"Canna say," was the brief, but sufficiently discouraging rejoinder.
"Then let us drop the subject," said the stranger, smilingly. "Each will still judge of the world by his own experience. But, methinks, your own case, my friend, is a hard enough one. To see a man of your years labouring at this miserable employment, is a painful sight. Your debt to fortune is also light, I should believe."
"I hae aye trusted mair to my ain industry than to fortune, young man. I never pat it in her power to jilt me. I never trusted her, and therefore, she has never deceived me; so her and me are quits." And the old man plied away with his long, light hammer.
"Yet your earnings must be scanty?"
"I dinna compleen o' them."
"I daresay not; but will you not take it amiss my offering this small addition to them?" And he tendered him a half-crown piece. "I have but little to spare, and that must be my apology for offering you so trifling a gift."
The man here again paused in his operations, and again looked full in the face of the stranger, but without making any motion towards accepting the proffered donation.
"I thocht ye said ye war in straits, young man," he said, and now resting his elbow on the end of his hammer.
"And I said truly," replied the former, again colouring.
"Then hoo come ye to be sportin yer siller sae freely? I wad hae thocht ye wad hae as muckle need o' a half-croon as I hae?"