In the middle of the meal the poet leaped up suddenly, checking himself, however, in the middle of his spring with a quick remembrance of the roof above him. "Preserve us, laddie, ye are a' wat!"
"So would you," quoth Cleg, who in the congenial atmosphere of the cabin had recovered all his natural briskness, "gin ye had soomed Loch Spellanderie as weel as me! Even a pairish minister wad be wat then!"
"Aye," said Auld Chairlie, sententiously, "that's juist like your poet. He hears ye tell a' aboot soomin' a loch. But he never thinks that ye wad hae to wat your claes when ye did it."
"But ye didna' speak aboot it ony mair than me, Auld Chairlie!" retorted Poet Jock.
"An' what for should I do that? I thocht the laddie maybe prefer't to 'bide wat!" said Auld Chairlie, with emphasis.
"Ye are surely growin' doited, Chairles," said the poet; "ye took the Netherby clearin' hoose clerk for the General Manager o' the line the day afore yesterday!"
"An' so micht onybody," replied Auld Chairlie, "upsetting blastie that he is! Sic a wame as the craitur cairries, wag-waggin' afore him. I declare I thocht he wad be either General Manager o' the line or the Provist o' Glescae!"
"Haud your tongue, man Chairlie, and see if ye can own up, for yince! If we are to judge folk by their wames, gussy pig gruntin' in the trough wad be king o' men. But stop your haverin' and see if ye hae ony dry claes that ye can lend this boy. He'll get his death o' cauld if he lets them dry on him."
But Auld Chairlie had nothing whatever in the way of change, except a checked red-and-white Sunday handkerchief for the neck.