A SCOTCHMAN’S STORY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 356, 3 August 1875, Page 3

A SCOTCHMAN’S STORY.

Sandy Macdonald was a red-whiskered, high cheek-boned, sharp-eyed little Scotchman. Poor Sandy! He’s dead now; he has been dead twenty years and more. The grass grows green over his grave in a little Scotch churchyard. He must have been sixty when 1 knew him (I was quite a little boy, at the time) ; perhaps he was even older. “ How old are you, Macdonald ?” asked I one day. “ I’m getting on—getting on, laddie,” was his reply. “I’ll sune be ripe for the sickle.” Sandy’s mill—for Sandy was a miller—stood in one of the western suburbs of Glasgow—that smokiest and most thriving of the Scotch cities. Giant chesnut trees kept it a secret in the summer time; mavises sung to the sound of its busy wheel. It was indeed a pleasant spot; and there, all alone, for he had neither kith nor kin, the old man dwelt. No, not all alone. In sooth, Sandy had quite a large family. There was Bobby, the carthorse, as knowing a specimen of the equine race as ever drew grain from the market; there were the pigs, the fowls, and the ducks, the pigeons, and the skylark that warbled so sweetly. These were Sandy’s delight. Most of his leisure time was spent in feeding them and teaching them tricks. Even the wild birds got to know him, and picked fearlessly from his very feet the crumbs which he threw to them. Yet Sandy was a cynical withal—a second Diogenes. “It’s a cald, cald world, laddie,” he would say to me—“a cruel warld—a’ wrang thegether. Dinna trust it—dinna trust it, I tell ye ! I’ve seen muckle o’ its heartless ways.” Sandy followed his own advice ; he mistrusted everybody. He never gave credit, and his business suffered not a little in consequence. His proud boast was that there “ wisna a bawce betwixt him and onybody,” For his neighbours he had not even a nod, and as for the men in his employ, they were constantly leaving him owing to his ungrounded suspicions. Why he took such a fancy to me was a mystery. Perhaps he wanted to make me a cynic like himself. He had a very good opportunity, for I was wont to spend hour after hour in his little mill watching the grain being ground, or hunting the rats—an occupation my terrier pup Frisky took especial delight in; and on these occasions Sandy would sometimes come up and pat my head fondly, look into my eyes, and explain, “ Ay, ay, laddie, it’s a cald, cald world.” People said he had been crossed in love. Never shall I forget the day that Sandy died. He fell down a “lift” as he was at work in one of the upper storeys of the mill, and broke both his legs. I was present when the accident took place, and went for the doctor, sobbing as if my heart would burst. When we returned, we found the old miller propped up in his bed, bloodless in the face, and groaning terribly. “ Gang awa’! —gang awa’!” he shrieked, as the doctor entered, “ I want to dee ! Gang awa,’ I say!” —“Come, come, Mr Macdonald” said the medical man kindly, approaching the bed; “letme see what’s the matter. We’ll soon make you all right again.”—“Make me all right ? Na, na, ye’ll ne’r do that! Lang syne my heart was broken noo it’s my legs, that’s a’ ] Dinna fash yersul’, doctor ! Tak’ yer fee, and gang awa’!” “ But, but ” expostulated the doctor. “But me no buts!” again shrieked the miller, starting up in bed, but instantly falling back with a groan. “Awa’! awa’! Awa’t’ them that needs ye ! Tak’ yer fee, and gang !” Sandy was so persistent that at length he had to be held down while the broken limbs were set. The shock and excitement, however, were too much for him. A few hours afterwards he awoke from a very heavy sleep, and looked around. I was at his bedside. With a strange smile, he took my hand in his, and said, in slow, feeble tones — “Dinna—trust —it—laddie. It’s—a—cald cald—warld—a’ wrang the ” No other word came. Turning his head away, he heaved a sigh, and was dead.—■ Pictorial World ,