trial that we had to bear up against at this time.  As I was tellin’ ye, there was an unco change ower Margaret since she had come frae the bathin’; and a while after, a young lad that her mother said they had met wi’ at Portobello began to come about the house.  He was the son o’ a merchant in Edinburgh, and pretended that he had come to learn to be a farmer wi’ a neighbour o’ ours.  He was a wild, thoughtless, foppish-looking lad, and I didna like him; but Margaret, silly thing, was clean daft about him.  Late and early I found him about the house, and I tauld him I couldna allow him nor ony person to be within my doors at any such hours.  Weel, this kind o’ wark was carried on for mair than a year; and a’ that I could say or do, Margaret and him were never separate; till at last he drapped off comin’ to the house, and our daughter did naething but seigh and greet.  I found that, after bringing her to the point o’ marriage, he either wadna or durstna fulfil his promise unless I wad pay into his loof a thousand pounds as her portion.  I could afford my daughter nae sic sum, and especially no to be thrown awa on the like o’ him.  But Jeannie cam to me wi’ the tears on her cheeks, and ‘O David!’ says she, ’there’s naething for it but partin’ wi’ a thousand pounds on the ae hand or our bairn’s death—­and her—­shame on the ither!’ Oh! if a knife had been driven through my heart, it couldna pierced it like the word shame!  As a faither, what could I do?  I paid him the money, and they were married.

“It’s o’ nae use tellin’ ye how I gaed back in the farm.  In the year sixteen my crops warna worth takin’ aff the ground, and I had twa score o’ sheep smothered the same winter.  I fell behint wi’ my rent; and household furniture, farm-stock, and everything I had, were to be sold off.  The day before the sale, wi’ naething but a bit bundle carrying in my hand, I took Jeannie on my ae arm and her puir auld mither on the other, and wi’ a sad and sorrowfu’ heart we gaed out o’ the door o’ the hame where our bairns had been brought up, and a sheriff’s officer steeked it behint us.  Weel, we gaed to Coldstream, and we took a bit room there, and furnished it wi’ a few things that a friend bought back for us at our sale.  We were very sair pinched.  Margaret’s gudeman ne’er looked near us, nor rendered us the least assistance, and she hadna it in her power.  There was nae ither alternative that I could see; and I was just gaun to apply for labouring wark when we got a letter frae Andrew, enclosing a fifty-pound bank-note.  Mony a tear did Jeannie and me shed ower that letter.  He informed us that he had been appointed mate o’ an East Indiaman, and begged that we would keep ourselves easy; for while he had a sixpence, his faither and mither should hae the half o’t.  Margaret’s husband very soon squandered away the money he had got frae me, as weel as the property he had got frae his faither; and, to escape the jail, he ran off, and left his wife and family.  They cam to stop wi’ me;