“Hey the bonnie gill-stoup!
Ho the bonnie gill-stoup!
Gie me walth o’ barley bree,
And leeze me on the gill-stoup!”
“But you can at least tell me who sent you here, Geordie?” said I, anxious for further information before intrusting myself to such erratic guidance.
He of the gill-stoups lifted up his voice and sang—
“Cam’ ye by Tweedside,
Or cam’ ye by Flodden?
Met ye the deil
On the braes o’ Culloden?
“Three imps o’ darkness
I saw in a neuk,
Riving the red-coats,
And roasting the Deuk.
“Quo’ ane o’ them—‘Geordie,
Gae down to the brig,
I’m yaup for my supper,
And fetch us a Whig.’
“Ha! ha! ha! Hoo d’ye like that, my man? Queer freends ye’ve gotten noo, and ye’ll need a lang spoon to sup kail wi’ them. But come awa’. I canna stand here the haill nicht listening to your havers.”
Although the hint conveyed by Mr Dowie’s ingenious verses was rather of an alarming nature, I made up my mind at once to run all risks and follow him. Geordie strode on, selecting apparently the most unfrequented lanes, and making, as I anxiously observed, for a remote part of the suburbs. Nor was his voice silent during our progress, for he kept regaling me with a series of snatches, which, being for the most part of a supernatural and diabolical tendency, did not much contribute towards the restoration of my equanimity. At length he paused before a small house, the access to which was by a downward flight of steps.
“Ay—this is the place!” he muttered. “I ken it weel. It’s no just bad the whusky that they sell, but they needna put sae muckle water intil’t.”
So saying, he descended the stair. I followed. There was no light in the passage, but the idiot went forward, stumbling and groping in the dark. I saw a bright ray streaming through a crevice, and three distinct knocks were given.
“Come in, whaever ye are!” said a bluff voice: and I entered a low apartment, in which the candles looked yellow through a fog of tobacco-smoke. Three men were seated at a deal table, covered with the implements of national conviviality; and to my intense astonishment none of the three were strangers to me. I at once recognised the features of the taciturn M’Auslan, the wary Shanks, and the independent Mr Thomas Gills.