four in the
morning
Good-natured Corp willingly promised to try this , but he was never hopeful , and as he explained to Tommy , after a failure , `` It just made me waur than ever , for when I had counted the twenty I said a big Damn , thoughtful-like , and syne out jumpit three little damns , like as if the first ane had cleckit in my mouth . '' It was fortunate that Elspeth liked Corp on the whole , for during the three years now to be rapidly passed over , Tommy took delight in his society , though he never treated him as an equal ; Corp indeed did not expect that , and was humbly grateful for what he got . In summer , fishing was their great diversion . They would set off as early as four in the morning , fishing wands in hand , and scour the world for trout , plodding home in the gloaming with stones in their fishing-basket to deceive those who felt its weight . In the long winter nights they liked best to listen to Blinder 's tales of the Thrums Jacobites , tales never put into writing , but handed down from father to son , and proved true in the oddest of ways , as by Blinder 's trick of involuntarily holding out his hands to a fire when he found himself near one , though he might be sweating to the shirt and the time a July forenoon . `` I make no doubt , '' he told them , `` as I do that because my forbear , Buchan Osler -LRB- called Buchan wi ' the Haap after the wars was ower -RRB- , had to hod so lang frae the troopers , and them so greedy for him that he daredna crawl to a fire once in an eight days . '' The Lord of the Spittal and handsome Captain Body -LRB- whose being `` out '' made all the women anxious -RRB- marched through the Den , flapping their wings at the head of a fearsome retinue , and the Thrums folk looked so glum at them that gay Captain Body said he should kiss every lass who did not cheer for Charlie , and none cheered , but at the same time none ran away .