"Or Sir Thomas Dalyel o' the Binns?" added the serjeant testily. "O! what is this o't noo--after I, from a skirling brat, had made a man and a soldier of thee? O! 'tis an unco scrape--a devilish coil of trouble, and I wish you weel out o't. Retain your sword, my puir child, but consider yourself under close ward until orders come anent ye. D--me! I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zutphen to French Flanders, among them the noble Count of Bronkhorst himsel, and never lost but one man whom I pistolled for calling me a hireling Scot, that sold my king for a groat, whilk I considered as a taunt appertaining to the Covenanters alone. Gowk and gomeral, boy, what devil tempted thee to----but why ask? Yon pawkie gipsey's blue een----" "Hush!" "Hae thrown a glamour owre ye. Wherever women bide, there will mischief be. 'Tis a kittle job! What a pumpkin-head I was not to keep watch and ward mysel. Rot me! a young quean's skirling, or a carlin's greeting would hae little effect on me, for I have heard muckle o' baith in my time. Did no thought of our Council prevent ye running your head in the cannon's mouth?" "No; I saw women in distress, Wemyss, and acted as my heart dictated." "Had they been two auld carlins with hairy chins, gobber teeth, wrinkled faces, and hands like corbies' claws, I doubt not your tender heart would have dictated otherwise. But when next I set a handsome young lad to watch a young lass, may the great de'il spit me, and mak my ain halbert his toasting fork!" "Ay, ay," muttered Macer Maclutchy, whose jaws were busily devouring all the good things he could collect in buffet or almrie; "auld Hornie may do so in the end, whatever comes to pass." "O Willie Wemyss, Willie Wemyss!" quoth the veteran halberdier apostrophizing himself; "dark dool be on the hour that brings this disgrace upon thee, after five and thirty years o' hard and faithful service, under La Tour d'Avergne, Crequy, Condé, and Dunbarton! The deil's in ye, Walter Fenton! You were aye a moody and melancholy cheild, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the spaewives say." "Braw spark though he be," said the Macer, "he's come o' the true auld covenanting spawn, Mr. Wemyss--and birds o' a feather--here's luck, serjeant, and better times to us a'"; and so saying he buried his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale. CHAPTER VI. THE OLD TOLBOOTH. Whether I was brought into this world by the usual human helps and means, or was a special creation, might admit of some controversy, as I have never known the name of parent or of kindred.--THE IMPROVISITORE.