ign that told me he was not to be
long for this world. Howsoever, I hope I had more sense than to let this
be seen, so I said to him, "Ou, if that be a', Mungo, ye'll soon come to
like us a' well enough. Ye should take a stout heart, man; and when your
prenticeship's done, ye'll gang hame and set up for a great man, making
coats for all the lords and lairds in broad Lammermoor."

"Na, na," answered the callant with a trembling voice, which mostly made
my heart swell to my mouth, and brought the tear to my eye, "I'll never
see the end of my prenticeship, nor Lammermoor again."

"Hout touts, man," quo' I, "never speak in that sort o' way; it's
distrustfu' and hurtful. Live in hope, though we should die in despair.
When ye go home again, ye'll be as happy as ever."

"Eh, na--never, never, even though I was to gang hame the morn. I'll
never be as I was before. I lived and lived on, never thinking that such
days were to come to an end--but now I find it can, and must be
otherwise. The thoughts of my heart have been broken in upon, and
nothing can make whole what has been shivered to pieces."

This was to the point, as Dannie Thummel said to his needle; so just for
speaking's sake, and to rouse him up a bit, I said, "Keh, man, what need
ye care sae muckle about the country?--It'll never be like our bonny
streets, with all the braw shop windows, and the auld kirk; and the
stands with the horn spoons and luggies; and all the carts on the market-
days; and the Duke's gate, and so on."

"Ay, but, maister," answered Mungo, "ye was never brought up in the
country--ye never kent what it was to wander about in the simmer glens,
wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters
streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow
sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and
wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness--Ye
never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when,
looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the
hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot
of man never coming during the storm to your door, nor the voice of a
stranger heard from ae month's end till the ither. See, it is coming on
o' hail the now, and my mother with my sister--I have but ane--and my
four brithers, will be looking out into the drift, and missing me away
for the first time frae their fireside.