The Curling Season 139

been good. Her mother had once fainted in the
church, but though the family’s distress was great,
they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk
officer to bring water. They propped her up in
the pew in a respectful attitude, joining in the
singing meanwhile, and she recovered in time to
look up 2d Chronicles, twenty-first and seventh.

“ Tell him I want to speak to him at the door,”
said the doctor, fiercely, “or I'll bleed you this
minute.”

McQueen would not enter, because his horse
might have seized the opportunity to return
stablewards. At the houses where it was accus-
tomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord,
knowing where the doctor’s “cases” were as
well as himself, but it resented new patients.

“You like misery, I think, Mr. Dishart,” Mc-
Queen said, when Gavin came to him, “at least
I am always finding you in the thick of it, and
that is why I am here now. I have a rare job for
you if you will jump into the machine. You
know Nanny Webster, who lives on the edge of
Windyghoul? No, you don’t, for she belongs to
the other kirk. Well, at all events, you know
her brother, Sanders, the mole-catcher ?”

“]T remember him. You mean the man who
boasted so much about seeing a ball at Lord Rin-
toul’s place?”

“The same, and, as you may know, his boast-
ing about maltreating policemen whom he never
saw led to his being sentenced to nine months in
gaol lately.”

“That is the man,” said Gavin. “I never

liked him.”