CHAPTER XI]

TELLS IN A WHISPER OF MAN’S FALL DURING
THE CURLING SEASON *

O snow could be seen in Thrums by the
beginning of the year, though clods of it
lay in Waster Lunny’s fields, where his hens
wandered all day as if looking for something
they had dropped. A black frost had set in, and
one walking on the glen road could imagine that
through the cracks in it, he saw a loch glistening.
From my door I could hear the roar of curling
stones at Rashie-bog, which is almost four miles
nearer Thrums. On the day I am recalling, I
see that I only made one entry in my diary, “ At
last bought Waster Lunny’s bantams.” Well
do I remember the transaction, and no wonder,
for I had all but bought the bantams every day
. for a six months.

About noon the doctor’s dog-cart was observed
by all the Tenements standing at the Auld Licht
manse. The various surmises were wrong. Mar-
garet had not been suddenly taken ill; Jean had
not swallowed a darning-needle; the minister
had not walked out at his study window in a
moment of sublime thought. Gavin stepped
into the dog-cart, which at once drove off in the
direction of Rashie-bog, but equally in error were

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