ee-bree, that, grizzled wi’ years, lookit lilke snawy archers thrown oure a pair o’ grey sparkling een, Mony and mony a time, ⟨when⟩ a callant, passing that road; have I seen him standing at the bit parapet wa’ before ⟨his⟩ house, with his hands in his pepper-and-salt coat pockets, his staff aueath his oxter, and his blue bonnet on his pow, looking at a’ the folks passing on the road frae Wamyss to Dysart, or glinting his ee our his braid fields surrounded wi’ fine auld trees, where the cows stood chewing their cud of fatness, and his whistling ploughlads turned up the mools wi’ the glittering share; proud nae doubt a’ the time to ken himsell the laird o’ sie a rich inheritance. Except for his keen hawk’s ee, ane could scarcely have fand him out; however, there are surer ways of discovering a man’s heart, than from the cut of his coat, or his bodily looks, and where was the neighbour that ever had occasion to lend him a guid word, or the beggar that e’er depairted frae his gate muttering a blessing.
The lang and the short of the story is, that auld Robin was a doure, hardhearted, selfish man,—the king of misers; scraping and scraping frae a’ corners from day to day, and from year to year; screwing what he could by all lawful shifts out o’ithers; and denying himsell amaist the necessaries of life. In the early pairt of his youth, he had married a cousin of
