nny candle, and faint clean away; but, coming to
myself in a jiffie, I determined, in case it might be a highway robber,
to thraw about the key, and, running up for the firelock, shoot him
through the head instantly, if found necessary. In turning round the
key, the lock, being in want of a feather of oil, made a noise, and
wakened the poor wretch, who, jumping to the soles of his feet in
despair, cried out in a voice that was like to break my heart, though I
could not make out one word of his paraphernally. It minded me, by all
the world, of a wheen cats fuffing and fighting through ither, and whiles
something that sounded like "Sugar, sugar, measure the cord," and "dabble
dabble." It was worse than the most outrageous Gaelic ever spoken in the
height of passion by a Hieland shearer.

"Oho!" thinks I, "friend, ye cannot be a Christian from your lingo,
that's one thing poz; and I would wager tippence you're a Frenchy. Who
kens, keep us all, but ye may be Buonaparte himself in disguise, come
over in a flat-bottomed boat to spy the nakedness of the land. So ye may
just rest content, and keep your quarters good till the morn's morning."

It was a wonderful business, and enough to happen to a man in the course
of his lifetime, to find Mounseer from Paris in his coal-neuk, and have
the enemy of his country snug under lock and key; so, while he kept
rampauging, fuffing, stamping, and _diabbling_ away, I went in and
brought out Benjie, with a blanket rowed round him, and my journeyman,
Tommy Staytape--who, being an orphan, I made a kind of parlour-boarder
of, he sleeping on a shake-down beyond the kitchen fire--to hold a
consultation, and be witness of the transaction.

I got my musket, and Tommy Staytape armed himself with the goose--a
deadly weapon, whoever may get a clour with it--and Benjie took the poker
in one hand, and the tongs in the other; and out we all marched briskly,
to make the Frenchman, that was locked up from the light of day in the
coal-house, surrender. After hearkening at the door for a while, and
finding all quiet, we gave a knock to rouse him up, and see if we could
bring any thing out of him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie
trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we
make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign
creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away,
like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At