Davy wandered from home he had never lifted his hat to a lady; when he did that the influence of Thrums would be broken for ever.

'It's oncommon foolish o' Rob,' said Pete Todd, retreating to the side of the mole-catcher, 'no to be mair resigned-like.'

'It's his ind'pendence,' answered Jamie; 'ay, the wricht was sayin' the noo, says he, "If Davy's deid, Rob'll mak the coffin 'imsel, he's sae michty ind'pendent."'

Tammas Haggart stumbled into the saw-miller's kitchen. It would have been a womanish kind of thing to fling-to the door behind him.

'Fine growin' day, Rob,' he said deliberately.

'It is so, Tammas,' answered the saw-miller hospitably, for Haggart had been his father's bosom friend.

'No much drowth, I'm thinkin',' said Hobart, relieved by the turn the conversation had taken.

Tammas pulled from beneath the table an unsteady three-legged stool—Davy's stool—and sat down on it slowly. Rob took a step nearer as if to ask him to sit somewhere else, and then turned away his head.

'Ay, ay,' said Haggart.

Then, as he saw the others gathering round the minister at the door, he moved uneasily on his stool.

'Whaur's Davy?' he said.

'Did ye no ken she was lost?' the saw-miller asked, in a voice that was hardly his own.

'Ay, I kent,' said Tammas; 'she's on the Whunny road.'

Rob had been talking to the minister in what both thought English, which in Thrums is considered an ostentatious language, but he turned on Tammas in broad Scotch. In the years to come, when he could wear gloves without concealing his hands in his pockets, excitement brought on Scotch as a poultice raises blisters.

'Tammas Haggart,' he cried, pulling the stone-breaker off his stool.

The minister interposed.

'Tell us what you know at once, Tammas,' said Mr. Dishart, who, out of the pulpit, had still a heart.

It was a sad tale that Haggart had to tell, if a short one, and several of the listeners shook their heads as they heard it.

 Prev. P 14/175 next