But a hard life.
A laddie like the one I ha' in mind would be seein' the auld folk countin' every bawbee because they must.

He'd see, when he was big enow, hoo the gude wife wad be shakin' her head when his faither wanted, maybe, an extra ounce or twa o' thick black.
"We maun think o' the bairn, Jock," she'd be saying.

"Put the price of it in the kist, Jock--ye'll no be really needin' that." He'd see the auld folk makin' auld clothes do; his mither patching and mending; his faither getting up when there was just licht to see by in the morn and working aboot the place to mak' it fit to stand the storms and snows and winds o' winter, before he went off to his long day's work.

And he'd see all aboot him a hard working folk, winning from a barren soil that they loved because they had been born upon it.
Maybe it's meanness for folk like that to be canny, to be saving, to be putting the bawbees they micht be spending on pleasure in the kist on the mantel where the pennies drop in one by one, sae slow but sure.
But your Scot's seen sickness come in the glen.

He kens fine that sometimes there'll be those who couldna save, no matter how they tried.