Margaret and the Precentor 419

‘that the minister delights to honour, and so
you'll oblige me by sitting in his own armchair.’ ”

Gavin never quite delighted to honour the
precentor, of whom he was always a little afraid,
and perhaps Margaret knew it. But you must
not think less of her for wanting to gratify her
son’s chief elder. She thought, too, that he had
just done her a service. I never yet knew a
good woman who did not enjoy flattering men
she liked.

“T saw my chance at that,” Whamond went
on, “and I says to her, sternly, ‘ In worldly posi-
tion,’ I says, ‘I’m a common man, and it’s no
for the like o’ sic to sit in a minister’s chair;
but it has been God’s will,’ I says, ‘to wrap
around me the mantle o’ chief elder o’ the kirk,
and if the minister falls awa frae grace, it becomes
my duty to take his place.’

“Tf she had been looking at me, she maun hae
grown feared at that, and syne I could hae gone
on though my ilka word was a knock-down blow.
But she was picking some things aff the chair to
let me down on’t.

“<¢Tt’s a pair o’ mittens I’m working for the
minister,’ she says, and she handed them to me.
Ay, I tried no to take them, but — Oh, lads,
it’s queer to think how saft I was. .

“¢Fe’s no to ken about them till they’re fin-
ished,’ she says, terrible fond-like.

“The words came to my mouth, ‘They'll
never be finished,’ and I could hae cursed mysel’
for no saying them. I dinna ken how it was,
but there was something pitiful in seeing her take
up the mittens and begin working cheerily at one,