The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy
this I ken likewise, that what I say is the even-down truth; and nae farther gane than Mononday was eight days, I paid Deacon Paul, the Glasgow mason, thirteen shillings, a groat, and a bawbee, for the count o' his sklater that pointed the skews o' the house at Martinmas; and though I would supplicate, an it were on my knees, like Queen Esther, the doure Ahasuerus, that he is, has no mercy.