rnune, an' awa' he
gaed aboot five o'clock, an' I saw nae mair o' him till the lang legs
o' him---- But you'll learn aboot that sune eneuch. It was a sicht,
the first sicht I got o' him, I can tell you.

I was takin' a bit cuppie o' tea to mysel' aboot seven o'clock, for I
had been terriple busy a' forenicht. Nathan was stanin' at the table
as uswal, growk-growkin' awa' for a bit o' my tea biskit. "I dinna
like growkin' bairns," I says to Nathan, juist as I was genna gie him a
bit piece an' some noo grozer jeel on't.

"I'm no' carin'," he says, blawin' his nose atween his finger an' his
thoom, an' syne dichtin't wi' his bonnet. "I wasna growkin'; but at
ony rate I'll no tell ye aboot Sandy. He said he wud gie me a
letherin' if I was a clash-pie; but I was juist genna tell you, but
I'll no' do't noo," an' oot at the door he gaed. I cried on him to
come back, but, yea wud!

I saw nae mair o' him for half an 'oor, when in he comes to the back
shop wi' a bundle o' claes an' flang them i' the flure. "There's
Sandy's claes," says he. "I got them frae Bandy Wobster at the tap o'
the street. He got them lyin' oot the Sands, an' he disna ken naething
aboot Sandy."

"O, Alick Bowden," I says to mysel', says I; "I kent this would be the
end o't some day! He's gane awa' dookin' an' gotten himsel' drooned.
O, my puir man! I howp they'll get his body, or never anither bit o'
fish will I eat! There's Mistress Mertin fand a galace button in a
red-waur codlin's guts lest week; an' it's no' so very lang syne sin'
Mistress Kenawee got fower bits o' skellie i' the crap o' a colomy.
Puir Sandy! I winder hoo they'll do wi' the bural society bawbees?"

"Is Sandy deid, Bawbie?" says Nathan.

"Ay; I doot he's deid, Nathan, laddie," says I.

"An' will you lat me get a ride on the dickie at the bural, Bawbie?"
says Nathan, clawin' his heid throo a hole in his glengairy.

"Haud your tongue, laddie," says I; "ye dinna ken what you're speakin'
aboot."

I gaithered up the claes. There was nae mistakin' them. They were
Sandy's! The breeks pooches were foo o' nails an' strings, an' as
muckle ither rubbish as you wudda gotten in Peattie Broon's, the
pigman's, back shop. There was a lot o' fiddle rozit i' the weyscot,
an' a box o' queer-lookin' ointment ca'd auntie stuff. But what strack
me first was that his seamit an' his drawers werena there. "Cud he
gane in dookin' wi' them on?" thocht I to mysel'. I cudna see throo't