"What! what?"
"Ou just onything they asked him. Treason, awfu' to hear; about a Dutch invasion and a rebellion among the Westland whigs, to whom he shewed letters from Flume o' Polwarth, Fagel the Pensioner o' Holland, Dyckvelt the Flemish spy, and a' hidden whar d'ye think?"
"Deil kens; in his wame, may be."
"Hoots; sewit up in the lining o' his braid bonnet."
The poor fainting preacher had now the felicity of being stared at by a crowd who pitied him no more than the strong-armed torturers whose grasp sustained his supine and inert frame.
"Soldier," said he to one near him, "art thou a son of the Roman antichrist?"
"Na, I am Habbie, the son o' my faither, auld John Elshender, a cottar body, at the Burghmuirend."
"Then, in the name of God," implored the poor man in a weak and wavering voice, "give me but a drop o' water to quench my thirst, for, oh youth, I suffer the torments of hell!"
The soldier who seemed to be a good-natured young fellow, readily brought a pitcher of water, from which Bummel drank greedily and convulsively, muttering at intervals,
"'Tis sweet—sweet as aqua-coelestis, whilk is thrice rectified wine. Heaven bless thee, soldier, and reward thee, for I cannot." He burst into tears.