of the Scarlet Woman; and it is curious how soon I learned to be up to trap—I mean in an honest way; for, when she said she was wearying the very heart out of her to be home again to Lauder, which she said was her native, and the true land of Goshen, I spoke back to her by way of answer—“Nancy, my dear, believe me that the real land of Goshen is out at Dalkeith;

and if ye’ll take up with me, and enter into a way of doing, I daursay in a while ye’ll come to think so too.”

What will ye say there?  Matters were by-and-bye settled full tosh between us; and, though the means of both parties were small, we were young, and able and willing to help one another.  Nanse, out of her wages, had hained a trifle; and I had safe lodged under lock-and-key in the Bank of Scotland, against the time of my setting up, the siller which was got by selling the bit house of granfaither’s, on the death of my ever-to-be-lamented mother, who survived her helpmate only six months, leaving me an orphan lad in a wicked world, obliged to fend, forage, and look out for myself.

Taking matters into account, therefore, and considering that it is not good for man to be alone, Nanse and me laid our heads together towards the taking a bit house in the fore-street of Dalkeith; and at our leisure kept a look-out about buying the plenishing—the expense of which, for different littles and littles, amounted to more than we expected; yet, to our hearts’ content, we made some most famous second-hand bargains of sprechery, amongst the old-furniture warehousemen of the Cowgate.  I might put down here the prices of the room-grate, the bachelor’s oven, the cheese-toaster, and the warming-pan especially, which, though it had a wheen holes in it, kept a fine polish; but, somehow or other, have lost the receipt, and cannot make true affidavy.

Certain it is, whatever cadgers may say to the contrary, that the back is aye made for the burden; and, were all to use the means, and be industrious, many, that wyte bad harvests, and worse times, would have, like the miller in the auld sang, “A penny in the purse for dinner and for supper,” or better to finish the verse, “Gin ye please a guid fat cheese, and lumps of yellow butter.”

For two three days, I must confess, after Maister Wiggie had gone through the ceremony of tying us together, and Nanse and me found ourselves in the comfortable situation of man and wife, I was a wee dowie and desponding, thinking that we were to have a numerous small family, and where trade was to come from; but no sooner was my sign nailed up, with, four iron

hold-fasts, by Johnny Hammer, painted in black letters on a blue ground, with a picture of a jacket on one side, and a pair of shears on the other,—and my shop-door opened to the public, with a wheen ready-made waistcoats, gallowses, leather-caps and Kilmarnock cowls, hung up at the window, than business flowed in upon us in a perfect torrent.  First one came in for his measure, and then another.  A wife came in for a pair of red worsted boots for her bairn, but would not take them for they had not blue fringes.  A bareheaded lassie, hoping to be handsel, threw down twopence, and asked tape at three yards for a halfpenny.  The minister sent an old black coat beneath his maid’s arm, pinned up in a towl, to get docked in the tails down into a jacket; which I trust I did to his entire satisfaction, making it fit to a hair.  The Duke’s butler himself patronized me, by sending me a coat which was all hair-powder and pomate, to get a new neck put to it.  And James Batter, aye a staunch friend of the family, dispatched a barefoot cripple lassie down the close to me, with a brown paper parcel, tied with skinie, and having a memorandum letter sewed on the top of it, and wafered with a wafer.  It ran as follows; “Maister Batter has sent down, per the bearer, with his compliments to Mr Wauch, a cuttikin of corduroy, deficient in the instep, which please let out, as required.  Maister Wauch will also please be so good as observe, that three of the buttons have sprung the thorls, which he will be obliged to him to replace, at his earliest convenience.  Please send me a message what that may be; and have the account made out, article for article, and duly discharged, that I may send down the bearer with the change; and to bring me back the cuttikin and the account, to save time and trouble.  I am, dear sir, your most obedient friend, and ever most sincerely,

“James Batter.”

No wonder than we attracted customers, for our sign was the prettiest ye ever saw, though the jacket was not just so neatly painted, as for some sand-blind creatures not to take it for a goose.  I daresay there were fifty half-naked bairns glowring their eyes out of their heads at it, from morning till night; and,

after they all were gone to their beds, both Nanse and me found ourselves so proud of our new situation in life, that we slipped out in the dark by ourselves, and had a prime look at it with a lantern.