[32] In Morren’s edition of this chap-book, published in Edinburgh in the early years of the present century, the word here used is ‘keckling,’ meaning to laugh, or, more properly, to ‘smirk.’ ‘Keckling’ seems the more likely word.
[33] Another reading of the old saying--‘The deil catch the hindmost.’
[34] This can hardly be taken literally. Possibly what is meant is ‘powsee,’ a small fresh haddock.
[35] In some later editions the description of Sawny is made more complete by the insertion, in this place, of the following:--‘and an auld creeshy hat, mair like a fryingpan than any thing else.’
[36] Taverns and eating-houses were frequently, in east-coast towns, on the ‘sunk-flat,’ access to them being gained by a flight of steps down from the foot-pavement. Several such shops may still be seen in the old town of Edinburgh, in the vicinity of the High Street and Canongate.
[37] The women about fishing communities differed, and do still, from their sisters further inland, regarding house-work, or ‘husband-work.’ Matty’s opinion is a fair reflection of the ideas of her class. A further expression is given to this feeling in _The History of Buckhaven_, where Graham, describing the people about whom he was writing, says:--‘They kept but little communication with the country people, for a farmer, in those days, thought his daughter cast awa if she married one of the fishers in Bucky-harbour, and Witty Eppie the ale-wife wad a sworn, be go’ laddie, I wad rather see my boat and a’ my three sons upset against the Bass, or I saw are o’ them married on a muck-a-byre’s daughter, a wheen useles taupies that can do naething but rive at a tow rock [spin], and cut corn; they can neither bait a hook nor red a line, hook sandles nor gather periwinkles.’
[38] An old stocking leg, in which it was the custom of old women to sew up whatever savings they might have been able to make, and generally hidden away in some odd corner. Some of these ‘hoggers’ have been known to be very substantial. Even yet, now that banks are everywhere, the simile is kept up, though the stocking leg has fallen into disuse for banking purposes. Some persons speak about ‘laying by for a sair fit.’
[39] The beginning of the paragraph reads this way in Morren’s edition:--‘On this Sawny paid their spout and parted.’ That seems the more likely way of it, for later on Sawny speaks of courting being ‘a curst wark and _costly_.’