uther; and when a doctor frae Alnwick saw the body
next day, he said he must have died instantly--and, as I have told ye,
he never spoke, but just cried, 'O Davy!'

"My feelings were in such a state that I couldna write mysel', and I got
a minister to send a letter to my mother, puir woman, stating what had
happened. An acquaintance o' my faither's looked after the cattle, and
disposed o' them at Morpeth; and I, having hired a hearse at Alnwick,
got the body o' my faither taen hame. A sorrowfu' hame-gaun it was, ye
may weel think. Before ever we reached the house, I heard the shrieks o'
my puir mither. 'O my faitherless bairn!' she cried, as I entered the
door; but before she could rise to meet me, she got a glent o' the
coffin which they were takin' out o' the hearse, and utterin' a sudden
scream, her head fell back, and she gaed clean awa.

"After my faither's funeral, we found that he had died worth only about
four hundred pounds when his debts were paid; and as I had been bred in
the droving line, though I was rather young, I just continued it, and my
mother and me kept house thegither.

"This was the only thing particular that happened to me for the next
thirteen years, or till I was thirty. My mother still kept the house,
and I had nae thoughts o' marrying: no but that I had gallanted a wee
bit wi' the lasses now and then, but it was naething serious, and was
only to be neighbour-like. I had ne'er seen ane that I could think o'
takin' for better for warse; and, anither thing, if I had seen ane to
please me, I didna think my mother would be comfortable wi' a young wife
in the house. Weel, ye see, as I was telling ye, things passed on in
this way till I was thirty, when a respectable flesher in Edinburgh that
I did a good deal o' business wi', and that had just got married, says
to me in the Grassmarket ae day: 'Davy,' says he, 'ye're no gaun out o'
the toun the night--will ye come and tak' tea and supper wi' the wife
and me, and a freend or twa?'

"'I dinna care though I do,' says I; 'but I'm no just in a tea-drinkin'
dress.'

"'Ne'er mind the dress,' says he. So, at the hour appointed, I stepped
awa ower to Hanover Street, in the New Town, where he lived, and was
shown into a fine carpeted room, wi' a great looking-glass, in a gilt
frame, ower the chimley-piece--ye could see yoursel' at full length in't
the moment you entered the door. I was confounded at the carpets and the
glass, and a sofa, nae less; and,