On the whole, she was rather, I must confess, an out-of-the-way creature; and though I had not muckle faith in these bodies that pretend to see further through a millstone than their neighbours, I somehow or other, taking pity on her miserable condition, being still a fellow-creature, though plain in the lugs, had not the heart to huff her out; more by token, as Nanse, Benjie, and the new prentice Mungo, had by this time got round me, all dying to know what grand fortunes waited them in the years of their after pilgrimage.

Sinful creatures that we are! not content with the insight into its ways that Providence affords us, but diving beyond our deeps, only to flounder into the whirlpools of error.

Is it not clear, that had it been for our good, all things would have been revealed to us; and is it not as clear, that not a wink of sound sleep would we ever have got, had all the ills that have crossed our paths been ranged up before our een, like great black towering mountains of darkness?
How could we have found contentment in our goods and gear, if we saw them melting from us next year like snow from a dyke; how could we sit down on the elbow-chair of ease, could we see the misfortunes that may make next week a black one; or how could we look a kind friend in the face without tears, could we see him, ere a month maybe was gone, lying streiked beneath his winding-sheet, his eyes closed for evermore, and his mirth hushed to an awful silence! No, no, let us rest content that Heaven decrees what is best for us: let us do our duty as men and Christians, and every thing, both here and hereafter, will work together for our good.
Having taken a piece of chalk out of her big, greasy, leather pouch, she wrote down on the table, "Your wife, your son, and your prentice." This was rather curious, and every one of them, a wee thunderstruck like, cried out as they held up their hands, "Losh me! did onybody ever see or hear tell of the like o' that?
She's no canny!"-- It was gey droll, I thought; and I was aware from the Witch of Endor, and sundry mentions in the Old Testament, that things out of the course of nature have more than once been permitted to happen; so I reckoned it but right to give the poor woman a fair hearing, as she deserved.
"Oh!" said Nanse to me, "ye ken our Benjie's eight year auld; see if she kens; ask her how old he is." I had scarcely written down the question, when she wrote beneath it, "The bonny laddie, your only son, is eight year old: He'll be an admiral yet." "An admiral!" said his mother; "that's gey and extraordinar.

I never kenned he had ony inkling for the seafaring line; and I thought, Mansie, you intended bringing him up to your ain trade.

But, howsoever, ye're wrong ye see.