“parbleu,” and “Mysie Rabble,”—that I fancy was his sweetheart at home, some bit French quean, that wondered he was never like to come from the wars and marry her. I thought on this, for his voice was mournful, though I could not understand the words; and kenning he was a stranger in a far land, my bowels yearned within me with compassion towards him.
I would have given half-a-crown at that blessed moment to have been able to wash my hands free of him; but I swithered, and was like the cuddie between the two bundles of hay. At long and last a thought struck me, which was to give the deluded simple creature a chance of escape; reckoning that, if he found his way home, he would see the shame and folly of fighting against us any more; and, marrying Mysie Rabble, live a contented and peaceful life, under his own fig and bay tree. So wishing him a sound sleep, I cried through the door, “Mounseer, gooda nighta;” decoying away Benjie and Tommy Staytape into the house. Bidding them depart to their beds, I said to them after shutting the door, “Now, callants, we have the precious life of a fellow-creature in our hand, and to account for. Though he has a yellow jacket on, and speaks nonsense, yet, nevertheless, he is of the same flesh and blood as ourselves. Maybe we may be all obliged to wear green foraging-caps before we die yet! Mention what we have seen or heard to no living soul; for maybe, if he were to escape, we would be all taken up on suspicion of being spies, and hanged on a gallows as high as Haman.”—After giving them this wholesome advice, I dispatched them to their beds like lamplighters, binding them to never fash their thumbs, but sleep like tops, as I would keep a sharp look-out till morning.
As soon, howsoever, as I heard them sleeping, and playing on the pipes through their noses, I cried first “Tommy,” and syne “Benjie,” to be sure; and, glad to receive no answer from either, I went to the aumrie and took out a mutton-bone, gey sair pyked, but fleshy enough at the mouse end; and, putting a penny row beside it, crap out to the coal-house on my tiptaes. All was quiet as pussie,—so I shot them through the hole at the corner made for letting the gaislings in by; and giving a tirl,
cried softly through, “Halloa, Mounseer, there’s your suppera fora youa; for I dara saya you are yauppa.”
The poor chiel commenced again to grunt and grane, and groan and yelp, and cry ochone;—and make such woful lamentations, that heart of man could not stand it; and I found the warm tears prap-prapping to my een. Before being put to this trial of my strength, I thought that, if ever it was my fortune to foregather with a Frenchman, either him or me should do or die; but, i’fegs, one should not crack so crouse before they are put to the test; and, though I had taken a prisoner without fighting at all—though he had come into the coal-hole of the Philistines of his own accord as it were, and was as safe as the spy in the house of Rahab at Jericho—and though we had him like a mouse beneath a firlet, snug under custody of lock and key, yet I considered within myself, with a pitiful consideration, that, although he could not speak well, he might yet feel deeply, that he might have a father and mother, and sisters and brothers, in his ain country, weeping and wearying for his return; and that his truelove Mysie Rabble might pine away like a snapped flower, and die of a broken heart.
Being a volunteer, and so one of his Majesty’s confidential servants, I swithered tremendously between my duty as a man and a soldier; but, do what you like, nature will aye be uppermost. The scale weighed down to the side of pity. I hearkened to the scripture that promises a blessing to the merciful in heart; and determined, come of it what would, to let the Frenchy take his chance of falling into other hands.
Having given him a due allowance by looking at my watch, and thinking he would have had enough of time to have taken his will of the mutton-bone in the way of pyking, I went to the press and brought out a bottle of swipes, which I also shoved through the hole; although, for lack of a tanker, there being none at hand, he would be obliged to lift it to his head, and do his best. To show the creature did not want sense, he shoved, when he was done, the empty plate and the toom bottle through beneath the door, mumbling some trash or other which no living creature could comprehend, but which I dare say, from the way it was said, was the telling me how much he was obliged
for his supper and poor lodging. From my kindness towards him, he grew more composed; but as he went back to the corner to lie down, I heard him give two-three heavy sighs.—I could not thole’t, mortal foe though the man was of mine; so I gave the key a canny thraw round in the lock, as it were by chance; and, wishing him a good-night, went to my bed beside Nanse.
At the dawn of day, by cock-craw, Benjie and Tommy Staytape, keen of the ploy, were up and astir, as anxious as if their life depended on it, to see that all was safe and snug, and that the prisoner had not shot the lock. They agreed to march sentry over him half an hour the piece, time about, the one stretching himself out on a stool beside the kitchen fire, by way of a bench in the guard-house, while the other went to and fro like the ticker of a clock. I dare say they saw themselves marching him after breakfast time, with his yellow jacket, through a mob of weans with glowering een and gaping mouths, up to the Tolbooth.
The back window being up a jink, I heard the two confabbing. “We’ll draw cuts,” said Benjie, “which is to walk sentry first; see, here’s two straws, the longest gets the choice.”—“I’ve won,” cried Tommy; “so gang you in a while, and if I need ye, or grow frightened, I’ll beat leather-ty-patch wi’ my buckles on the back-door. But we had better see first what he is about, for he may be howking a hole through aneath the foundations; thae fiefs can work like moudiwarts.”—“I’ll slip forret,” said Benjie, “and gie a peep.”—“Keep to a side,” cried Tommy Staytape, “for, dog on it, Moosey’ll maybe hae a pistol; and, if his birse be up, he would think nae mair o’ shooting ye as dead as a red herring, than I would do of taking my breakfast.”