74 ARRIVES AT ABERDEEN. CHAP. iv. 



went to the hole in the bank by Deeside, where he had 

 left his week-day clothes, and found them all right. 

 But before going home, instead of going down Deeside, 

 he turned up by Scraphards to look at a laverock's 

 nest, which was still there. Then he went past Ferry- 

 hill House, by Dee village, and struck the water-side 

 by the path now known as Affleck Street, and got 

 home at breakfast time, after an absence of a week. 



His mother was in. " Where ha'e ye been now, 

 ye vagaboon?" "At my uncle's." "Where?" 

 " At the Kettle." " And ha'e ye been a' the way to 

 Fife, ye vagrant?" Tom then told his story; his 

 mother following it up with a long and serious 

 lecture. She reproached him for the dishonesty 

 which he had committed, in taking the sixpence out 

 of the box when he went away. "Weel, mother," 

 said he, "here's the sixpence for the one I took." 

 He had saved the sixpence out of the eighteenpence 

 his uncle had given him when he left Kettle. " No," 

 she replied, " the crime is the same after all, and you 

 are sure to be punished for it yet." 



Then she urged him to go back to his trade, for 

 he was far better at work than stravaigin * about the 

 country like an evil-doer. Edward asked if his father 

 would not consent now to his going to sea. She did 

 not think he would ; she thought that to go back 

 to his work was the best thing of all. She herself 

 would not hear a word more about his going to sea. 



* Stravaigin idle, wandering, or strolling. 



