"What's that I hear ye say?" added Willie, seriously. "Ye canna be fashed! can ye no? Do ye think ye could be fashed to read the 'Cottagers o' Glenburnie?' Ye would there see the meaning and the effects o' 'I canna be fashed' illustrated. But if ye can be fashed to hear, I'll gie ye an example in my ain case; and, I assure ye, that those four words, 'I--canna--be--fashed' (he spoke them very slowly, laying emphasis on each)--I say, sir, those four words hae cost me a thousand pounds twice told. I got them for naething; but, certes, they proved a dear bargain in the long run. They hae made me acquainted wi' a sair skin, a sair heart, and an empty pocket. I hae nae remembrance wha learned me the words, nor am I altogether certain but that they are words that just spring out o' the laziness and indolence o' our dispositions, like weeds out o' a neglected soil. But weel do I remember the first time when I was made to hae a feeling remembrance o' having used them. My faither was a bit sma' laird in East Lothian--no very far frae Dunglass--and the property consisted o' between thirty and forty acres, so that he managed to bring up a family o' five o' us very comfortably, and rather respectably--and the more especially as my mother was a very thrifty woman. I was the third o' the family; and, as I was gaun to say to ye, there was ae day that we were a' gilravishing about the floor, and wheeling ane anither in a little wheelbarrow that my faither had got a cartwright in Dunbar to mak for us (for he was a man that liked to see his bairns happy), when, says he to me-- "Willie, tie yer whings,[5] and dinna let yer shoon be shaughlin aff yer feet in that gate, or ye maun gang barefoot. Folk shouldna hae shoon that dinna ken hoo to wear them." [Footnote 5: Shoe-ties.] "I canna be fashed, faither," said I, and continued running after the wheelbarrow; but, before ever I wist, and before I thought that I had done ill, he gied me a cuff i' the haffits that made me birl half donnert by the cheek o' the lum.[6] [Footnote 6: Chimney.] "Ay, man!" says he, "what's that I hear ye say--'_ye canna be fashed_!' Let me hear the words come out o' your lips again if ye daur, and I'll knock the life out o' ye." That was the first time that I particularly remember o' having made use o' the phrase, and I am only sorry that the clout which my faither gied me didna drive it out o' my head frae that day henceforth, and for ever; though, truly, it had nae such effect, as ye shall hear, and as I experienced to my sorrow. I sat down whinging till my faither gaed out o' the house, and, as soon as his back was turned, I dried my een, and began to drive about the barrow again wi' my brothers and sisters; but I hadna ran aboon ten minutes, till my mother, wha was tired wi' the noise we were making, cried--