"Then is there nothing that I can bring you from Edinburgh when I come again?" said Ralph, with whom the coming again was ever present.
"'Deed, aye, gin ye are so ceevil--it's richt prood I wad be o' a boxfu' o' Maister Cotton's Dutch sneeshin'--him that's i' the High Street--they say it's terrible graund stuff. Wullie Hulliby gat some when he was up wi' his lambs, an' he said that, after the first snifter, he grat for days. It maun be graund!"
Ralph promised, with gladness to find some way of easing his load of debt to Jock.
"Noo, Maister Ralph, it's a wanchancy [uncertain] place, this Enbra', an' I'll stap aff an' on till the morrow's e'en here or hereaboots, for sae it micht be that ye took a notion to gang back amang kent fowk, whaur ye wad be safe an' soun'."
"But, Jock," urged Ralph, "ye need not do that. I was born and brought up in Edinburgh!"
"That's as may be; gin I bena mista'en, there's a byous [extraordinary] heap o' things has happened since then. Gang yer ways, but gin ye hae message or word for Jock, juist come cannily oot, an' he'll be here till dark the morn."