"When ye please!" Sae I began, and it wasna sae bad.

"In my youth", she loved to quote, "in my youth I wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'.

"I couldna say, for it wasna me that they spak to i' the byganging.

"It wasna the Captain: it was the Officer," rejoined Buncle cantankerously.

It wasna charity those laddies sought or needed.

A."Na, it wasna fever."

Nae sooner, then, had he got the note, than he opened it out, and lookit at it wi' his wee glowrin', restless een, as if to see that it wasna a forgery.

But I wasna gaun to enlist to please you, nor ma aunt, neither.'

I wasna fit to speak to the Duke o' Argyle himsel' that day!"

"I was sure you would sort her," he said, rubbing his hands, "I was sure you wasna the kind to be ashamed o' auld friends.

It wasna old Harry Lauder who interested themit was what he had to tell them.

If it wasna for them and the likes of them I'd still be digging coal i' the pit in Scotland!

But it wasna real nature made him throw the poor black soul away, whose gold and jewels he had bartered his white, I should say yellow, rotten-livered body for.

It wasna till after I'd been in America that I made sae many records, but I'd made enough at lime for some of my songs tae become popular, and so it wasna quite sicca novelty as I'd thought it micht be for them to hear me.

On going up the centre of the church, a Dollar man, who had got into the crowd in a side aisle, said, loud enough for the Archbishop to hear, "There wasna muckle o' this at Dollar, my Lord.

But this wasna the only reason.

They thought it wasna richt for a Scotsman to be carrying off their flagthough he'd bought it and paid for it.

Did ye think it wasna a guid road we was gaun?"

I tried him wi' a hunner, and he wasna satisfeed."

'It wasna the socks, ye stupid: it was the fondest love!' John laughed again, but less boisterously, 'Maggie's no blate, whaever she is.

On entering Mr. Weft's shop, I faund it empty; there wasna a leeving soul within.

It wasna the militant suffragettes that persuaded Parliament to give women the vote.

" [Illustration: "How was it you never let your mother know you'd won the V.C.?" "It wasna ma turrn tae write.

Maybe ma letter to you wasna the thing, either, but I was that hurt when I wrote it, an' ye might ha'e understood hoo I was feelin'.

But Andrew's rinnin' awa wasna the only trial that we had to bear up against at this time.