"Hearken ye, Maister," said Cleg. "There's no a boy atween Henry Place an' the Sooth Back that wull daur to show the ill-favoured face o' him within your muckle yett. I'll be the best watch that ever ye had, Maister Callendar. See if I'm no!"
The builder smiled as he went away. He took the measuring-rod of white moulding in his hand, and looked at the marks to recall what particular business he had been employed upon. But even as he did so a thought struck him. He turned back.
"Mind you," he said to Cleg, "the first time that ye bring the faither o' ye aboot my yaird, to the curb-stane ye gang wi' a' your traps and trantlums!"
Cleg peeped elvishly out of his citadel.
"My faither," he said, "is snug in a far grander hoose than yours or mine, Maister Callendar. He has ta'en the accommodation for a year, and gotten close wark frae the Gowvernment a' the time!"
"What mean ye?" said the builder; "your faither never reformed?"
"Na, no that," answered Cleg; "but he got a year for ganging intil anither man's hoose without speering his leave. And I was there and saw the judge gie him a tongue-dressing afore he spoke oot the sentence. 'One year!' says he. 'Make it three, my Lord!' says I frae the back of the coort. So they ran me oot; but my faither kenned wha it was, for he cried, 'May hunger, sickness, and trouble suck the life from ye, ye bloodsucking son of my sorrow! Wait till I get hoult o' ye! I'll make ye melt off the earth like the snow off a dyke, son o' mine though ye are!'"
The respectable builder stood aghast.
"And your ain faither said the like o' that till ye?" he asked, with a look of awe in his face as if he had been listening to blasphemy. "And what did you say to him?"