SO it was that the wild ragamuffin talk of these fellows had something about it which suited my vein at the time. I pledged them in their bumpers, smashed tobacco pipes against the wall, enjoyed the crackers in the candles, the sparrings, wrestlings, and singlestick exhibitions, with which the flow of soul was diversified, and joined with the best of them in the long howling choruses of their Fescennine ballads. In brief, when, at a late hour of the night, I understood that five or six of the party, Spreule included, were engaged to set off upon a professional expedition to a country church-yard, situated some ten or twelve miles out of town, in the madness of that most feverish of all tipsinesses, which takes place, when Bacchus triumphs over a system full of undigested and fermenting bile, I agreed to make one in this worshipful crusade. Swordsticks and bludgeons of every shape were ready in a corner of the room; and we took our departure at the appointed hour, two in a gig, and the rest of us mounted on the stoutest hacks that the representative of the West-Riding had been able to pick up in the Canongate stables.

We rode as rapidly as the darkness of the night would permit along those by-ways which prudence induced our leader to prefer: and picketing our horses in a fir plantation when we came within a few hundred yards of the scene of action, proceeded towards it in a body, with our arms, pickaxes, and sacks, all in order. We halted, however, for a minute or two at the top of the little hill that looks down on the village, and dispatched a scout to see if the coast was clear. The whistle to advance was soon heard; and, when we had cleared the wall, we found the sexton in his night-cap, true to his appointment.

He withdrew the moment he had pointed out the spot, and I was one of two that remained to keep watch by the stile leading into the village.