SETTLEMENT AND WORK AT DROUGHSBURN. 285 



but plainly entertained, by being offered a share of whatever 

 meal was being prepared at the time. To this he was in 

 every way fully entitled, if only for the saving of carriage 

 in bringing home the cloth ; and this he generally received 

 ungrudgingly, from the fairness of the expectation after 

 a long walk with such a burden, and from the genuine 

 hospitality that has always reigned among our rural unso- 

 phisticated population. Though he had not a few bad 

 debts in his time, he bore testimony to their being punctual 

 payers about Alford. 



When a web was finished, he carefully brushed it all 

 over with a broad, flat feather fan he kept for the purpose, 

 corrected all flaws, rolled it up neatly, and then tied it 

 with cord. Being paid so much a yard for the weaving, it 

 was necessary to measure it, and for this he required the 

 help of some young person, generally one of Mrs. Allanach's 

 girls. The child was rewarded for the service with some 

 large, white, old-fashioned peppermint lozenges, of which 

 he kept a store. She received one of them for every yard 

 thus measured; with strict injunctions, however, not to be 

 greedy and eat them all herself, but to be good and part 

 them with her brothers and sisters. 



To obtain warp for his webs, he was obliged to get the 

 materials from Aberdeen, either ordering them to be sent, or 

 more generally going to fetch them himself. In travelling 

 to Aberdeen, he went very often the whole way there and 

 back on foot, the distance between Droughsburn and the 

 city being above thirty miles. Very frequently he accom- 

 panied, in his covered cart, David Miller, now dead, who 

 was then carrier from Scuttery on the Leochel to Aberdeen ; 

 and he also rode with Charles Birse, the merchant there 



