I stabled my horse and, bidding the host bring me a bottle of Rhenish (so fine a thing it is to have succeeded to lands and money), I went into the low-ceilinged room where the company sat. It was panelled in a darkish wood, and hung round with old weapons, halberds and falchions and what not, which glimmered brightly in the firelight. A narrow window gave it light, but now it sufficed only to show the grey winter dusk coming swiftly on. Around the fire sat some few of the men of Peebles, warming themselves and discussing the landlord’s ale and the characters of their neighbours. They rose to give me welcome when I entered, for my name and family were well known in the countryside. "It’s awfu’ weather for man and beast, Laird," said an old man with a bent back, but still hale and hearty in the face. "A snawy winter I can abide, and a wet yin, but drizzlin’, dreepin’, seepin’ weather wi’ a wind that taks the heart out o’ ye is mair than my patience can stand." "You have little need to speak, you folk," I said, "living in a well-paved town with stones beneath your feet and nothing more to do than go round a street corner all day. Up at Barns, with Tweed swirling in at the yard gate, and the stables flowing like a linn, and the wind playing cantrips day and night in and out of the windows, you might talk." "Ay, but, good sir," put in a thin voice which came from a little man I had seen at the bowling-green, "ye may thank the Lord for a roof abune your heids and dry claes to put on, when sae many godly folks are hiding like pelicans in the wilderness among the high hills and deep mosses. I bless the Lord that my faither, that sant o’ the Kirk, is not living in thae evil times. He was a man o’ a truly great spirit, and had he been alive, I’se warrant he wad hae been awa to join them. He was aye strong on his conscience. ’John Look-up’ so the godless called him. ’John Look-up,’ said my mother, ’ye’ll never be pleased till we’re a’ joltin’ in a cairt to the Grassmarket o’ Edinburgh. And a braw sicht ye’ll be, hanging there like a hoodie-craw wi’ a’ your bairns aside ye.’ Ay, these were often her words, for she had a sarcastic tongue." "Jock Look-up, my man," said another, "I kenned your faither a’ his days, and he was na the man to hang. He lookit up and he lookit a’ ways. He was yin whae could baith watch and pray. Gin ye were mair like him, ye wad be a mair thrivin’ man."