one o'clock
Maister Glen insisted on the laddie having a three months ' trial ; and then , after a trifling show of standing out , just to make him aware that I could be elsewhere fitted if I had a mind , I agreed that the request was reasonable , and that I had no earthly objections to conforming with it . So , after giving him his meridian and a bite of shortbread , we shook hands , and parted in the understanding that his son would arrive on the top of limping Jamie the carrier 's cart , in the course , say , of a fortnight . Through the whole of the forepart of the day , I remained rather queerish , as if something was working about my inwards , and a droll pain between my eyes . The wife saw the case I was in , and advised me , for the sake of the fresh air , to take a step into the bit garden , and try a hand at the spade , the smell of the new earth being likely to operate as a cordial ; but no -- it would not do ; and when I came in at one o'clock to my dinner , the steam of the fresh broth , instead of making me feel , as usual , as hungry as a hawk , was like to turn my stomach , while the sight of the sheep 's head , one of the primest ones I had seen the whole season , looked , by all the world , like the head of a boiled blackamoor , and made me as sick as a dog ; so I could do nothing but take a turn out again , and swig away at the small beer , that never seemed able to slocken my drouth . At long and last , I minded having heard Andrew Redbeak , the excise-officer , say , that nothing ever put him right after a debosh except something they call a bottle of soda-water ; so my wife dispatched Benjie to the place where we knew it could be found , and he returned in a jiffie with a thing like a blacking-bottle below his daidly , as he was bidden . There being a wire over the cork for some purpose or other , or maybe just to look neat , we had some fight to get it torn away , but at last we succeeded . I had turned about for a jug , and the wife was rummaging for the screw , while Benjie was fiddling away with his fingers at the cork -- Save us !