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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Well, we gie laddies one an' a penny," replied Walker, still smiling amusedly at the boy's eagerness, "an' lasses are aye paid less than callants. But it's all big lasses we hae, an' they get one an' tippence. I'll gie Mysie a shillin' to begin wi'," and he turned away as if that settled the matter, and was about to close the door.
There was not, indeed, in the whole burgh at the time, a person of such a flexible easy nature as Mr Hodden; and his neighbour, Mr Fegs, was even better, for he was so good-tempered, and kindly, and complying, that the very callants at the grammar school had nicknamed him Barley-sugar Pate.
Did the latter draw nigh in any considerable force, messengers were forthwith despatched to the ‘Auld Toon,’ especially to the filthy alleys and closes of the High Street, which forthwith would disgorge swarms of bare-headed and bare-footed ‘callants,’ who, with gestures wild and ‘eldrich screech and hollo,’ might frequently be seen pouring down the sides of the hill.
There's a sair spang o' the auld sin o' the world in yon sea; it's an unchristian business at the best o't; an' whiles when it gets up, an' the wind skreighs the wind an' her are a kind of sib, I'm thinkin' an' thae Merry Men, the daft callants, blawin' and lauchin', and puir souls in the deid-thraws warstlin' the leelang nicht wi' their bit ships weel, it comes ower me like a glamour.
"Let us follow him then, and raise the country, and mak mair help as we ride, and then have at the Cumberland reivers! Take, burn, and slay they that lie nearest us shall smart first." "Whisht! haud your tongues, daft callants," said an old man, "ye dinna ken what ye speak about. What! wad ye raise war atween two pacificated countries?"
Did the latter draw nigh in any considerable force, messengers were forthwith despatched to the "auld toon," especially to the filthy alleys and closes of the High Street, which forthwith would disgorge swarms of bare-headed and bare-footed "callants," who, with gestures wild and "eldrich screech and hollo," might frequently be seen pouring down the sides of the hill.
"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the stones; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be put with advantage on the front of the new council-house that is, the twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robin and Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie, abune the door.
"Aye take the counsel of those who are aulder and wiser than yourself, and binna like the godless Rehoboam, who took the advice o' a wheen beardless callants, neglecting the auld counsellors who had sate at the feet o' his father Solomon, and, as it was weel put by Mr. Meiklejohn, in his lecture on the chapter, were doubtless partakers of his sapience.
I have seen upwards of a thousand engaged on either side in these frays, which I have no doubt were full as desperate as the fights described in the Iliad, and which were certainly much more bloody than the combats of modern Greece in the war of independence: the callants not only employed their hands in hurling stones, but not unfrequently slings; at the use of which they were very expert, and which occasionally dislodged teeth, shattered jaws, or knocked out an eye.
Eh ye ill laddie! What are ye slinkin' roond here for, when I tell't ye this mornin' that I wad sell ye nae mair scones till ye paid for the last lot? Ye're a wheen thievin' hungry callants, and if there were a polisman in the place I'd gie ye in chairge.... What's that ye say? Ye're no' wantin' meat? Ye want to speak to the gentlemen that's bidin' here? Ye ken the auld ane, says you?
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