set a stool for Mr. Scrow. Scrow (to the clerk, as he entered the
presence-chamber), hand down Sir George Mackenzie "On Crimes";
open it at the section "Vis Publica et Privata," and fold down a
leaf at the passage "anent the bearing of unlawful weapons." Now
lend me a hand off with my muckle-coat, and hang it up in the
lobby, and bid them bring up the prisoner; I trow I'll sort him;
but stay, first send up Mac-Guffog. Now, Mac-Guffog, where did ye
find this chield?'

Mac-Guffog, a stout, bandy-legged fellow, with a neck like a bull,
a face like a firebrand, and a most portentous squint of the left
eye, began, after various contortions by way of courtesy to the
Justice, to tell his story, eking it out by sundry sly nods and
knowing winks, which appeared to bespeak an intimate
correspondence of ideas between the narrator and his principal
auditor. 'Your honour sees I went down to yon place that your
honour spoke o', that's kept by her that your honour kens o', by
the sea-side. So says she, "What are you wanting here? ye'll be
come wi' a broom in your pocket frae Ellangowan?"--So says I,
"Deil a broom will come frae there awa, for ye ken," says I, "his
honour Ellangowan himsell in former times--"'

'Well, well,' said Glossin, 'no occasion to be particular, tell
the essentials.'

'Weel, so we sat niffering about some brandy that I said I wanted,
till he came in.'

'Who?'