I was very sorry for the poor man ...

he had only one thought--to go back to Priorsford, his boyhood's home." "And I didn't know," said Jean, "or we would all have turned out there and then and sat on our boxes in the middle of the road, or roosted in the trees like crows, rather than keep him for an hour out of his own house.

He came and asked to see The Rigs and I was afraid he meant to buy it: it was always our nightmare that the landlord in London would turn us out....

He looked frail and shabby, and I jumped to the conclusion that he was poor.

Oh, I do wish I had known...." "He told me," Mr.Dickson went on, "when he came to see me on his return, that he had come with the intention of asking the tenants to leave The Rigs, but that he hadn't the heart to do it when he saw how attached you were to the place.