its loose construction, comparatively little strain or friction,
may reach an antiquity unknown to the garments of the low country,
and, while perfectly decent, yet look ancient exceedingly. On
Sundays, however, he made the best of himself, and came out like
a belated and aged butterfly--with his father's sporran, or
tasselled goatskin purse, in front of him, his grandfather's dirk
at his side, his great grandfather's skene dhu, or little black
hafted knife, stuck in the stocking of his right leg, and a huge
round brooch of brass--nearly half a foot in diameter, and, Mr
Graham said, as old as the battle of Harlaw--on his left shoulder.
In these adornments he would walk proudly to church, leaning on
the arm of his grandson.

"The piper's gey (considerably) brokken-like the day," said one of
the fishermen's wives to a neighbour as he passed them--the fact
being that he had not yet recovered from his second revel in the
pipes so soon after the exhaustion of his morning's duty, and was,
in consequence, more asthmatic than usual.

"I doobt he'll be slippin' awa some cauld nicht," said the other:
"his leevin' breath's ill to get."

"Ay; he has to warstle for't, puir man! Weel, he'll be missed, the
blin' body! It's exterordinor hoo he's managed to live, and bring
up sic a fine lad as that Malcolm o' his."

"Weel, ye see, Providence has been kin' till him as weel 's ither
blin' craturs. The toon's pipin' 's no to be despised; an' there's
the cryin', an' the chop, an' the lamps. 'Deed he's been an eident
(diligent) cratur--an' for a blin' man, as ye say, it's jist