WHEN A MAN'S SINGLE A TALE OF LITERARY LIFE

One still Saturday afternoon some years ago a child pulled herself through a small window into a kitchen in the kirk-wynd of Thrums. She came from the old graveyard whose only outlet when the parish church gate is locked is the windows of the wynd houses that hoop it round. Squatting on a three-legged stool she gazed wistfully at a letter on the chimney-piece and then tripping to the door looked up and down the wynd. Snecky Hobart the bellman hobbled past and though Davy was only four years old she knew that as he had put on his blue top-coat he expected the evening to be fine. Tammas McQuhatty the farmer of T’nowhead met him at the corner and they came to a standstill to say ‘She’s hard Sneck’ and ‘She is so T’nowhead’ referring to the weather. Observing that they had stopped they moved on again.