“I think I will do without for the present,” said Ralph.

“Aweel,” said Jock, “ye may, but I’m gaun to hae my breakfast a’ the same, sillar or no sillar.”

In twenty minutes he was back by the dykeside, where he had left Ralph sitting, twining Winsome’s purse through his fingers, and thinking on the future, and all that was awaiting him in Edinburgh town.

Jock seemed what he had called Winsome’s purse—­baggy.

Then he undid himself.  From under the lower buttons of his long russet “sleeved waistcoat” with the long side flaps which, along with his sailor-man’s trousers, he wore for all garment, he drew a barn-door fowl, trussed and cooked, and threw it on the ground.  Now came a dozen farles of cake, crisp and toothsome, from the girdle, and three large scones raised with yeast.

Then followed, out of some receptacle not too strictly to be localized, half a pound of butter, wrapped in a cabbage-leaf, and a quart jug of pewter.

Ralph looked on in amazement.

“Where did you get all these?” he asked.

“Get them?  Took them!” said Jock succinctly.  “I gaed alang to Mistress MacMorrine’s, an’ says I, ‘Guid-mornin’ till ye, mistress, an’ hoo’s a’ wi’ ye the day?’ for I’m a ceevil chiel when folks are ceevil to me.”

“‘Nane the better for seein’ you, Jock Gordon,’ says she, for she’s an unceevil wife, wi’ nae mair mainners nor gin she had just come ower frae Donnachadee—­the ill-mainnered randy.

“‘But,’ says I, ‘maybes ye wad be the better o’ kennin’ that the kye’s eatin’ your washin’ up on the loan.  I saw Provost Weir’s muckle Ayreshire halfway through wi’ yer best quilt,’ says I.

“She flung up her hands.

“‘Save us!’ she cries; ‘could ye no hae said that at first?’

“An’ wi’ that she ran as if Auld Hornie was at her tail, screevin’ ower the kintra as though she didna gar the beam kick at twa hunderweicht guid.”

“But was that true, Jock Gordon?” asked Ralph, astounded.

“True!—­what for wad it be true?  Her washin’ is lyin’ bleachin’, fine an’ siccar, but she get a look at it and a braw sweet.  A race is guid exercise for ony yin that its as muckle as Luckie MacMorrine.”

“But the provisions—­and the hen?” asked Ralph, fearing the worst.

“They were on her back-kitchen table.  There they are now,” said Jock, pointing with his foot, as though that was all there was to say about the matter.

“But did you pay for them?” he asked.

“Pay for them!  Does a dowg pay for a sheep’s heid when he gangs oot o’ the butcher’s shop wi’ yin atween his teeth, an’ a twa-pund wecht playin’ dirl on his hench-bane?  Pay for’t!  Weel, I wat no!  Didna yer honour tell me that ye had nae sillar, an’ sae gaed it in hand to Jock?”

Ralph started up.  This might be a very serious matter.  He pulled out Winsome’s purse again.  In the end he tried first there was silver, and in the other five golden guineas in a little silken inner case.  One of the guineas Ralph took out, and, handing it to Jock, he bade him gather up all that he had stolen and take his way back with them.  Then he was to buy them from Luckie MacMorrine at her own price.