Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V. COMMON SENSE. When the two boys had walked up the street, and passed through the gate of the mason's lodge into the churchyard, without meeting with any of their companions, Andrew halted and said, " Od, Charlie, I'm thinking we had as weel bide as we are — Yen's a horned stot, in comparison to us, wha hae but banes o' grisle — and a solid chap o' his neive would be as deadly as Coomy the smith's forehammer — Od, I'm no for meddling ony mair wi' the muckle bruit." Pierston reprobated the pusillanimity of this prudent sentiment, and became more and more resolute for revenge. " Vera weel" cried Wylie, " tak your ain gait, and get your een steekit and your nose smash'd, and see what ye'll mak o't — a pretty pirlit ye'll be, me leading you hame, blind and bleeding, wi' a napkin, or an auld stocking tied round yqur head. Eh ! what a skreighing at the sight o' you, Charlie, there will be ! —your mother running out and in, clapping her hands for her murder't bairn." " I dinna care though he were to kill me," exclaimed Charles, " if I had but my will o' him before hand." " Ay, that's sense," said Andrew, "gin ye could but get your will o' him first — But the fear is, that he may get the will o' us — and what's to be done then ?" Pierston was a little puzzled with this, and hesitating, said, after a moment's reflection, — " We might watch for him, and stane him frae behind the dike, when he's gaun hame, in the gloaming." " It's a cowardly thing to waylay a defenceless man—Od, Charlie, I thought ye had mair spunk," replied Andrew, in perfect sincerity, but still only anxious to pacify the resentment of his friend. Touch rny honour touch my life, was a sentiment that Pierston had learnt among the youths of his own kidney at the grammar-school of Glasgow; an...