
in me, ye'll get neither. Better be killed than starve. Do your best,
ye thieves that ye are; and I'll hae baith of ye hanged neist week before
the Fifteen!"

Every moment I expected my head to be shot off, till I got my hand
clapped on Tammie's mouth, and could get cried to them--"Shoot him then,
lads; shoot him then, lads, if he wants it; but take my siller like
Christians, and let me away with my poor deeing bairn!"

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