the
roadman.

He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He
looked at me with a fishy eye and yawned.

'Confoond the day I ever left the herdin'!' he said, as if to the world
at large. 'There I was my ain maister. Now I'm a slave to the
Goavernment, tethered to the roadside, wi' sair een, and a back like a
suckle.'

He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an
oath, and put both hands to his ears. 'Mercy on me! My heid's
burstin'!' he cried.

He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a week's
beard on his chin, and a pair of big horn spectacles.

'I canna dae't,' he cried again. 'The Surveyor maun just report me.
I'm for my bed.'

I asked him what was the trouble, though indeed that was clear enough.

'The trouble is that I'm no sober. Last nicht my dochter Merran was
waddit, and they danced till fower in the byre. Me and some ither
chiels sat down to the drinkin', and here I am. Peety that I ever
lookit on the wine when it was red!'

I agreed with him about bed. 'It's easy speakin',' he moaned. 'But I
got a postcard yestreen sayin' that the new Road Surveyor would be
round the day. He'll come and he'll no find me, or else he'll find me
fou, and either way I'm a done man. I'll awa' back to my bed and say
I'm no weel, but I doot that'll no help me, for they ken my kind o'
no-weel-ness.'

Then I had an inspiration. 'Does the new Surveyor know you?' I asked.

'No him. He's just been a week at the job. He rins about in a wee
motor-cawr, and wad speir the inside oot o' a whelk.'

'Where's your house?' I asked, and was directed by a wavering finger to
the cottage by the stream.

'Well, back to your bed,' I said, 'and sleep in peace. I'll take on
your job for a bit and see the Surveyor.'

He stared at me blankly; then, as the notion dawned on his fuddled
brain, his face broke into the vacant drunkard's smile.

'You're the billy,' he cried. 'It'll be easy eneuch managed. I've
finished that bing o' stanes, so you needna chap ony mair this
forenoon. Just take the barry, and wheel eneuch metal frae yon quarry
doon the road to mak anither bing the morn. My name's Alexander
Turnbull, and I've been seeven year at the trade, and twenty afore that
herdin' on Leithen Water. My freens ca' me Ecky, and whiles Specky,
for I wear glesses, being waik i' the sicht. Just you speak the
Surveyor fair, and ca' him Sir, and he'll be fell pleased