[The Life of Mansie Wauch by David Macbeth Moir]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of Mansie Wauch CHAPTER XI 16/16
It would not do unless some of us were timber-tuned; men not being meant for blackbirds. Home went the man, and home went the son, and home went my grand coat and waistcoat over his arm; and putting my hands into my breeches pockets, as if I had satisfactorily concluded a great transaction, I marched ben to the back shop, and took my needle into play, as if nothing in the world had happened; but where their home lay, or whether the raiment fitted or not, goodness knows, having never to this blessed hour heard word or wittens of either of them.
Such a pair of blacks! It just shows us how simple we Scotch folk are.
The London man swindled me out of my lawful room-rent and my Sunday velveteens; the Eirishers, as will be but too soon seen, made free with my hen-house, committing felonious robbery at the dead hour of night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and waistcoat upon me, that were made away with by a man and his son, a devilish deal too long out of Botany Bay. Benjie, poor doggie, was vastly proud of the flute, which he fifed away on morning, noon, and night; and, for more than a fortnight, would not go to his bed unless it was laid under his pillow.
But for me I could not bide the sight of it, knowing whose hands it had been in, and reminding me as it did of the depravity of human nature. Verily, verily, this is a wonderfully wicked world.
To find out the two vagabonds would have been hopeless; unless I could have followed them to the Back of Beyond, where the mare foaled the fiddler..
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