A Boyhood in Scotland 



and scaling garden-walls. Boys eight or ten 

 years of age could get over almost any wall 

 by standing on each other's shoulders, thus 

 making living ladders. To make walls secure 

 against marauders, many of them were finished 

 on top with broken bottles imbedded in lime, 

 leaving the cutting edges sticking up ; but with 

 bunches of grass and weeds we could sit or 

 stand in comfort on top of the jaggedest of them. 

 Like squirrels that begin to eat nuts before 

 they are ripe, we began to eat apples about 

 as soon as they were formed, causing, of course, 

 desperate gastric disturbances to be cured by 

 castor oil. Serious were the risks we ran in 

 climbing and squeezing through hedges, and, 

 of course, among the country folk we were far 

 from welcome. Farmers passing us on the roads 

 often shouted by way of greeting: "Oh, you 

 vagabonds! Back to the toon wi' ye. Gang 

 back where ye belang. You're up to mischief, 

 Ise warrant. I can see it. The gamekeeper '11 

 catch ye, and maist like ye '11 a' be hanged some 

 day." 



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