COUSIN EDIE OF EYEMOUTH.

Some years before, when I was still but a lad, there had come over to us
upon a five weeks' visit the only daughter of my father's brother.
Willie Calder had settled at Eyemouth as a maker of fishing nets, and he
had made more out of twine than ever we were like to do out of the
whin-bushes and sand-links of West Inch. So his daughter, Edie Calder,
came over with a braw red frock and a five shilling bonnet, and a kist
full of things that brought my dear mother's eyes out like a partan's.
It was wonderful to see her so free with money, and she but a slip of a
girl, paying the carrier man all that he asked and a whole twopence
over, to which he had no claim. She made no more of drinking
ginger-beer than we did of water, and she would have her sugar in her
tea and butter with her bread just as if she had been English.

I took no great stock of girls at that time, for it was hard for me to
see what they had been made for. There were none of us at Birtwhistle's
that thought very much of them; but the smallest laddies seemed to have
the most sense, for after they began to grow bigger they were not so
sure about it. We little ones were all of one mind: that a creature
that couldn't fight and was aye carrying tales, and couldn't so much as
shy a stone without flapping its arm like a rag in the wind, was no use
for anything. And then the airs that they would put on, as if they were
mother and father rolled into one; for ever breaking into a game with
"Jimmy, your toe's come through your boot," or "Go home, you dirty boy,
and clean yourself," until the very sight of them was weariness.

So when this one came to the steading at West Inch I was not best
pleased to see her. I was twelve at the time (it was in the holidays)