. But there's mony yauld chields amang thae volunteers; and I mauna
say muckle about them that's no weel and no very able, because I am something
that gate mysell - But we'se do our best.«
    »What! so your martial spirit is rising again, Edie?
 
Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires!
 
I would not have thought you, Edie, had so much to fight for?«
    »Me no muckle to fight for, sir? - isna there the country to fight for, and
the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o' the gudewives
that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that come toddling to play wi'
me when I come about a landward town? - Deil!« he continued, grasping his
pike-staff with great emphasis, »an I had as gude pith as I hae gude-will, and a
gude cause, I should gie some o' them a day's kemping.«
    »Bravo, bravo, Edie! The country's in little ultimate danger, when the
beggar's as ready to fight for his dish as the laird for his land.«
    Their further conversation reverted to the particulars of the night passed
by the mendicant and Lovel in the ruins of St. Ruth; by the details of which the
Antiquary was highly amused.
    »I would have given a guinea,« he said, »to have seen the scoundrelly German
under the agonies of those terrors, which it is part of his own quackery to
inspire into others; and trembling alternately for the fury of his patron, and
the apparition of some hobgoblin.«
    »Troth,« said the beggar, »there was time for him to be cowed; for ye wad
hae thought the very spirit of Hell-in-Harness had taken possession o' the body
o' Sir Arthur. But what will come o' the land-louper?«
    »I have had a letter this morning, from which I understand he has acquitted
you of the charge he brought against you, and offers to make such discoveries as
will render the settlement of Sir Arthur's affairs a more easy task than we
apprehended - So writes the Sheriff; and adds, that he has given some private
information of importance to Government, in consideration of which, I understand
he will be sent back to play the knave in his own country.«
    »And a' the bonny engines, and wheels, and the coves, and sheughs, doun at
Glenwithershins yonder, what's
