On the following day I met Erchie taking the air in the neighbourhood of his new domicile, and smoking a very magnificent meerschaum pipe.
“I was presented wi’ this pipe twenty years ago,” said he, “by a man that went to California, and I lost it a week or twa efter that. It turned up at the flittin’. That’s ane o’ the advantages o’ flittin’s; ye find things ye havena seen for years.”
“I hope the great trek came off all right, Erchie?”
“Oh, ay! no’ that bad, considerin’ we were sae much oot o’ practice. It’s no’ sae serious when ye’re only gaun roond the corner to the next street. I cairried a lot o’ the mair particular wee things roond mysel’ last nicht—the birdcage and Gledstane’s picture and the room vawzes and that sort o’ thing, but at the hinder-end Jinnet made me tak’ the maist o’ them back again.”
“Back again, Erchie?”
“Ay. She made oot that I had cairried ower sae muckle that the flittin’ wad hae nae appearance on Duffy’s cairt, and haein’ her mind set on the twa rakes, and a’ the fancy things lying at the close-mooth o’ the new hoose till the plain stuff was taken in, I had just to cairry back a guid part o’ whit I took ower last nicht. It’s a rale divert the pride o’ women! But I’m thinkin’ she’s vex’t for’t the day, because yin o’ the things I took back was a mirror, and it was broke in Duffy’s cairt. It’s a gey unlucky thing to break a lookin’-gless.”
“A mere superstition, Erchie.”
“Dod! I’m no’ sae shair o’ that. I kent a lookin’-gless broke at a flittin’ afore this, and the man took to drink a year efter’t, and has been that wye since.”
“How came you to remove at all?”
“It wad never hae happened if I hadna gane to a sale and seen a coal-scuttle. It’s a dangerous thing to introduce a new coal-scuttle into the bosom o’ your faimily. This was ane o’ thae coal-scuttles wi’ a pentin’ o’ the Falls o’ Clyde and Tillitudlem Castle on the lid. I got it for three-and-tuppence; but it cost me a guid dale mair nor I bargained for. The wife was rale ta’en wi’t, but efter a week or twa she made oot that it gar’d the auld room grate we had look shabby, and afore ye could say knife she had in a new grate wi’ wally sides till’t, and an ash-pan I couldna get spittin’ on. Then the mantelpiece wanted a bed pawn on’t to gie the grate a dacent look, and she pit on a plush yin. Ye wadna hinder her efter that to get plush-covered chairs instead o’ the auld hair-cloth we got when we were mairried. Her mither’s chist-o’-drawers didna gae very weel wi’ the plush chairs, she found oot in a while efter that, and they were swapped wi’ twa pound for a chevalier and book-case, though the only books I hae in the hoose is the Family Bible, Buchan’s Domestic Medicine,’ and the ‘Tales o’ the Borders.’ It wad hae been a’ richt if things had gane nae further, but when she went to a sale hersel’ and bought a Brussels carpet a yaird ower larig for the room, she made oot there was naethin’ for’t but to flit to a hoose wi’ a bigger room. And a’ that happened because a pented coal-scuttle took ma e’e.”