Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 | Page 8

was a considerable number of guests within. Still, Master Dick
did not shew, and I was thoroughly at a loss how to act. It would not
certainly have been difficult to force an entrance, but I doubted that I
should be justified in doing so; besides, if they were such desperadoes
as Mary Ransome intimated, such a measure must be attended with loss
of life--a risk not to be incurred except when all less hazardous
expedients had failed, and then only for a sufficient and well-defined
purpose. I was thus cogitating, when there suddenly burst forth,
overpowering the howling of the wind and the pattering of the rain, a
rattling and familiar chorus, sung by at least a dozen rough voices; and
I had not a doubt that the crew of the Fair Rosamond were assisting at
a farewell revel previous to sailing, as that Hope, which tells so many
flattering tales, assured them they would, at dawn.
Such merriment did not certainly sound like the ferocious exultations of
intending assassins; still, I was very anxious to make ten or a dozen
amongst them; and continuing to cast about for the means of doing so,
our attention was at length fixed upon a strange object, not unlike a
thirty-six pounder red-hot round shot, not in the least cooled by the rain,
projecting inquiringly from a small aperture, which answered for a
window, halfway up the sloping roof. It proved to be Master Dick's
fiery head, but he made us out before we did him. 'Is that Bill
Simpson?' queried Dick, very anxiously. The seaman addressed, as
soon as he could shove in a word edgewise with the chorus and the
numerous wind-instruments of the Forest, answered that 'it was Bill
Simpson; and who the blazes was that up there?' To which the answer
was, that 'it was Dick, and that he should be obliged, if Bill had a rope
with him, he would shy up one end of it.' Of course we had a rope: an
end was shied up, made fast, and down tumbled Master Dick Redhead
without his hat, which, in his hurry, it appeared, he had left behind in
the banqueting-room. His explanation was brief and explicit. He had
accompanied the young woman to the present building, as I ordered;
and being a good deal wrought upon by her grief and lamentations, had
suggested that it might be possible to get Dr Lee and her father to a

place of safety without delay, proverbially dangerous. This seemed
feasible; inasmuch as the fellow left in charge by Wyatt was found to
be dead-drunk, chiefly owing, I comprehended, to some powerful
ingredients infused in his liquor by Dr Lee. All was going on
swimmingly, when, just as Dick had got the doctor on his back, an
alarm was given that the crew of the Fair Rosamond were close at hand,
and Dick had but just time to climb with great difficulty into the crazy
loft overhead, when a dozen brawny fellows entered the place, and
forthwith proceeded to make merry.
A brief council was now held, and it was unanimously deemed
advisable that we should all climb up to Dick's hiding-place by means
of the rope, and thence contrive to drop down upon the convivial
gentlemen below, in as convenient a manner as possible, and when
least expected. We soon scaled the loft, but after-proceedings were not
so easy. The loft was a make-shift, temporary one, consisting of loose
planks resting upon the cross rafters of the roof, and at a considerable
height from the floor upon which the smugglers were carousing. It
would, no doubt, have been easy enough to have slid down by a rope;
but this would place the first three or four men, if no more, at the mercy
of the contrabandists, who, I could see through the wide chinks, were
all armed, and not so drunk but that they thoroughly knew what they
were about. It behoved us to be cool, and consider well the best course
to pursue. Whilst doing so, I had leisure to contemplate the scene below.
Wyatt was not there; but around a table, lighted by two dip-candles
stuck in the necks of black bottles, and provided with abundance of
liquor, tobacco, tin pannikins, and clay-pipes, sat twelve or thirteen
ill-favoured fellows, any one of whom a prudent man would, I am very
sure, have rather trusted with a shilling than a sovereign. The
unfortunate doctor, pale and sepulchral as the death he evidently
dreaded to be near at hand, was sitting propped up in a rude arm-chair;
and Ransome, worse, I thought, than when I had seen him a few weeks
previously, was reclining on a chest, in front of which stood his wife
and daughter in a condition of