Na, you canna see in the dark, but haud my hand, haud it tight, so that, when you tell Elspeth, you'll mind how hot it was, and the skin loose on it; and put your hand on my cheeks, man, and feel how wet they are wi' sorrowful tears, and lay it on my breast, so that you can tell her how I was shrunk awa'.

And if she greets for her mother a whiley, let her greet." The sobbing boy hugged his mother.

"Do you think I'm an auld woman ?" she said to him.
"You're gey auld, are you no' ?" he answered.
"Ay," she said, "I'm gey auld; I'm nine and twenty.

I was seventeen on the day when Aaron Latta went half-road in the cart wi' me to Cullew, hauding my hand aneath my shawl.

He hadna spiered me, but I just kent." Tommy remained in his mother's bed for the rest of the night, and so many things were buzzing in his brain that not for an hour did he think it time to repeat his new prayer.