CHAPTEREXET!
MARGARET, THE PRECENTOR, AND GOD BETWEEN

NLESS Andrew Luke, who went to Can-

ada, be still above ground, I am now the
only survivor of the few to whom Lang Tammas
told what passed in the manse parlour after the
door closed on him and Margaret. With the
years the others lost the details, but before I for-
get them the man who has been struck by light-
ning will look at his arm without remembering
what shrivelled it. There even came a time
when the scene seemed more vivid to me than
to the precentor, though that was only after he
began to break up.

“She was never the kind 0’ woman,” Wha-
mond said, “that a body need be nane feared at.
You can see she is o’ the timid sort. I couldna
hae selected a woman easier to speak bold out to,
though I had ha’en my pick o’ them.”

He was a gaunt man, sour and hard, and he
often paused in his story with a puzzled look on
his forbidding face.

“But, man, she was so michty windy o’ him.
If he had wanted to put a knife into her, I
believe that woman would just hae telled him to
take care no to cut his hands. Ay, and what
innocent-like she was! If she had heard enough,
afore I saw her, to make her uneasy, I could hae

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