CHAPTER XX .-- ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE.
A fig for them by law protected, Liberty's a glorious feast; Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest.
_Jolly Beggars_.
Wi' cauk and keel I'll win your bread, And spindles and whorles for them wha need, Whilk is a gentle trade indeed, To carry the Gaberlunzie on.
I'll bow my leg and crook my knee, And draw a black clout owre my ee, A cripple or blind they will ca' me, While we shall be merry and sing.
KING JAMES V.
The situation of me and my family at this time affords an example of the truth of the old proverb, that "ae evil never comes its lane;" being no sooner quit of our dread concerning the burning, than we were doomed by Providence to undergo the disaster of the rookery of our hen-house.

I believe I have mentioned the number of our stock--to wit, a cock and seven hens, eight in all; but I neglected, on account of their size, or somehow overlooked, the two bantams, than which two more neat or curiouser-looking creatures were not to be seen in the whole country-side.

The hennie was quite a conceit of a thing, and laid an egg not muckle bigger than my thimble; while, for its size, the bit he-ane was, for spirit in the fechting line, a perfect wee deevil incarnate.
Most fortunately for my family in this matter, it so happened that, by paying in half-a-crown a-year, I was a regular member of a society for prosecuting all whom it might concern, that dabbled with foul fingers in the sinful and lawless trade of thievery, breaking the eighth commandment at no allowance, and drawing on their heads not only the passing punishments of this world, by way of banishment to Botany Bay, or hanging at the Luckenbooths, but the threatened vengeance of one that will last for ever and ever.
Accordingly, putting on my hat about nine o'clock, or thereabouts, when the breakfast things were removing from the bit table, I poppit out, in the first and foremost instance, to take a vizzy of the depredation the flames had made in our neighbourhood.

Losh keep us all, what a spectacle of wreck and ruination! The roof was clean off and away, as if a thunderbolt from heaven had knocked it down through the two floors, carrying every thing before it like a perfect whirlwind.

Nought were standing but black, bare walls, a perfect picture of desolation; some with the bit pictures on nails still hanging up where the rooms were like; and others with old coats hanging on pins; and empty bottles in boles, and so on.