"I maun tell ye plainly, frien', that I hae neither faither, nor brither, nor cousin of ony description on this side of the grave.

Before I was fifteen, I assisted my faither at the markets, and in a short time he could trust me to buy and sell.

Margaret's husband very soon squandered away the money he had got frae me, as weel as the property he had got frae his faither; and, to escape the jail, he ran off, and left his wife and family.

Aye, there's weans in Britain and America, and in many another land, that will ne'er know a faither.

No kennin' what to do, I lifted my faither to the side o' the road, and tried to place him, half sitting like, wi' his back to the drift, by the foot o' the hedge.

I tried to raise my faither in my arms, and, dark as it was, I could see his blood upon the snawand a dreadfu' sight it was for a son to see!

I knew what it was like, over yonder in France, and I could tell American faithers and mithers what their boys maun see and do when the great transports took them oversea.

John was never quite sure whether I meant to mak' some o' the shots, but he was a polite laddie, and he'd no like to be accusing his faither o' just being lucky.

They were the husbands the wee lassies were waiting forthe faithers of bairns that will never be born the noo.