He was lying a-bed one morning in spring, about daybreak, when his attention was excited by a strange noise which seemed to proceed from the garden. Had he heard it two hours earlier, he would have wrapped up his head in the bedclothes and lain still; but now that the cock had crown, it could not, he concluded, be other than natural. Hastily throwing on part of his clothes, he stole warily to a back window, and saw, between him and the faint light that was beginning to peep out in the east, the figure of a man, armed with a lever, tugging at the stones. Two had already been shifted a full yard nearer the houses, and the figure was straining over a third. Wood crept stealthily out at the window, crawled on all fours to the intruder, and, tripping up his heels, laid him across his lever. It was his knavish neighbour the shoemaker. A scene of noisy contention ensued; groups of half-dressed town’s-folk, looming horrible in their shirts and nightcaps through the grey of morning, came issuing through the lanes and the closes; and the combatants were dragged asunder. And well was it for the shoemaker that it happened so; for Wood, though in his sixtieth year, was strong enough, and more than angry enough, to have torn him to pieces. Now, however, that the warfare had to be carried on by words, the case was quite reversed. “Neebours,” said the shoemaker, who had the double advantage of being exceedingly plausible, and decidedly in the wrong, “I’m desperately ill-used this morning--desperately ill-used;--he would baith rob and murder me. I lang jaloused, ye see, that my wee bit o’ a yard was growing littler and littler ilka season; and, though no very ready to suspect folk, I just thought I would keep watch, and see wha was shifting the mark-stanes. Weel, and I did;--late and early did I watch for mair now than a fortnight; and wha did I see this morning through the back winnock but auld Sandy Wood there in his verra sark--Oh, it’s no him that has ony thought o’ his end!--poking the stones wi’ a lang kebar, intil the very heart o’ my grun’? See,” said he, pointing to the one that had not yet been moved, “see if he hasna shifted it a lang ell; and only notice the craft o’ the bodie in tirring up the yird about the lave, as if they had been a’ moved frae my side. Weel, I came out and challenged him, as wha widna?--says I, Sawney my man, that’s no honest; I’ll no bear that; and nae mair had I time to say, when up he flew at me like a wull-cat, and if it wasna for yoursels I daresay he would hae throttled me. Look how I am bleedin’;--and only look till him--look till the cankart deceitful bodie, if he has one word to put in for himsel’.”