Seven
o'clock
`` Here they are , '' said the tramp ; `` and you 're to tak care o ' them . They 've been my staff for mony a day , and they 're the only creatures on earth I care for and like ; for they never said to me , ` Get out , ye wretch , ' or banned me for a witch ; but were aye sae happy wi ' their pickles o ' barley , and maybe a knot o ' sugar , when I could get at a farmer 's wife 's bowl . '' Even hags have pathetic moods . Meg was affected ; and the writer , having appreciated the virtue , whispered in the ear of his _ protegée _ , `` Seven o'clock on Wednesday night , '' and left them to the remainder of the whisky . At the door he settled with the man , and , mounting his horse , which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for , in addition to his oats , he set off at his old trot . `` Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice , '' he said , as he pushed on . The writer was , no doubt , bent eagerly for home , but he seldom got to his intended destination , though we have given one or two examples of an uninterrupted course , without undergoing several stoppages , either from the sudden calls of business , which lay in every direction , or the seductions of conviviality , equally ubiquitous ; and on this occasion he was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar , whose plan for draining the loch , by making toddy of it , had not , to their discomfort , been realized , but who made due retaliation by very clean drainings elsewhere .