40 The Little Minister

“ Surely you could gie me a word frae ahint
the door. You’re doing an onlawful thing, but I
dinna ken wha you are.”

“You'll swear to that?” some one asked
gruffly.

“T swear to it, Peter.”

Wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain.

“ Ay,” he said to the minister, “ that’s what it
is to be an onpopular man. And now I’ll hae to
turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join
them would be the first to complain if I gaed out
o’ bounds.”

Gavin found Dow at New Zealand, a hamlet
of mud houses, whose tenants could be seen on
any Sabbath morning washing themselves in the
burn that trickled hard by. Rob’s son, Micah,
was asleep at the door, but he brightened when
he saw who was shaking him.

“ My father put me out,” he explained, “ be-
cause he’s daft for the drink, and was fleid he
would curse me. He hasna cursed me,” Micah
added, proudly, “for an aucht days come Sab-
bath. Hearken to him at his loom. He daurna
take his feet off the treadles for fear o’ running
straucht to the drink.”

Gavin went in. The loom, and two stools, the
one four-footed and the other a buffet, were Rob’s
most conspicuous furniture. A shaving-strap
hung on the wall. The fire was out, but the
trunk of a tree, charred at one end, showed how
he heated his house. He made a fire of peat,
and on it placed one end of a tree trunk that
might be six feet long. As the tree burned away
it was pushed farther into the fireplace, and a