that had happened between them, before she would allow
my father to lift the sneck, or draw the bar. Many and many a year, for
gude kens how long after, I have heard tell, that his speech was so
Dutchified as to be scarcely kenspeckle to a Scotch European; but Nature
is powerful, and, in the course of time, he came in the upshot to gather
his words together like a Christian.

Of my auntie Bell, that, as I have just said, died of the measles in the
dear year, at the age of fourteen, I have no story to tell but one, and
that a short one, though not without a sprinkling of interest.

Among her other ways of doing, grannie kept a cow, and sold the milk
round about to the neighbours in a pitcher, whiles carried by my father,
and whiles by my aunties, at the ransom of a halfpenny the mutchkin.
Well, ye observe, that the cow ran yeild, and it was as plain as pease
that she was with calf:--Geordie Drouth, the horse-doctor, could have
made solemn affidavy on that head. So they waited on, and better waited
on for the prowie's calfing, keeping it upon draff and oat-strae in the
byre; till one morning every thing seemed in a fair way, and my auntie
Bell was set out to keep watch and ward.

Some of her companions, howsoever, chancing to come by, took her out to
the back of the house to have a game at the pallall; and, in the interim,
Donald Bogie, the tinkler from Yetholm, came and left his little jackass
in the byre, while he was selling about his crockery of cups and saucers,
and brown plates, on the old one, through the town, in two creels.

In the middle of auntie Bell's game, she heard an unco noise in the byre;
and, knowing that she had neglected her charge, she ran round the gable,
and opened the door in a great hurry; when, seeing the beastie, she
pulled it to again, and fleeing, half out of breath, into the kitchen,
cried--"Come away, come away, mother, as fast as ye can. Eh, lyst, the
cow's cauffed,--and it's a cuddie!"

CHAPTER II.--MY OWN FATHER.

The weaver he gied up the stair,
Dancing and singing;
A bunch o' bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.

_Old Song_.

My own father, that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch with regard to myself,
but young Mansie with reference to my granfather, after having run the
errands, and done his best to grannie during his early years, was, at the
age of thirteen, as I have heard him tell, bound a prentice to the weaver
trade, which from that day