ket-gardenin' line, he wudda grown his cabbage wi' the stocks
aneth the ground, juist to lat them get the fresh air aboot their
ruits. It's juist his wey, you see. I wudna winder to see him some
day wi' Donal' yokit i' the tattie-cairt wi' his heid ower the fore-end
o't, an' the hurdles o' him whaur his heid shud be. I've heard Sandy
say that he had an idea that a horse cud shuve far better than poo; an'
when Sandy ance gets an idea intil his heid, there's some beast or body
has to suffer for't afore he gets redd o't. If there's a crank wey o'
doin' onything Sandy will find it oot. For years he reg'larly flang
the stable key ower the gate efter he'd brocht oot Donal' an' the
cairt. When he landit hame again, he climbed the gate for the key, an'
syne climbed ower again an' opened it frae the ootside. He michta
carried the key in his pooch; but onybody cudda dune that! But, as I
was sayin', it's juist his wey.

"It's juist the shape original sin's ta'en in Sandy's case," the
Gairner said when the Smith an' him were discussin' the subject.

"I dinna ken aboot the sin; but it's original eneuch, there's nae doot
aboot that," said the Smith.

There's naebody kens that better than me, for I've haen the teuch end
o' forty year o't. But, still an' on, he's my ain man, the only ane
ever I had, an' I'll stick up for him, an' till him, while the lamp
holds on to burn, as the Psalmist says.

* * * * * *

"See if I can say my geog, Bawbie," said Nathan to me the ither
forenicht, as I was stanin' in the shop. He'd been sittin' ben the
hoose wi' his book croonin' awa' till himsel' aboot Rooshya bein'
boundit on the north by the White Sea, an' on the sooth by the Black
Sea, an' some ither wey by the Tooral-ooral mountains or something, an'
he cam' ben an' handed me his geog, as he ca'd it, to see if he had a'
this palaver on his tongue.

I've often windered what was the use o' Nathan wirryin' ower thae
oot-o'-the-wey places that he wud never be within a thoosand mile o'.
He kens a' the oots an' ins o' Valiparaiso, but michty little aboot
Bowriefauld. Hooever, I suppose the dominie kens best.

Nathan was juist busy pointin' oot the place to me in his book when
there was a terriple rattlin' oot on the street, an' aff he hookited to
see what was ado. He thocht it was a marriage, an' that there micht be
a chance o' some heys aboot the doors. What was my consternation when
the reeshlin' an'