"Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now.--Leave me alane? Lord save us! and the yett lockit, and the bethrel sleeping with the key in his breek pouches!--We canna win out now though we would," answered I, trying to look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses:--"Sit down, sit down; I've baith whisky and porter wi' me. Hae, man, there's a cawker to keep your heart warm; and set down that bottle," quoth I, wiping the saw-dust affn't with my hand, "to get a toast; I'se warrant it for Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout." [Picture: Rev. Mr Wiggie] The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began to fall in perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled and rowed, and made a sad soughing; and the branches of the bourtree behind the house, where auld Cockburn that cut his throat was burned, creaked and crazed in a frightful manner; but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and the bumming in the lum-head, they were past all power of description. To make bad worse, just in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought of our both running away; and then of our locking ourselves in, and firing through the door; but who was to pull the trigger? Gudeness watch over us! I tremble yet when I think on it. We were perfectly between the de'il and the deep sea--either to stand still and fire our gun, or run and be shot at. It was really a hang choice. As I stood swithering and shaking, the laddie flew to the door, and, thrawing round the key, clapped his back to it. Oh! how I looked at him, as he stood for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening with his lug cocked up, or rather like a terrier watching a rotten. "They're coming! they're coming!" he cried out; "cock the piece, ye sumph;" while the red hair rose up from his pow like feathers; "they're coming, I hear them tramping on the gravel." Out he stretched his arms against the wall, and brizzed his back against the door like mad; as if he had been Samson pushing over the pillars in the house of Dagon. "For the Lord's sake, prime the gun," he cried out, "or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug before we can cry Jack Robison! See that there's priming in the pan." I did the best I could; but my whole strength could hardly lift up the piece, which waggled to and fro like a cock's tail on a rainy day; my knees knocked against one another, and though I was resigned to die--I trust I was resigned to die--'od, but it was a frightful thing to be out of one's bed, and to be murdered in an old session-house, at the dead hour of night, by unearthly resurrection men, or rather let me call them deevils incarnate, wrapt up in dreadnoughts, with blacked faces, pistols, big sticks, and other deadly weapons.