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When little Johnnie Greybreeks returned to Glasgow, he found life for a time very dull indeed, though the kind-hearted Mrs. Malony and her husband did all they could to cheer him up. But he used to lie in his bed at night, awake and thinking, till long past twelve. What should he be? That was the question that puzzled him to answer.
To tell the truth, Johnnie, as for the time being we may continue to call him, was just a trifle ambitious. At all events, working in the blacksmith's shop was very monotonous, although he did all he could, and really earned his food. He didn't like it though, and told himself so every night of his life, he considering himself dreadfully ungrateful to the good people with whom he lived for doing so.
Whenever Johnnie had an hour or so to spare, Little Peter and he used to go wandering away down by the Broomielaw to look at the ships. Our young hero was better clad now; for since good Tom Morgan had given him that Sunday's suit, his former Sunday's clothes became his week-day wear, and he looked by no means a gutter-snipe or tatterdemalion.
Little Peter was as fond of ships as Johnnie, and as he always took his fiddle with him, the Jackie-tars used to invite him on board sometimes, to play to them while they danced or sang.
"O Johnnie," said Peter one day, as they were going back towards Summer Loaning, "if I wasna a miserable little hunchback, I'd be a sailor mysel'."
Johnnie felt sorry for Peter, so to comfort him he made answer,—
"Well, Peter, if I could play the fiddle as well as you, I wouldn't care what my back was like. Anyhow, I've made up my mind either to be a sailor or a soldier. I'd like to wear a feather bonnet.—Hark!" he continued. "Peter, here come the Highlanders. Can't you hear them?"
"Ay, fine can I hear them. The skirl o' the bagpipes maks my bluid run dancin' through ilka vein in my body, and if I had a sword and was big enough, I could fight to music like that."
A few minutes after, the Highlanders came marching and swinging along, their glittering bayonets flashing in the evening sunshine high above their nodding plumes. Even Peter pulled himself an inch taller as the two lads marched side by side with the regiment all the way to the barracks.