"'Deed is't. He's a gude man that. And he's been verra kin' to oor
Annie, Mr Cupples,�-I'll do as ye say. Whan do ye want it?"
"This verra nicht."
So after his day's work, which was hard enough at this season of the year, was over, James Dow put on his blue Sunday coat, and set off to the town. He found Robert Bruce chaffering with a country girl over some butter, for which he wanted to give her less than the market-value. This roused his indignation, and put him in a much fitter mood for an altercation.
"I winna gie ye mair nor fivepence. Hoo are ye the day, Mr Doo? I tell ye it has a goo (Fren. go�t) o' neeps or something waur."
"Hoo can that be, Mr Bruce, at this sizzon o' the year, whan there's plenty o' gerss for man an' beast an' a' cratur?" said the girl.
"It's no for me to say hoo it can be. That's no my business. Noo, Mr
Doo?"
Bruce, whose very life lay in driving bargains, had a great dislike to any interruption of the process. Yet he forsook the girl as if he had said all he had to say, and turned to James Dow. For he wanted to get rid of him before concluding his bargain with the girl, whose butter he was determined to have even if he must pay her own price for it. Like the Reeve in the Canterbury Tales, who "ever rode the hinderest of the rout," being such a rogue and such a rogue-catcher that he could not bear anybody behind his back, Bruce, when about the business that his soul loved, eschewed the presence of any third person.
"Noo, Mr Doo?" he said.
"My business'll keep," replied Dow.
"But ye see we're busy the nicht, Mr Doo."