"Bide a wee—bide a wee; you southrons are aye in sic a hurry, and this is something concerns yourself, an ye wad tak patience to hear't—Yill?—deil a drap o' yill did Pate offer me; but Mattie gae us baith a drap skimmed milk, and ane o' her thick ait jannocks, that was as wat and raw as a divot. O for the bonnie girdle cakes o' the north!—and sae we sat doun and took out our clavers."
"I wish you would take them out just now. Pray, tell me the news, if you have got any worth telling, for I can't stop here all night."
"Than, if ye maun hae't, the folk in Lunnun are a' clean wud about this bit job in the north here."
"Clean wood! what's that?"
"Ou, just real daft—neither to haud nor to bind—a' hirdy-girdy—clean through ither—the deil's ower Jock Wabster."
"But what does all this mean? or what business have I with the devil or Jack Webster?"
"Umph!" said Andrew, looking extremely knowing, "it's just because—just that the dirdum's a' about yon man's pokmanty."
"Whose portmanteau? or what do you mean?"