On the next day, the Friday, I think, that story was also made as clear as daylight to us; for being banished out of the town as a common thief and vagabond, down on the Musselburgh road, by order of a justice of the peace, it was the bounden duty of Daniel Search and Geordie Sharp to see her safe past the kennel, the length of Smeaton. They then tried to make her understand by writing on the wall, that if ever again she was seen or heard tell of in the town, she would be banished to Botany Bay; but she had a great fight, it seems, to make out Daniel's bad spelling, he having been very ill yedicated, and no deacon at the pen. Howsoever, they got her to understand their meaning, by giving her a shove forward by the shoulders, and aye pointing down to Inveresk. Thinking she did not hear them, they then took upon themselves the liberty of calling her some ill names, and bade her good-day as a bad one. But she was upsides with them for acting, in that respect, above their commission; for she wheeled round again to them, and, snapping her fingers at their noses, gave a curse, and bade them go home for a couple of dirty Scotch vermin. The two men were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing the tongue-tied wife speaking as good English as themselves; and could not help stopping to look after her for a long way on the road, as every now and then she stuck one of her arms a-kimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the whirling-jig way, louping like daft, and lilting like a grey-lintie. From her way of speaking, they also saw immediately that she too was an Eirisher.--They must be a bonny family when they are all at home. CHAPTER XXI.--ANENT MUNGO GLEN. "Earth to earth," and "dust to dust," The solemn priest hath said, So we lay the turf above thee now, And we seal thy narrow bed; But thy spirit, brother, soars away Among the faithful blest, Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest. MILMAN. Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight. To say nothing connected with the playacting business, which was immediately before--first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his transactions, and a bad omen--next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat--syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks--and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment of the spaewife.