] Now, what did they ever get before?
Maybe on a winter day they wad be called out to beat the wood for
cocks or siclike; and then the starving weans would maybe get a
bite of broken bread, and maybe no, just as the butler was in
humour--that was a' they got."
"They were not, then, a very kind family to the poor, these old
possessors?" said I, somewhat bitterly; for I had expected to
hear my ancestors' praises recorded, though I certainly despaired
of being regaled with my own.
"They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something. They
were just decent bien bodies; ony poor creature that had face to
beg got an awmous, and welcome--they that were shamefaced gaed
by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit an honest walk before
God and man, the Croftangrys, and, as I said before, if they did
little good, they did as little ill. They lifted their rents,
and spent them; called in their kain and ate them; gaed to the
kirk of a Sunday; bowed civilly if folk took aff their bannets as
they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at them that keepit them
on."
"These are their arms that you have on the sign?"
"What! on the painted board that is skirling and groaning at the
door? Na, these are Mr.
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