He looked neither to right nor left, but walked on with moveless dull gaze, noting nothing.
"Yon's his ain warst enemy," said the kindly grocer-wife, as he passed her door.
"Ay," responded her customer, who kept a shop near by for old furniture, or anything that had been already once possessed--"ay, I daursay.

But eh! to see that puir negleckit bairn o' his rin scoorin' aboot the toon yon gait--wi' little o' a jacket but the collar, an' naething o' the breeks but the doup--eh, wuman! it maks a mither's hert sair to luik upo' 't.

It's a providence 'at his mither's weel awa' an' canna see't; it wad gar her turn in her grave." George was the first arrival at Mistress Croale's that night.

He opened the door of the shop like a thief, and glided softly into the dim parlour, where the candles were not yet lit.

There was light enough, however, from the busy little fire in the grate to show the clean sanded floor which it crossed with flickering shadows, the coloured prints and cases of stuffed birds on the walls, the full-rigged barque suspended from the centre of the ceiling, and, chief of all shows of heaven or earth, the black bottle on the table, with the tumblers, each holding its ladle, and its wine glass turned bottom upwards.