In Highland Harbours with Para Handy

"That's gey mean, richt enough!" said Sunny Jim; "efter your kizzen takin' a' that trouble!"

"But the worst o' the lot's an uncle that he got in Eigg; he's seventy-six, and talkin' aboot a wife!"

"Holy smoke!" said Dougie; "isn't that chust desperate!"

"Ay; he hass a terrible conceity notion o' his five shillin's a-week; you would think he wass a millionaire. 'I could keep a wife on it if she wass young and strong,' he tells my cousin, and it takes my cousin and the mustress aal their time to keep him oot o' the way o' likely girls. They don't ken the day they'll lose him."

"Could they no' put a brand on him?" asked Dougie.

"Ye daurna brand them," said the Captain, "nor keel them either. The law'll not allo' it. So you see yersel's there's aye a risk, and it needs a little capital. My cousin had a bit of a shop, a