ath his
waistcoat. If he was too old to carry his load on his back, he wheeled
it on a creaking barrow, and when he met a friend they said, "Ay,
Jeames," and "Ay, Davit," and then could think of nothing else. At
long intervals they passed through the square, disappearing or coming
into sight round the town-house which stands on the south side of it,
and guards the entrance to a steep brae that leads down and then twists
up on its lonely way to the county town. I like to linger over the
square, for it was from an upper window in it that I got to know
Thrums. On Saturday nights, when the Auld Licht young men came into
the square dressed and washed to look at the young women errand-going,
and to laugh sometime afterwards to each other, it presented a glare of
light; and here even came the cheap jacks and the Fair Circassian, and
the showman, who, besides playing "The Mountain Maid and the Shepherd's
Bride," exhibited part of the tail of Balaam's ass, the helm of Noah's
ark, and the tartan plaid in which Flora McDonald wrapped Prince
Charlie. More select entertainment, such as Shuffle Kitty's waxwork,
whose motto was, "A rag to pay, and in you go," were given in a hall
whose approach was by an outside stair. On the Muckle Friday, the fair
for which children storing their pocket money would accumulate
sevenpence-half-penny in less than six months, the square was crammed
with gingerbread stalls, bag-pipers, fiddlers, and monstrosities who
were gifted with second sight. There was a bearded man, who had
neither legs nor arms, and was drawn through the streets in a small
cart by four dogs. By looking at you he could see all the clockwork
inside, as could a boy who was led about by his mother at the end of a
string. Every Friday there was the market, when a dozen ramshackle
carts containing vegetables and cheap crockery filled the centre of the
square, resting in line on their shafts. A score of farmers' wives or
daughters in old-world garments squatted against the town-house within
walls of butter on cabbage-leaves, eggs and chickens. Towards evening
the voice of the buckie-man shook the square, and rival fish-cadgers,
terrible characters who ran races on horseback, screamed libels at each
other over a fruiterer's barrow. Then it was time for douce Auld
Lichts to go home, draw their stools near the fire, spread their red
handkerchiefs over their legs to prevent their trousers getting singed,
and read their "Pilgrim's