“Weel, I was up, as ye ken, at Barnet Fair wi’ some winter beasts, so I bade a day or twa in London, doin’ what sma’ business I had, an’ seein’ the sichts as weel, for it’s no’ ilka day that a Deeside body finds themsel’s i’ London.

“Ae nicht wha should come in but a Cairn Edward callant that served his time wi’ Maxwell in the Advertiser office.  He had spoken to me at the show, pleased to see a Gallawa’ face, nae doot.  And he telled me he was married an’ workin’ on the Times.  An’ amang ither things back an’ forrit, he telled me that the minister o’ Deeside’s son was here.  ‘But,’ says he, ‘I’m feared that he’s comin’ to nae guid.’  I kenned that the laddie hadna been hame to his faither an’ his mither for a maitter o’ maybe ten year, so I thocht that I wad like to see the lad for his faither’s sake.  So in a day or twa I got his address frae the reporter lad, an’ fand him after a lang seek doon in a gey queer place no’ far frae where Tammas Carlyle leeves, near the water-side.  I thocht that there was nae ill bits i’ London but i’ the East-end; but I learned different.

“I gaed up the stair o’ a wee brick hoose nearly tumlin’ doon wi’ its ain wecht—­a perfect rickle o’ brick—­an’ chappit.  A lass opened the door after a wee, no’ that ill-lookin’, but toosy aboot the heid an’ unco shilpit aboot the face.

“‘What do you want?’ says she, verra sharp an’ clippit in her mainner o’ speech.

“‘Does Walter Anderson o’ Deeside bide here?’ I asked, gey an’ plain, as ye ken a body has to speak to thae Englishers that barely can understand their ain language.

“‘What may you want with him?’ says she.

“‘I come frae Deeside,’ says I—­no’ that I meaned to lichtly my ain pairish, but I thocht that the lassie micht no’ be acquant wi’ the name o’ Whunnyliggate.  ‘I come frae Deeside, an’ I ken Walter Anderson’s faither.’

“‘That’s no recommend,’ says she.  ‘The mair’s the peety,’ says I, ’for he’s a daicent man.’

“So she took ben my name, that I had nae cause to be ashamed o’, an’ syne she brocht word that I was to step in.  So ben I gaed, an’ it wasna a far step, eyther, for it was juist ae bit garret room; an’ there on a bed in the corner was the minister’s laddie, lookin’ nae aulder than when he used to swing on the yett an’ chase the hens.  At the verra first glint I gat o’ him I saw that Death had come to him, and come to bide.  His countenance was barely o’ this earth—­sair disjaskit an’ no’ manlike ava’—­mair like a lassie far gane in a decline; but raised-like too, an’ wi’ a kind o’ defiance in it, as if he was darin’ the Almichty to His face.  O man, Rob, I hope I may never see the like again.”

“Ay, man, Saunders, ay, ay!” said Rob Adair, who, being a more demonstrative man than his friend, had been groping in the tail of his “blacks” for the handkerchief that was in his hat.  Then Rob forgot, in the pathos of the story, what he was searching for, and walked for a considerable distance with his hand deep in the pocket of his tail-coat.