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"I dinna ken," said Steenie; "the book had fa'en out o' his pocket, I fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him on his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and then came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin, and I had nae mair thought o' the book."
"I wonder ye dinna claim half o' the jewels and things as weel," retorted Swankie; "ye hae mair right to them, seein' ye had a hand in findin' them." "Me a hand in findin' them," exclaimed Spink, with sudden indignation. "Was it me that fand the deed body o' the auld man on the Bell Rock? Na, na, freend. I hae naething to do wi' deed men's jewels." "Have ye no?" retorted the other.
On enterin the countin-hoose, I fand the principal there alane, seated at a desk. This gentleman I knew personally, and he kent me too; for I had frequently ca'ed at his office in the way o' business, and on these occasions he had aye come forrit to me wi' extended hand and a smilin countenance. On the present, however, he did naething o' the kind.
"There was little clash about it, man," replied Macraw; "he liked this young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and then the deil gaed o'er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded hersell o'er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was an end o't." "An end ot wi' the puir leddy," said the mendicant, "but, as I reckon, nae end o't wi' the yerl."
It wadna wonder me vera muckle an ye had entertained your friend the Deil the night, for aw thought aw fand a saur o' reek an' brimstane about him. He's nane o' the best o' angels, an focks winna hae muckle credit by entertaining him."
What was my surprise and mortification, then, whan I fand it quite the reverse most markedly sae! "Oh, William, is that you!" said Mrs. Robertson, drily, and wi' a degree o' stiffness and cauldness in her manner which I couldna understan'. "Will ye stap in a bit?" she added, hesitatingly and evidently wi' reluctance. Weel, she used to fling her arms aboot me, and pu' me in.
My legs were like to double up aneth me, an' my knees knokit up acrain' ane anither like's they'd haen a pley aboot something. I fand a sweit brakin' oot a' ower me, an' I had to stop on the brae an' grip the railin's, or, it's juist as fac's ocht, I wudda been doon i' the road on the braid o' my back. I thocht I was in for a roraborialis, or some o' thae terriple diseases.
This resolution, however, I fand it much easier to adopt than to execute. There was a faint-heartedness aboot me that I couldna get the better o'; and a score o' sheets o' paper perished in the attempts I made to concoct something suitable to the occasion.
He wasna fower meenits awa' when the lot o' the dirty deevils that I shud ca' them sic a name gaithered up Sandy's claes an' cam' their wa's in the road, leavin' Sandy to get hame the best wey he cud. Bandy Wobster gae the claes to Nathan at the tap o' the street, an' tell'd him he fand them on the Sands." "But whaur'll Sandy be?" says I.
It was with this weapon, as one may read in Scrope's Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing, that Tam Purdie Sir Walter's Purdie when a young man captured that "muckle kipper" that seemed to him to be the "verra de'il himsel'," so big was he. "Odd! my verra heart lap to my mouth whan I gat the glisk o' something mair like a red stirk than ought else muve off the redd. I fand my hair creep on my heid.
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