It's a winter's day this," he continued to the Captain, "and goes to the marrow." Davie, a wizened, clean-shaven, dark-visaged little man, appeared with a scuttle of coal.

"Ay, Davie; that's it! Is that cannel ?" "Ay, Sir, it is.

What else?
I aye get the cannel." "That's right, Davie.

It's a gran' coal." "Gran' it's no'," said Davie shortly, who was a fierce radical in politics, and who strove to preserve his sense of independence of all semblance of authority by cultivating a habit of disagreement.

"Gran' it's no'," he repeated, "but it's the best the Farquhars hae, though that's no' saying much.