CHAPTER XXII .-- THE JUNE JAUNT.
The lapwing lilteth o'er the lea, With nimble wing she sporteth; By vows she'll flee from tree to tree Where Philomel resorteth: By break of day, the lark can say, I'll bid you a good-morrow, I'll streik my wing, and mounting sing, O'er Leader hauchs and Yarrow.
NICOL BURN, _the Minstrel_.
After Tammie Bodkin had been working with me on the board for more than four years in the capacity of foresman, superintending the workshop department, together with the conduct and conversation of Joe Breeky, Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl, my three bounden apprentices, I thought I might lippen him awee to try his hand in the shaping line, especially with the clothes of such of our customers as I knew were not very nice, provided they got enough of cutting from the Manchester manufacture, and room to shake themselves in.

The upshot, however, proved to a moral certainty, that such a length of tether is not chancey for youth, and that a master cannot be too much on the head of his own business.
It was in the pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe six or eight days, after the birth-day of our good old King George the Third--for I recollect the withering branches of lily-oak and flowers still sticking up behind the signs, and over the lampposts,--that my respected acquaintance and customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes--which he preferred from their not dirtying so easily with the bakehouse--called in upon me, requesting me, in a very pressing manner, to take a pleasure ride up with him the length of Roslin, in his good-brother's bit phieton, to eat a wheen strawberries, and see how the forthcoming harvest was getting on.
That the offer was friendly admitted not of doubt, but I did not like to accept for two-three reasons; among which were, in the first place, my awareness of the danger of riding in such vehicles--having read sundry times in the newspapers of folk having been tumbled out of them, drunk or sober, head-foremost, and having got eyes knocked ben, skulls cloured, and collar-bones broken; and, in the second place, the expense of feeding the horse, together with our finding ourselves in meat and drink during the journey--let alone tolls, strawberries and cream, bawbees to the waiter, the hostler, and what not.

But let me speak the knock-him-down truth, and shame the de'il,--above all, I was afraid of being seen by my employers wheeling about, on a work-day, like a gentleman, dressed out in my best, and leaving my business to mind itself as it best could.
Peter Farrel, however, being a man of determination, stuck to his text like a horse-leech; so, after a great to-do, and considerable argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of powerful persuasion, to give him my hand on the subject.

Accordingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the back-loan with my stick in my hand--Peter having agreed to be waiting for me on the roadside, a bit beyond the head of the town, near Gallows-hall toll.

The cat should be let out of the pock by my declaring, that Nanse, the goodwife, had also a finger in the pie--as, do what ye like, women will make their points good--she having overcome me in her wheedling way, by telling me, that it was curious I had no ambition to speel the ladder of gentility, and hold up my chin in imitation of my betters.
That we had a most beautiful drive I cannot deny; for though I would not allow Peter to touch the horse with the whip, in case it might run away, fling, or trot ower fast--and so we made but slow progress--little more even than walking; yet, as I told him, it gave a man leisure to use his eyes, and make observation to the right and the left; and so we had a prime look of Eskbank, and Newbottle Abbey, and Melville Castle, and Dalhousie, and Polton, and Hawthornden, and Dryden woods--and the powder mills, the paper mills, the bleachfield--and so on.