It was about the month of March, in the year of grace anno domini eighteen hunder, that the haill country trummelled, like a man ill of the interminable fiver, under the consternation of Bonapartie and all the French vagabonds emigrating ower and landing in the firth. Keep us a'! the folk, dydit bodies, pat less confidence than became them in what our volunteer regiments were able and willing to do though we had a remnant amang us of the true bluid that with loud lauchter lauched the creatures to scorn, and I for ane keepit up my pluck like a true Hielander. Does ony leeving soul believe that Scotland could be conquered, and the like o' us sold, like Egyptian slaves, into captivity? Fie, fie; I could spit on siccan havers. Are we no descended, faither and son, frae Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace, having the bright bluid of freemen in our veins and the Pentland Hills, as weel as our ain dear hames and firesides, to fight for? The fief that wadna gi'e cut-and-thrust for his country as lang as he had a breath to draw or a leg to stand on should be tied neck and heels, without benefit o' clergy, and thrown ower Leith Pier to swim for his life like a mangy dog! It was sometime in the blasty month of March, the weather being rawish and rainy, wi' sharp frosty nights that left all the window soles whitewashed ower with frost-rind in the morning, that as I was going out in the dark, afore lying doun in my bed, to gi'e a look into the hen-house door and lock the coal cellar, so that I might pit the bit key intil my breek pouches, I happened to gi'e a keek in, and, lo and behold, the awfu' apparition of a man wi' a yellow jacket lying sound asleep on a great lump o' parrot coal in a corner. In the hurry of my terror and surprise at seeing a man with a yellow jacket and a blue foraging cap in such a situation, I was like to drap the guid twopenny candle and faint clean away; but, coming to mysel' in a jiffy, I determined, in case it might be a highway rubber, to thraw about the key, and, rinning up for the firelock, shoot him through the head instantly, if found necessary. In turning round the key the lock, being in want of a feather o' oil, made a noise, and waukened the puir wretch, who, jumping to the soles of his feet in despair, cried out in a voice that was like to break my heart, though I couldna make out ae word of his paraphernally. It minded me, by a' the world, of a wheen cats fuffing and feighting through ither, and whiles something that sounded like "Sugar, sugar, measure the cord," and "dabble, dabble." It was waur than the maist outrageous Gaelic ever spoken in the height o' passion by a Hieland shearer.