e wonderful
building, steeple and aisle; and as for mason-work, far before anything
to be seen or heard tell of in our day; syne to Lugton brig, which is one
grand affair, hanging over the river Esk and the flour-mills like a
rainbow--syne to the Tolbooth, which is a terror to evil-doers, and from
which the Lord preserve us all!--syne to the Market, where ye'll see
lamb, beef, mutton, and veal, hanging up on cleeks, in roasting and
boiling pieces--spar-rib, jigget, shoulder, and heuk-bane, in the
greatest prodigality of abundance;--and syne down to the Duke's gate, by
looking through the bonny white-painted iron-stanchels of which, ye'll
see the deer running beneath the green trees; and the palace itself, in
the inside of which dwells one that needs not be proud to call the king
his cousin.

Brawly did I know, that it is a little after a laddie's being loosed from
his mother's apron-string, and hurried from home, till the mind can make
itself up to stay among fremit folk; or that the attention can be roused
to anything said or done, however simple in the uptake. So, after Benjie
brought Mungo home again, gey forfaughten and wearied-out like, I bade
the wife give him his four-hours, and told him he might go to his bed as
soon as he liked. Jealousing also, at the same time, that creatures
brought up in the country have strange notions about them with respect to
supernaturals--such as ghosts, brownies, fairies, and bogles--to say
nothing of witches, warlocks, and evil-spirits, I made Benjie take off
his clothes and lie down beside him, as I said, to keep him warm; but, in
plain matter of fact (between friends), that the callant might sleep
sounder, finding himself in a strange bed, and not very sure as to how
the house stood as to the matter of a good name.

Knowing by my own common sense, and from long experience of the ways of a
wicked world, that there is nothing like industry, I went to Mungo's
bedside in the morning, and wakened him betimes. Indeed, I'm leeing
there--I need not call it wakening him--for Benjie told me, when he was
supping his parritch out of his luggie at breakfast-time, that he never
winked an eye all night, and that sometimes he heard him greeting to
himself in the dark--such and so powerful is our love of home and the
force of natural affection. Howsoever, as I was saying, I took him ben
the house with me down to the workshop, where I had begun to cut out a
pair of nankeen trowsers for a young