Alec Forbes of Howglen

Having thus persisted in opposing Thomas to a degree he had never dared before, James took his departure, pursued by the words:

"Tak ye care, Jeames, that in savin' the richt han' ye dinna send the haill body to hell. It was aye yer danger. I never got bauld coonsel frae ye yet."

"There's mair vertues i' the Bible nor courage, Thamas," retorted James, holding the outer door open to throw the sentence in, and shutting it instantly to escape with the last word.

Thomas, abandoned to his own resources, meditated long and painfully. But all he could arrive at was the resolution to have another talk with Mr Cupples. He might not be a Christian man, but he was an honest and trustworthy man, and might be able from his scholarship to give him some counsel. So he walked to Howglen the next day, and found him with Alec in the harvest-field. And Alec's reception of Thomas showed what a fine thing illness is for bringing people to their right minds.

Mr Cupples walked aside with Thomas, and they seated themselves on two golden sheaves at the foot of a stook.

"What ye said to me the ither day, sir," began Thomas, "has stucken fest i' my crap, ever sin' syne. We maun hae him oot."

"Na, na; ye better lat him sit. He'll haud doon yer pride. That man's a judgment on ye for wantin' to be better nor yer neebors. Dinna try to win free o' judgment. But I'll tell ye what I wad hae ye do: Mak muckle o' 'm. Gie him tether eneuch. He'll gang frae ill to waur, ye may depen'. He'll steal or a' be dune."

"To the best o' my belief, sir, that's no to come, He's stolen already, or I'm sair mista'en."

"Ay! Can ye pruv that? That's anither maitter," returned Cupples, beginning to be interested.

"I dinna ken whether I oucht to hae mentioned it to ane that wasna a member, though; but it jist cam oot o' 'tsel' like."

"Sae the fac' that a man's a member wha's warst crime may be that he is a member, maks him sic precious gear that he maunna be meddlet wi' i' the presence o' an honest man, wha, thank God, has neither pairt nor lot in ony sic maitter?"

"Dinna be angry, Mr Cupples. I'll tell ye a' aboot it," pleaded Thomas, than who no man could better recognize good sense.

But the Cosmo Cupples who thus attracted the confidence of Thomas Crann was a very different man from the Cosmo Cupples whom first Alec Forbes went to the garret to see at his landlady's suggestion. All the flabbiness had passed from his face, and his eyes shone clearer than ever from a clear complexion. His mouth still gave a first impression of unsteadiness; no longer, however, from the formlessness of the loose lips, but from the continual flickering of a nascent smile that rippled their outline with long wavy motions of evanescent humour. His dress was still careless, but no longer neglected, and his hand was as steady as a rifleman's.

Nor had he found it so hard to conquer his fearful habit as even he had expected; for with every week passed in bitter abstinence, some new well would break from the rich soil of his intellect, and irrigate with its sweet waters the parched border land between his physical and psychical being. And when he had once again betaken himself to the forsaken pen, there was little reason to fear a relapse or doubt a final victory. A playful humanity radiated from him, the result of that powerfullest of all restoratives -giving of what one has to him who has not. Indeed his reformation had begun with this. St Paul taught a thief to labour, that he might have to give: Love taught Mr Cupples to deny himself that he might rescue his friend; and presently he had found his feet touching the rock. If he had not yet learned to look "straight up to heaven," his eyes wandered not unfrequently towards that spiritual horizon upon which things earthly and things heavenly meet and embrace.

To such a Cosmo Cupples, then, Thomas told the story of Annie Anderson's five-pound note. As he spoke, Cupples was tormented as with the flitting phantom of a half-forgotten dream. All at once, light flashed upon him.

"And sae what am I to do?" asked Thomas as he finished his tale. -"I can pruv naething; but I'm certain i' my ain min', kennin' the man's nater, that it was that note he tuik oot o' the Bible."

"I'll put the proof o' that same into yer han's, or I'm sair mista'en," said Mr Cupples.

"You, Mr Cupples?"

