Some lingering recollection of where he was, and of the message entrusted him, flashed upon his memory through the thickening haze that was overspreading his faculties, and setting the hot stoup, half drained, upon the board, he reeled up from it. "Where away?" said Borthwick; "finish thy pot, man--where away so fast?" "A lady--a letter," muttered Wad, opening and shutting his eyes in succession, and rolling his head from side to side; "she gied me a braw siller chain for my pretty Rose; yo-ho, brother gossip; I must trip my anchor now--" "But finish thine ale, friend, to the health cf Andrew Wood." "Weel, weel,--_there_,--it is a' stowed under hatch," said Willie, as with a loud whoop he poured the last of the hot ale down his throat; "and noo," said he, flinging away the stoup, "may I drink bilge, if I can stay a minute mair--I am getting slow in stays--I yaw and canna obey my helm--hard up--hard up it is--thou'st owrestowed me--I careen--hillo--oh!" cried Wad, as he lurched and rolled about, and then sank prostrate on the bench from which he had just risen. In his eagerness to obtain the letter, Borthwick would have sprung upon him and wrenched away his belt-pouch, for every man wore one in those days, and the goat-skin sporran of the Highland clansman is but the remnant of the fashion; the gunner, however, lay with his pouch under him, and he muttered, "Avast, billy, avast," and snorted like a pig, when the thief turned him over to reach it. Perceiving that the alewife's attention was directed another way, and that she was busy in heaping turf upon the fire, he attempted to unbutton the pouch; but a gleam of sense and suspicion made Wad place a hand heavily upon it. Borthwick glanced impatiently at the hostess; she was still bent over the hearth; he clutched his dagger, and then withdrew his hand as if the hilt had burned him. He had never unsheathed that fatal weapon since the terrible night at Beaton's mill, and even now the blood of him who was the heir of "a hundred kings" had glued the blade in its velvet scabbard. "I would soon end thee, fellow," thought he, "but I choose not to risk my life for bubbles." Then finding the seaman sunk in a deep and helpless sleep, he tore open the pouch, and inserting his hand, pulled forth the letter from among the pieces of cord, gunmatches, fragments of biscuit, cheese, and ropeyarn, a few coins and other et cetera, which Willie Wad usually carried in this repository; and then throwing a half-lyon on the table, Borthwick told Tibby Tarvet to "keep the change, for looking after this drunken lurdane," and wrapping himself in his cloak left the house. * * * * *