Margaret and the Precentor 425

“<¢ Wha says that?’ she speirs.

“«<«T say it,’ I cried. ‘ve shirked my duty.
I gie up my eldership now. Tammas Whamond
is no langer an elder o’ the kirk ;’ ay, and I was
chief elder.

“ Dominie, I think she began to say that when
the minister came hame he wouldna accept my
resignation, but I paid no need to her. You ken
what was the sound that keeped my ears frae her
words; it was the sound o’ a machine coming
yont the Tenements. You ken what was the sicht
that made me glare through the window instead
o’ looking at her; it was the sicht 0 Mr. Dish-
art in the machine. I couldna speak, but I got
my body atween her and the window, for I heard
shouting, and I couldna doubt that it was the
folk cursing him.

“ But she heard too, she heard too, and she
squeezed by me to the window. I couldna look
out; I just walked saft-like to the parlour door,
but afore I-reached it she cried, joyously :

“<< Tt’s my son come back, and see how fond o”
him they are! They are running at the side
o’ the machine, and the laddies are tossing their
bonnets in the air.’

“God help you, woman!’ I said to mysel’,
‘it canna be bonnets, — it’s stanes and divits mair
likely that they’ re flinging at him.’ Syne I
creeped out o’ the manse. Dominie, you mind
I passed you in the kitchen, and didna say a
word?”

Yes, I saw the precentor pass through the
kitchen, with such a face on him as no man ever
saw him wear again. Since Tammas Whamond