leaping in a cask).'

Then he stood silent once more, with a look as if anything would be
welcome to break the monotony.

While he stood a gentle timorous tap came to the door, so gentle indeed
that Betty in the kitchen did not hear it, or she, tall and Roman-nosed
as she was, would have answered it before the long-legged dreamer could
have reached the door, though he was not above three yards from it.
In lack of anything better to do, Robert stalked to the summons. As he
opened the door, these words greeted him:

'Is Robert at--eh! it's Bob himsel'! Bob, I'm byous (exceedingly)
cauld.'

'What for dinna ye gang hame, than?'

'What for wasna ye at the schuil the day?'

'I spier ae queston at you, and ye answer me wi' anither.'

'Weel, I hae nae hame to gang till.'

'Weel, and I had a sair heid (a headache). But whaur's yer hame gane
till than?'

'The hoose is there a' richt, but whaur my mither is I dinna ken. The
door's lockit, an' Jeames Jaup, they tell me 's tane awa' the key. I
doobt my mither's awa' upo' the tramp again, and what's to come o' me,
the Lord kens.'

'What's this o' 't?' interposed a severe but not unmelodious voice,
breaking into the conversation between the two boys; for the parlour
door had opened without Robert's hearing it, and Mrs. Falconer, his
grandmother, had drawn near to the speakers.

'What's this o' 't?' she asked again. 'Wha's that ye're conversin' wi'
at the door, Robert? Gin it be ony decent laddie, tell him to come in,
and no stan' at the door in sic a day 's this.'

As Robert hesitated with his reply, she looked round the open half
of the door, but no sooner saw with whom he was talking than her
tone changed. By this time Betty, wiping her hands in her apron, had
completed the group by taking her stand in the kitchen door.

'Na, na,' said Mrs. Falconer. 'We want nane sic-like here. What does
he want wi' you, Robert? Gie him a piece, Betty, and lat him gang.--Eh,
sirs! the callant hasna a stockin'-fit upo' 'im--and in sic weather!'

For, before she had finished her speech, the visitor, as if in terror of
her nearer approach, had turned his back, and literally showed her, if
not a clean pair of heels, yet a pair of naked heels from between the
soles and uppers of his shoes: if he had any stockings at all, they
ceased before they reached his ankles.

'What ails him at me?' continued Mrs. Falconer, 'that he rins as gin I
war a boodie? But it's nae wonner he canna bide th