"Ay, me, Mr Crann. But maybe ye wadna tak proof frae sic a sinner against sic a sanct. Sae ye may keep yer sanct i' yer holy boasom."

"Dinna gang on that gait, Mr Cupples. Gin ye can direc' me to the purification o' our wee bit temple, I'll hearken heumbly. I only wiss ye war ane o' us."

"I'll bide till ye hae gotten rid o' Bruce, ony gait. -I care naething for yer sma' separatist kirkies.– I wonner ye dinna pray for a clippin' o' an auld sun that ye micht do withoot the common daylicht. But I do think it's a great shame -that sic a sneak sud be i' the company o' honest fowk, as I tak the maist o' ye to be. Sae I'll do my best. Ye'll hear frae me in a day or twa."

Cupples had remembered the inscription on the fly-leaf of the big

Bible, which, according to Thomas Crann, Mr Cowie had given to Annie.

He now went to James Dow.

"Did Annie ever tell ye aboot a Bible that Mr Cowie ga'e her, Jeames?"

"Ay did she. I min' 't fine."

"Cud ye get a haud o' 't."

"Eh! I dinna ken. The crater has laid his ain cleuks upo' 't. It's a sod pity that Annie's oot o' the hoose, or she micht hae stown't (stolen it)."

"Truly, bein' her ain, she micht. But ye're a kin' o' a guairdian till her -arena ye?"

"Ow! ay. I hae made mysel' that in a way; but Bruce wad aye be luikit upon as the proper guairdian."

"Hae ye ony haud upo' the siller?"

"I gart him sign a lawyer's paper aboot it."

"Weel, ye jist gang and demand the Bible, alang wi' the lave o' Annie's property. Ye ken she's had trouble aboot her kist (chest), and canna get it frae the swallowin' cratur'. And gin he maks ony demur, jist drap a hint o' gaein to the lawyer aboot it. The like o' him's as fleyt at a lawyer as cats at cauld water. Get the Bible we maun. And ye maun fess't to me direckly."

Dow was a peaceable man, and did not much relish the commission.

Cupples, thinking he too was a missionar, told him the story.

"Weel," said Dow, "lat him sit there. Maybe they'll haud him frae doin' mair mischeef. Whan ye jabble a stank, the stink rises."

"I thocht ye was ane o' them. Ye maunna lat it oot."

"Na, na. I a' haud my tongue."

"I care naething aboot it. But there's Thamas Crann jist eatin' his ain hert. It's a sin to lat sic a man live in sic distress."

"'Deed is't. He's a gude man that. And he's been verra kin' to oor

Annie, Mr Cupples, -I'll do as ye say. Whan do ye want it?"

"This verra nicht."

So after his day's work, which was hard enough at this season of the year, was over, James Dow put on his blue Sunday coat, and set off to the town. He found Robert Bruce chaffering with a country girl over some butter, for which he wanted to give her less than the market-value. This roused his indignation, and put him in a much fitter mood for an altercation.

"I winna gie ye mair nor fivepence. Hoo are ye the day, Mr Doo? I tell ye it has a goo (Fren. go t) o' neeps or something waur."

"Hoo can that be, Mr Bruce, at this sizzon o' the year, whan there's plenty o' gerss for man an' beast an' a' cratur?" said the girl.

"It's no for me to say hoo it can be. That's no my business. Noo, Mr

Doo?"

Bruce, whose very life lay in driving bargains, had a great dislike to any interruption of the process. Yet he forsook the girl as if he had said all he had to say, and turned to James Dow. For he wanted to get rid of him before concluding his bargain with the girl, whose butter he was determined to have even if he must pay her own price for it. Like the Reeve in the Canterbury Tales, who "ever rode the hinderest of the rout," being such a rogue and such a rogue-catcher that he could not bear anybody behind his back, Bruce, when about the business that his soul loved, eschewed the presence of any third person.

"Noo, Mr Doo?" he said.

"My business'll keep," replied Dow.