Scene at the Spittal 275

Waster Lunny was not in his usual spirits,
or he would have repeated his story before he
left me, for he had usually as much difficulty in
coming to an end as in finding a beginning.
The drought was to him as serious a matter as
death in the house, and as little to be forgotten
for a lengthened period. —

“There’s to be a prayer-meeting for rain in
the Auld Licht kirk the night,” he told me as I
escorted him as far as my side of the Quharity,
now almost a dead stream, pitiable to see, “and
I’m gaen; though I’m sweer to leave thae puir
cattle o’ mine. You should see how they look
at me when I gie them mair o’ that rotten grass
to eat. It’s eneuch to mak a man greet, for
what richt hae I to keep kye when I canna
meat them?”

Waster Lunny has said to me more than once
that the great surprise of his life was when Els-
peth was willing to take him. Many a time,
however, I have seen that in him which might
have made any weaver’s daughter proud of such
a man, and I saw it again when we came to the
riverside.

“T’m no ane o’ thae farmers,” he said, truth-
fully, “ that’s aye girding at the weather, and Els-
peth and me kens that we hae been dealt wi’
bountifully since we took this farm wi’ gey anx-
ious hearts. [hat woman, dominie, is eneuch to
put a brave face on a coward, and it’s no langer
syne than yestreen when I was sitting in the
dumps, looking at the aurora borealis, which I
canna but regard as a messenger 0’ woe, that she
put her hand on my shoulder and she says,