But if Lapraik's at hame, I'll rin up
the flag at the harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi' the gun."
Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa. I was just a bairn, an'
clum in Sandie's boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the
employ. My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun
wi' the leid draps, bein mair deidly again bogles. And then the as
boat set aff for North Berwick, an' the tither lay whaur it was and
watched the wanchancy thing on the brae-side.
A' the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span
like a teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span.
I hae seen lassies, the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a
winter's nicht, and still be lowping and dancing when the winter's
day cam in. But there would be fowk there to hauld them company,
and the lads to egg them on; and this thing was its lee-lane. And
there would be a fiddler diddling his elbock in the chimney-side;
and this thing had nae music but the skirling of the solans. And
the lassies were bits o' young things wi' the reid life dinnling
and stending in their members; and this was a muckle, fat, creishy
man, and him fa'n in the vale o' years.
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