“Eh, crifty!” cried Benjie, coming till his speech, “they’re a’ aff—cock and hens and a’—there’s naething left but the rotten nest-egg in the corner!”
This was an awful dispensation, of which more hereafter. In the midst of the desolation of the fire—such is the depravity of human nature—some ne’er-do-weels had taken advantage of my absence to break open the hen-house door; and our whole stock of poultry, the cock along with our seven hens—two of them tappit, and one muffed—were carried away bodily, stoop and roop.
On this subject, howsoever, I shall say no more in this chapter, but merely observe in conclusion, that as to our het-pint, we were obligated to make the best of a bad bargain, making up with whisky what it wanted in eggs; though our banquet could not be called altogether a merry one, the joys of our escape from the horrors of the fire being damped, as it were by a wet blanket, on account of the nefarious pillaging of our hen-house.
CHAPTER TWENTY—MANSIE’S ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE
The situation of me and my family at this time affords an example of the truth of the old proverb, that “ae evil never comes its lane”; being no sooner quit of our dread concerning the burning, than we were doomed by Providence to undergo the disaster of the rookery of our hen-house. I believe I have mentioned the number of our stock—to wit, a cock and seven hens, eight in all; but I neglected, on account of their size, or somehow overlooked, the two bantams, than which two more neat or curiouser-looking creatures were not to be seen in the whole country-side. The hennie was quite a conceit of a thing, and laid an egg not muckle bigger than my thimble; while, for its size, the bit he-ane was, for spirit in the fechting line, a perfect wee deevil incarnate.
Most fortunately for my family in this matter, it so happened that, by paying in half-a-crown a-year, I was a regular member of a society for prosecuting all whom it might concern, that dabbled with foul fingers in the sinful and lawless trade of thievery, breaking the eighth commandment at no allowance, and drawing on their heads not only the passing punishments of this world, by way of banishment to Botany Bay, or hanging at the Luckenbooths, but the threatened vengeance of one that will last for ever and ever.
Accordingly, putting on my hat about nine o’clock, or thereabouts, when the breakfast things were removing from the bit table, I poppit out, in the first and foremost instance, to take a vizzy of the depredation the flames had made in our neighbourhood. Losh keep us all, what a spectacle of wreck and ruination! The roof was clean off and away, as if a thunderbolt from heaven had knocked it down through the two floors, carrying every thing before it like a perfect whirlwind. Nought were standing but black, bare walls, a perfect picture of desolation; some with the bit pictures on nails still hanging up where the rooms were like; and others with old coats hanging on pins; and empty bottles in boles, and so on. Indeed, Jacob Glowr, who was standing by my side with his specs on, could see as plain as a pikestaff, a tea-kettle still on the fire, in the hearth-place of one of the gable garrets, where Miss Jenny Withershins lived, but happened luckily, at the era of the conflagration, to be away to Prestonpans, on a visit to some of her far-away cousins, providentially for her safety, greviously, at that very time, smitten with the sciatics.
Having satisfied my eyes with a daylight view of the terrible devastation, I went away leisurely up the street with my hands in my breeches-pockets, comparing the scene in my mind with the downfall of Babylon the Great, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and
Tyre and Sidon, and Jerusalem, and all the lave of the great towns that had fallen to decay, according to the foretelling of the sacred prophets, until I came to the door of Donald Gleig, the head of the Thief Society, to whom I related, from beginning to end, the whole business of the hen-stealing. ’Od he was a mettle bodie of a creature; far north, Aberdeen-awa like, and looking at two sides of a halfpenny; but, to give the devil his due, in this instance he behaved to me like a gentleman. Not only did Donald send through the drum in the course of half an hour, offering a reward for the apprehension of the offenders of three guineas, names concealed, but he got a warrant granted to Francie Deep, the sherry-officer, to make search in the houses of several suspicious persons.
The reward offered by tuck of drum failed, nobody making application to the crier; but the search succeeded; as, after turning everything topsy-turvy, the feathers were found in a bag, in the house of an old woman of vile character, who contrived to make out a way of living by hiring beds at twopence a-night to Eirish travellers—South-country packmen—sturdy beggars, men and women, and weans of them—Yetholm tinklers—wooden-legged sailors without Chelsea pensions—dumb spaewomen—keepers of wild-beast shows—dancing-dog folk—spunk-makers, and suchlike pick-pockets. The thing was as plain as the loof of my hand; for, besides great