‘Ay, ay, dead enough,’ said another; ’but here’s what shall give him a rousing lykewake.’  So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from a corner, while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco.  From the activity with which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hope of her fidelity towards her guest.  It was obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians in their debauch, to prevent the discovery which might take place if by accident any of them should approach too nearly the place of Brown’s concealment.

CHAPTER XXVIII

     Nor board nor garner own we now,
      Nor roof nor latched door,
     Nor kind mate, bound, by holy vow,
      To bless a good man’s store
     Noon lulls us in a gloomy den,
      And night is grown our day;
     Uprouse ye, then, my merry men! 
      And use it as ye may

          JoannaBaillie.

Brown could now reckon his foes:  they were five in number; two of them were very powerful men, who appeared to be either real seamen or strollers who assumed that character; the other three, an old man and two lads, were slighter made, and, from their black hair and dark complexion, seemed to belong to Meg’s tribe.  They passed from one to another the cup out of which they drank their spirits.  ‘Here’s to his good voyage!’ said one of the seamen, drinking; ’a squally night he’s got, however, to drift through the sky in.’

We omit here various execrations with which these honest gentlemen garnished their discourse, retaining only such of their expletives as are least offensive.

’’A does not mind wind and weather; ’a has had many a north-easter in his day.’

‘He had his last yesterday,’ said another gruffly; ’and now old Meg may pray for his last fair wind, as she’s often done before.’

‘I’ll pray for nane o’ him,’ said Meg, ’nor for you neither, you randy dog.  The times are sair altered since I was a kinchen-mort.  Men were men then, and fought other in the open field, and there was nae milling in the darkmans.  And the gentry had kind hearts, and would have given baith lap and pannel to ony puir gipsy; and there was not one, from Johnnie Faa the upright man to little Christie that was in the panniers, would cloyed a dud from them.  But ye are a’ altered from the gude auld rules, and no wonder that you scour the cramp-ring and trine to the cheat sae often.  Yes, ye are a’ altered:  you’ll eat the goodman’s meat, drink his drink, sleep on the strammel in his barn, and break his house and cut his throat for his pains!  There’s blood on your hands, too, ye dogs, mair than ever came there by fair righting.  See how ye’ll die then.  Lang it was ere he died; he strove, and strove sair, and could neither die nor live; but you—­half the country will see how ye’ll grace the woodie.’

The party set up a hoarse laugh at Meg’s prophecy.

‘What made you come back here, ye auld beldam?’ said one of the gipsies; ’could ye not have staid where you were, and spaed fortunes to the Cumberland flats?  Bing out and tour, ye auld devil, and see that nobody has scented; that’s a’ you’re good for now.’