"Well, I'm your man for one. I say, Bob, and you Archy," he continued, turning round, and selecting two persons from the mob, "will ye no join us in giein a lift to the carrion? Ten croons are no to be fand at every dike-side."
Without making any reply in words to this appeal, the two persons named came forward, although with a somewhat dogged and sullen air, and were about to seize limbs a-piece of the still unconscious victim of popular hatred, with the view of thus transporting him, as if he had been a dead dog, to the destination proposed for him, when the person who had now taken the unfortunate man in charge, objected to the unseemly and inhuman proceeding, and offered an additional crown for a bier or litter on which to place him.
The activity of the smith, stimulated by the increased reward, quickly produced the conveniency wanted. It was but a coarse and clumsy article; being nothing more than a few rough boards hastily put together; but it answered its purpose indifferently well.
On this latter, then, the body of our unlucky brother was now placed—his face dreadfully swollen and disfigured; and the procession moved off, with a shouting and laughing mob at its heels.
Leaving David thus disposed of, we will return to Leith for a space, to see how Drinkhooly came on, denuded as he was of his shovel hat and his gown.
On awaking from his nap, the worthy churchman, not well pleased that David had not come to rouse him as he promised, started up in great uneasiness, lest the gates of the preceptory should be shut, and his character as a regular living man be thereby injured.
What was the surprise of the good man, however, to find that he had been stripped of his gown while he slept, and left in his shirt sleeves. Alarmed at the circumstance, brother Drinkhooly began searching the apartment for the missing garment, and also for his hat, which he now found had likewise gone astray.
Being able to discover no trace of the missing articles, he commenced rapping on the door to bring some one to his assistance, although very unwilling to expose himself in his present predicament to any but his well-beloved crony, David Wemyss. He could not help himself, however. His gown and hat he must have. He could not leave the house without them, and without assistance they could not be got.
The worthy brother's rapping on the door being unattended to, he commenced with his heel on the floor, a proceeding which he had often found, as it has been facetiously termed, an "effectual calling."
In the present instance, it brought mine host's wife into his presence. On her entering—