“I wasna aye i’ the right way, Sandie, muckle to my shame; but better late mend than never do weel; an’ I’m thinking it would be better for you if ye would come wi’ us, for your fouk can never stand ours, and, instead o’ getting share o’ the spuilzie, ye’ll maybe get but a weel-clawed crown.”
“I doubtna but ye’re very right, Tammas; but what would come o’ my ten achisons ilka day, forby the jibble o’ drink, an’ my place at Provost Leslie’s?”
“I’m doubtin’ your place there’ll no’ be worth muckle, if we tak the town. The provost isna a man to be passed over, wha can sae weel afford to pay for’s idolatry.”
“Did ye ever hear,” said Hackit, “o him ever losing ony thing when the whigs had the town one day and the royalists the next?”
“Weel, Sandie,” said the other, “I canna just charge my memory wi’ ony thing o’ the kind; and gif it wasna, it was that God-fearing man, Samuel Fairtext, that saved him.”
“Ay,” said Hackit; “and, when the royalists were here, it was the jolly old cavalier that saved Fairtext. Troth, it’s the only wiselike partnership that I ken o’ at present; for, if they had been baith whigs or baith royalists, they would have been ruined out o’ house and ha’ ere this time. But, ye see, when the royalists were in the town, Fairtext kept himself quiet, and they wadna meddle wi’ him on Provost Leslie’s account. And now a’ the gudes are removed, an’ put under Fairtext’s care; sae that the Covenanters wudna tak the value of a shoe-tie frae him, for he can pray and grane as weel as ony o’ them. The provost and his dochter have left their ain house, and are to dwell wi’ Fairtext till the danger be ower.”
By the latter part of this conversation, Basil felt as if the imaginary weight of sorrow were removed from his bosom; but, instead of it, his arms were pinioned on a sudden, by a strong physical force, so firmly, that he was unable to move himself round to discover the occasion of this unceremonious embrace.
“Come here, ye dotterels!” said a strong voice; “ye sit there, gabbin’ an’ drinkin’ awa, nae caring wha may be hearing you. An’ you, my birkie, will better be as quiet ’s you can, or, deil tak me,—an’ I’m no used to swear,—but I’ll scour my durk atween the ribs o’ ye.”
A couple of men now came out of the hut and assisted in dragging Basil into it. As soon as they had forced him in, the person who had first seized him quitted his hold, exclaiming, “Eh, sirs! is that you?” Hackit also let him go, and Basil was able to look around him. There was neither chair nor table in the booth, but turf seats around the walls, plentifully littered with straw. A candle, fixed in the neck of an empty bottle, illuminated the place, and revealed a goodly quantity of bottles, with two or three horn drinking-cups on the floor, by which it appeared that the party had been engaged in a debauch.
Thomas Granehard still kept his hold, and, in a stern voice, demanded what he was?