But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first
came out by the minister's wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman were
baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs,
but not in his judgment or memory,--at least nothing to speak of,--was
obliged to tell the real narrative to his freends, for the credit of his
good name. He might else have been charged for a warlock.
The shades of evening were growing thicker around us as my conductor
finished his long narrative with this moral: "You see, birkie, it is nae
chancy thing to tak' a stranger traveller for a guide when you are in an
uncouth land."
"I should not have made that inference," said I. "Your grandfather's
adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saves from ruin and
distress; and fortunate for his landlord."
"Ay, but they had baith to sup the sauce o' 't sooner or later," said
Wandering Willie; "what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died before
he was much over threescore; and it was just like a moment's illness.
And for my gudesire, though he departed in fulness of life, yet there
was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt the stilts
of his plough, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but me, a puir,
sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither work nor want.
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