The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"The're coming; cock the piece, ye sumph!" cried the laddie, while his red hair rose, from his pow like feathers. "I hear them tramping on the gravel," and he turned the key in the lock and brizzed his back against the door like mad, shouting out, "For the Lord's sake, prime the gun, or our throats will be cut before you can cry Jack Robinson."

I did the best I could, but the gun waggled to and fro like a cock's tail on a rainy day. I trust I was resigned to die, but od' it was a frightful thing to be out of one's bed to be murdered in an old session-house at the dead hour of the night by devils incarnate of ressurrection men with blacked faces, pistols, big sticks, and other deadly weapons.

After all, it was only Isaac, the bethrel, who, when we let him in, said that he had just keppit four ressurrectioners louping over the wall. But that was a joke. I gave Isaac a dram to kep his heart up, and he sung and leuch as if he had been boozing with some of his drucken cronies; for feint a hair cared he about auld kirkyards, or vouts, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, with the wet grass growing over them. Then, although I tried to stop him, he began to tell stories of Eirish ressurrectioners, and ghaists, seen in the kirkyard at midnight.

Suddenly a clap like thunder was heard, and the laddie, who had fallen asleep on the bench, jumped up and roared "Help!" "Murder!" "Thieves!" while Isaac bellowed out, "I'm dead! I'm killed!--shot through the head! Oh, oh, oh!" Surely, I had fainted away, for, when I came to myself, I found my red comforter loosed, my face all wet, Isaac rubbing down his waistcoat with his sleeve--the laddie swigging ale out of a bicker--and the brisk brown stout, which, by casting its cork, had caused all the alarm, whizz-whizz, whizzing in the chimney lug.

III.--The Friends of the People

The sough of war and invasion flew over the land at this time, like a great whirlwind; and the hearts of men died within their persons with fear and trembling. Abroad the heads of crowned kings were cut off, and great dukes and lords were thrown into dark dungeons, or obligated to flee for their lives to foreign countries.

But worst of all the trouble seemed a smittal one, and even our own land began to show symptoms of the plague spot. Agents of the Spirit of Darkness, calling themselves the Friends of the People, held secret meetings, and hatched plots to blow up our blessed king and constitution. Yet the business, though fearsome in the main, was in some parts almost laughable. Everything was to be divided, and everyone made alike. Houses and lands were to be distributed by lots, and the mighty man and the beggar--the old man and the hobble-de-hoy--the industrious man and the spendthrift, the maimed, the cripple, and the blind, the clever man of business, and the haveril simpleton, made all just brethern, and alike. Save us! but to think of such nonsense! At one of their meetings, held at the sign of the Tappet Hen and the Tankard, there was a prime fight of five rounds between Tammy Bowsie, the snab, and auld Thrashem, the dominie, about their drawing cuts which was to get Dalkeith Palace, and which Newbottle Abbey! Oh, sic riff-raff!

It was a brave notion of the king to put the loyalty of the land to the test, that the daft folk might be dismayed, and that the clanjamphrey might be tumbled down before their betters, like the windle-straes in a hurricane. And so they were. Such crowds came forward when the names of the volunteers were taken down. I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals on, and when I looked myself in the glass, just to think I was a sodger who never in my life could thole the smell of powder! Oh, but it was grand! I sometimes fancied myself a general, and giving the word of command. Big Sam, who was a sergeant in the fencibles, and enough to have put five Frenchmen to flight any day of the year, whiles came to train us; but as nature never intended me for the soldiering trade, I never got out of the awkward squad, though I had two or three neighbours to keep me in countenance.

We all cracked very crouse about fighting; but one dark night we got a fleg in sober earnest. Jow went the town bell, and row-de-dow gaed the drums, and all in a minute was confusion and uproar in ilka street. I was seized with a severe shaking of the knees and a flapping at the heart, when, through the garret window, I saw the signal posts were in a bleeze, and that the French had landed. This was in reality to be a soldier! I never got such a fright since the day I was cleckit. There was such a noise and hullabaloo in the streets, as if the Day of Judgment had come to find us all unprepared.

Notwithstanding, we behaved ourselves like true-blue Scotsmen, called forth to fight the battles of our country, and if the French had come, as they did not come, they would have found that to their cost, as sure as my name is Mansie. However, it turned out that it was a false alarm, and that the thief Buonaparte had not landed at Dunbar, as it was jealoused; so, after standing under arms for half the night, we were sent home to our beds.