I mind well the large wicker cage in which they were conveyed from place to place, and never without the Captain near at hand.

My father had a cock that beat all the other town cocks at the cock fight at our school, which was superintended by the elder of the kirk to see fair play; but the which died of its wounds the next day but one.

This was a great grief to my father, it having been challenged to fight the Captain's cock.
Therefore it was very considerate of the Captain to make my father a present of his bird; father, in compliment to him, changing its name from the "Deil" to the "Captain." During the forenoon, and I think until well on in the day, James and me was busy with the pitcher and the flagon.

The proceedings in the square, however, was not so well conducted as in the quarry, many of the folk there assembled showing a mean and grasping spirit.

The Captain had given orders that there was to be no stint of ale and porter, and neither there was; but much of it lost through hastiness.
Great barrels was hurled into the middle of the square, where the country wives sat with their eggs and butter on market-day, and was quickly stove in with an axe or paving-stone or whatever came handy.
Sometimes they would break into the barrel at different points; and then, when they tilted it up to get the ale out at one hole, it gushed out at the bottom till the square was flooded.