When he came (as he would have said) "ebbn fornenst" Robbie lying at the roadside, he jumped down from his seat.

"What poor lad's this?
Why, what! What say! What!" holding himself back to grasp the situation, "Robbie Anderson!" Then a knowing smile overspread Reuben's wrinkled features as he stooped to pat and push the prostrate man, in an effort to arouse him to consciousness.
"Tut, Robbie, lad; Robbie, ma lad! This wark will nivver do, Robbie! Brocken loose agen, aye! Come, Robbie, up, lad!" Robbie lay insensible to all Reuben's appeals, whether of the nature of banter or half-serious menace.
"Weel, weel, the lad _has_ had a fair cargo intil him this voyage, anyway." There was obviously no likelihood of awakening Robbie, so with a world of difficulty, with infinite puffing and fuming and perspiring, and the help of a passing laborer, Reuben contrived to get the young fellow lifted bodily into his cart.

Lying there at full length, a number of the empty thread sacks were thrown over the insensible man, and then Reuben mounted to his seat and drove off.
"Poor old Martha Anderson!" muttered Reuben to himself.

"It's weel she's gone, poor body! It wad nigh have brocken her heart--and it's my belief 'at it did." They had not gone far before Reuben himself, with the inconsistency of more pretentious moralists, felt an impulse to indulge in that benign beverage of which he had just deplored the effects.

Drawing up with this object at a public house that stood on the road, he called for a glass of hot spirits.