So it behoved each one to open his purse as he could afford it; and, though I say not what I put into the hat, proud am I to tell that he collected two or three shillings to help him home.
This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the money safely stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket--would ye believe it?
ere yet the beast was scarcely cold, just as we were decamping from the place, and buttoning up our breeches-pockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had the curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was after, in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent on some act of desperation; when, lo and behold! he out with a gully knife, and began skinning his old servant, as if he had been only peeling the bark off a fallen tree! One cannot sit at their ingle-cheek and expect, without casting their eyes about them, to grow experienced in the ways of men, or the on-goings of the world.

This spectacle gave me, I can assure you, much and no little insight; and so dowie was I with the thoughts of what I had witnessed of the selfishness, the sinfulness, and perversity of man, that I grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in my life before of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle; and though Thomas Clod insisted greatly on my staying to their head-meeting dinner, and taking a reel with the lassies in the barn; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had got so much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion would have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing--yet I was determined to make the best of my way home; more-be-token, as Benjie might take skaith from the night air, and our jaunt therefrom might, instead of contributing to his welfare, do him more harm than good.

So, after getting some cheese and bread, to say nothing of a glass or two of strong beer and a dram at Luckie Barm's, we waited in her parlour, which was hung round with most beautiful pictures of Joseph and his Brethren, besides two stucco parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with looking at them, as a pastime like, till Benjie wakened; on the which I made Tammie yoke his beast, and rowing the bit callant in his mother's shawl, took him into my arms in the cart, and, after shaking hands with all and sundry twice or thrice over, we bade them a "good-night," and drove away..