His purpose of calling was to tell me, that he could not leave the town without looking in upon me to bid me farewell; more betoken, as he intended sending in his son Mungo by the carrier for trial, to see how the line of life pleased him, and how I thought he would answer--a thing which I was glad came from his side of the house, being likely to be in the upshot the best for both parties. Yet I thought he would find our way of doing so canny and comfortable, that it was not very likely he could ever start objections; and I must confess, that I looked forward with no small degree of pride, seeing the probability of my soon having the son of a Lammermoor farmer sitting crosslegged, cheek for jowl with me on the board, and bound to serve me at all lawful times, by night and day, by a regular indenture of five years. Maister Glen insisted on the laddie having a three months' trial; and then, after a trifling show of standing out, just to make him aware that I could be elsewhere fitted if I had a mind, I agreed that the request was reasonable, and that I had no earthly objections to conforming with it. So, after giving him his meridian and a bite of shortbread, we shook hands, and parted in the understanding that his son would arrive on the top of limping Jamie the carrier's cart, in the course, say, of a fortnight. Through the whole of the forepart of the day, I remained rather queerish, as if something was working about my inwards, and a droll pain between my eyes. The wife saw the case I was in, and advised me, for the sake of the fresh air, to take a step into the bit garden, and try a hand at the spade, the smell of the new earth being likely to operate as a cordial; but no--it would not do; and when I came in at one o'clock to my dinner, the steam of the fresh broth, instead of making me feel, as usual, as hungry as a hawk, was like to turn my stomach, while the sight of the sheep's head, one of the primest ones I had seen the whole season, looked, by all the world, like the head of a boiled blackamoor, and made me as sick as a dog; so I could do nothing but take a turn out again, and swig away at the small beer, that never seemed able to slocken my drouth. At long and last, I minded having heard Andrew Redbeak, the excise-officer, say, that nothing ever put him right after a debosh except something they call a bottle of soda-water; so my wife dispatched Benjie to the place where we knew it could be found, and he returned in a jiffie with a thing like a blacking-bottle below his daidly, as he was bidden. There being a wire over the cork for some purpose or other, or maybe just to look neat, we had some fight to get it torn away, but at last we succeeded. I had turned about for a jug, and the wife was rummaging for the screw, while Benjie was fiddling away with his fingers at the cork--Save us! all at once it gave a thud like thunder, driving the cork over poor Benjie's head, while it squirted there-up in his eyes