Indeed, Jacob Glowr, who was standing by my side with his specs on, could see as plain as a pikestaff, a tea-kettle still on the fire, in the hearth-place of one of the gable garrets, where Miss Jenny Withershins lived, but happened luckily, at the era of the conflagration, to be away to Prestonpans, on a visit to some of her far- away cousins, providentially for her safety, grievously, at that very time, smitten with the sciatics.
Having satisfied my eyes with a daylight view of the terrible devastation, I went away leisurely up the street with my hands in my breeches-pockets, comparing the scene in my mind with the downfall of Babylon the Great, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and Tyre and Sidon, and Jerusalem, and all the lave of the great towns that had fallen to decay, according to the foretelling of the sacred prophets, until I came to the door of Donald Gleig, the head of the Thief Society, to whom I related, from beginning to end, the whole business of the hen-stealing.

'Od he was a mettle bodie of a creature; far north, Aberdeen-awa like, and looking at two sides of a halfpenny; but, to give the devil his due, in this instance he behaved to me like a gentleman.

Not only did Donald send through the drum in the course of half an hour, offering a reward for the apprehension of the offenders of three guineas, names concealed, but he got a warrant granted to Francie Deep, the sherry-officer, to make search in the houses of several suspicious persons.
The reward offered by tuck of drum failed, nobody making application to the crier; but the search succeeded; as, after turning every thing topsy- turvy, the feathers were found in a bag, in the house of an old woman of vile character, who contrived to make out a way of living by hiring beds at twopence a-night to Eirish travellers--South-country packmen--sturdy beggars, men and women, and weans of them--Yetholm tinklers--wooden-legged sailors without Chelsea pensions--dumb spaewomen--keepers of wild-beast shows--dancing-dog folk--spunk-makers, and suchlike pickpockets.

The thing was as plain as the loof of my hand; for, besides great suspicion, what was more, was the finding the head of the muffed hen, to which I could have sworn, lying in a bye-corner; the body itself not being so kenspeckle in its disjasket state--as it hung twirling in a string by its legs before the fire, all buttered over with swine's seam, and half roasted.
After some little ado, and having called in two men that were passing to help us to take them prisoners, in case of their being refractory, we carried them by the lug and the horn before a justice of peace.
Except the fact of the stolen goods being found in their possession, it so chanced, ye observe, that we had no other sort of evidence whatsoever; but we took care to examine them one at a time, the one not hearing what the other said; so, by dint of cross-questioning by one who well knew how to bring fire out of flint, we soon made the guilty convict themselves, and brought the transaction home to two wauf-looking fellows that we had got smoking in a corner.

From the speerings that were put to them during their examination, it was found that they tried to make a way of doing by swindling folks at fairs by the game of the garter.