"Ow aye, I ken," said Muckle Alick, "there wad be a wark aboot it after, nae doot. But it's the morn I'm speakin' aboot, Maister Heron. It is possible I micht get the sack ower the head o' it—(though I'm thinkin' no). But that wadna help your papers to sell the morn." Alick paused to let this sink well in. Then he took his leave.
"Noo, mind, I'm tellin' ye. Guid day, Yedditur!"
That afternoon Alick presided at a gathering of the amalgamated paper boys of the town, being accredited representatives of all the various newsagents. The proceedings were private, and as soon as strangers were observed, the house was counted out (and stones thrown at them). But the general tenor of the resolutions passed may be gathered from the fact that when Mr. Heron heard of it, he ordered the junior reporter to "slate a novel" just come in—a novel by an eminent hand. "It's to make three quarters of a column, less two lines," he said.
So that we know from this, the length of the suppressed article on the presentation of a medal of the Royal Humane Society to "our noble and esteemed townsman, Mr. Alexander Douglas." The "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser" enjoyed its normal circulation next day. And, after Muckle Alick had carefully searched every column of the paper, the parcels were forwarded from the junction with the usual promptitude and despatch.
But this is telling our tale "withershins about," as they say in Netherby. We return to Vara and her bairns.
ADVENTURE XLI.
"TWA LADDIES—AND A LASSIE."
Muckle Alick trotted the children soberly down the street, and at the foot he turned his long lumbering stride up a country road. For Alick had a little wife who was an expert market-gardener and beekeeper.
Her name was Mirren, and her size, as reported by her husband, was "near-aboots as big as twa scrubbers." It was for her sake and because he could not help himself, that Muckle Alick lived so far from his work.