Scene at the Spittal O77

never been in’t afore. I canna look at it now
without thinking o’ that day when me and my
father gaed up the stair the gither. Mr. Duthie
was presiding at the time, and he wasna muckle
older than Mr. Dishart is now. I mind he
speired for proof that we was needing, and my
father couldna speak. He just pointed at me.
‘But you have a good coat on your back your-
sel’, Mr. Duthie said, for there were mony
waiting, sair needing. ‘It was lended him to
come here,’ I cried, and without a word my father
opened the coat, and they saw he had nothing on
aneath, and his skin blue wi’ cauld. Dominie,
Mr. Duthie handed him one shilling and sax-
pence, and my father’s fingers closed greedily on’t
for a minute, and syne it fell to the ground.
They put it back in his hand, and it slipped out
again, and Mr. Duthie gave it back to him,
saying, ‘Are you so cauld as that?’ But, oh,
man, it wasna cauld that did it, but shame o’
being on the rates. The blood a’ ran to my
father’s head, and syne left it as quick, and he
flung down the siller and walked out o’ the
Town House wi me running after him. We
warstled through that winter, God kens how, and
it’s near a pleasure to me to think o’t now, for,
rain or no rain, I can never be reduced to sic
straits again.”

The farmer crossed the water without using
the stilts which were no longer necessary, and I
little thought, as I returned to the schoolhouse,
what terrible things were to happen before he
could offer me his snuff-mull again. Serious as
his talk had been, it was neither of drought nor