"Faith," said he, "the best I could! Whiles I played at the
knucklebones. I'm an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones,
but it's a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire
ye. And whiles I would make songs."
"What were they about?" says I.
"O, about the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the
ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just
about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would
make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some
grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow
whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair
is that it's done with."
With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all
over again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval,
swearing at intervals that I was "a queer character of a callant."
"So ye were frich'ened of Sim Fraser?" he asked once.
"In troth was I!" cried I.
"So would I have been, Davie," said he. "And that is indeed a
driedful man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due: and
I can tell you he is a most respectable person on the field of
war.
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