Our hero was no gourmand. And yet there were many Highland students at the University, who lived on far poorer fare than did Sandie, as we shall see as the story goes on.
Sandie had porridge and milk for breakfast, nothing else, but plenty of that. For dinner he usually had sheep’s-head broth of barley and vegetables, with potatoes and perhaps kail as auxiliaries. He allowed himself tea in the afternoon, and for supper a large dish of stiff pease-meal brose with plenty of creamy milk.
When fresh herrings could be got—but they were not now in season—he treated himself to a few of these.
This was plain, but it was also wholesome fare.
Herring and sand cadgers are quite a feature of the Granite City. What the poor people do with all the fine sea-sand it would be difficult to imagine. But the Aberdonians are a cleanly people, the very show of their white granite walls appears to suggest cleanliness, and the women folks are constantly seen scouring down their stairs and passages.
The sand is hawked in donkey-carts, and the boy hawkers’ are invariably all in rags and tatters.
“Twa buckets o’ fine sea-sand for three bawbees, and I’ll carry them upstairs for a cauld tattie or a bit o’ cake for the cuddy.”
I may state at once that the cuddy never gets the piece of cake.
The herring-cadgers are a cut above the sand-laddies.
In going to classes one day shortly before Christmas, Sandie was witness to a rather humorous episode. Let me premise that the streets were covered with mud and slime.