"Hollo!" vociferated Johnstone, in a loud and harsh tone of voice--"hollo! brother brush-the-heather, what have we here? A Bible, no doubt, and a psalm-tune, and Covenanting dirge, made up of profanity and high treason in equal proportions. Stir your stumps, old Gibby! Ye're wanted, man, by the guidwife. She can get nae rest without you; and the vile, roaring _get_ which ye sae lately made a Christian o', took a taste o' the caller air this morning at the top o' Sergeant Pagan's sword. Look, man! glour, man!--you, Gibby, wi' or without the _girds_--there's the blood o' the yelping brat on the sword yet. Pat Pagan tells me it won't come off; so we'll e'en see if the Tarras water winna wash it oot"--pulling the sword out of the hands of the grim sergeant, and swinging it backwards and forwards in the adjoining pool. In the meantime, Daft Archy had sprung to his feet, and was staring wildly at the company by which he was surrounded. "A but, man--a but, man--I'm Archy, ye ken--Archy Elliot, ye ken--a but, no kill Archy--a but--a but--a but!" &c. "None of your Whiggery slang here, ye manting, shamming fool! D'ye think we dinna see that all this foolery is put on, man? D'ye think we dinna ken Gibby Watson o' the Goosedub? Men, do your duty, and secure the traitor!" Thus saying, the dragoons were proceeding to execute their orders, when one of them interfered, and assured his Honour that he was mistaken in the person--for this was the daft brither o' the Laird o' Whithaugh, "owre by yonder." "Elliot o' Whithaugh!" exclaimed Johnstone, with a demoniacal grin. "Auld, canting, traitor-hiding Elliot! I have a good mind to set his house in a lunt about his lugs, and toss this lump of idiocy into the fire, just to beet the flame. Tie the creature with cords to a tree, and let us proceed to Elliot's of Whithaugh. It is a thousand to one that 'Gibby God-be-thanked' is not snugly lodged in the laird's pantry; or, maybe, luggit into the heart o' a peat-stack."