68 The Little Minister

“ Weel, then, the laddie’s highly edicated and
I hae siller, and that’s how the writer was to take
him and make a gentleman o’ him.”

*‘T learn from the neighbours,” the policeman
explained, “that this is partly true, but what
makes us suspect him is this: He left the laddie
at Tilliedrum, and yet when he came home the
first person he sees at the fireside is the laddie
himself. The laddie had run home, and the
reason plainly was that he had heard of our
preparations and wanted to alarm the town.”

“There seems something in this, Dunwoodie,”
the sheriff said, “and if you cannot explain it I
must keep you in custody.”

“Tl make a clean breast o’t,’ Dunwoodie
replied, seeing that in this matter truth was best.
“The laddie was terrible against being made a
gentleman, and when he saw the kind o’ life he
would hae to lead, clean hands, clean dickies, and
no gutters on his breeks, his heart took mair
scunner at genteelity than ever, and he ran hame.
Ay, I was mad when I saw him at the fireside,
but he says to me, ‘ How would you like to be a
gentleman yoursel’, father?’ he says, and that so
affected me ’at I’m to gie him his ain way.”

Another prisoner, Dave Langlands, was con-
fronted with Dunwoodie.

“John Dunwoodie’s as innocent as I am
mysel’,” Dave said, “and I’m most michty inno-
cent. It wasna John but the Egyptian that gave
the alarm. I tell you what, sheriff, if it’ll make
me innocenter-like I’ll picture the Egyptian to
you just as I saw her, and syne you'll be able
to catch her easier.”