es, I jealoused directly that there would be a stramash; so not
liking, for sundry reasons, to have my neb seen in the business, I shut
to the door, and drew the long bolt; while I hastened ben to the room,
and, softly pulling up a jink of the window, clapped the side of my head
to it; that, unobserved, I might have an opportunity of overhearing the
conversation between Reuben Cursecowl and the coallier wife; which, weel-
a-wat, was likely to become public property.

"Hollo! you man, do ye ken onything about that?" cried the randy
woman;--but wait a moment, till I give a skiff of description of our
neighbour Reuben.

By this time--it was ten years after James Batter's tragedy--Mr Cursecowl
was an oldish man--he is gathered to his fathers now--and was
considerably past his best, as his wife, douce, honest woman, used to
observe. His dress was a little in the Pagan style, and rendered him
kenspeckle to the eye of observation. Instead of a hat, he generally
wore a long red Kilmarnock nightcap, with a cherry on the top of it,
through foul weather and fair; and having a kind of trot in his walk,
from a bink forward in his knees, it dang-dangled behind him, like the
cap of Mr Merryman with the painted face, the show-folks' fool. On the
afternoon alluded to, he was in full killing-dress, having on an auld
blue short coatie, once long, but now docked in the tails, so that the
pocket-flaps and the hainch-buttons were not above three inches from the
place where his wife had snibbed it across by; and, from long use in his
bloodthirsty occupation, his sleeves flashed in the daylight as if they
had been double japanned. Tied round his beer-barrel-like waist was a
stripped apron, blue and white; and at his left side hung a bloody gaping
leather pouch, as if he had been an Israelite returned from the slaughter
of the Philistines, filled with steels and knives, straight and crooked,
that had done ample execution in their day, I'll warrant them. Up his
thighs were rolled his coarse rig-and-fur stockings, as if it were to
gird him for the battle, and his feet were slipped into a pair of
bauchles--that is, the under part of old boots cut from the legs. As to
his face, lo and behold! the moon shining in the Nor-west--yea, the sun
blazing in all his glory--had not a more crimson aspect than Reuben. Like
the pig-eyed Chinese folk on tea-cups, his peepers were diminutive and
twinkling; but his nose made up for them--and that it did--be