450 The Little Minister

home to die. You may be sure that Gavin
proved a good friend to Micah Dow. I have
the piece of slate on which Rob proved himself
a good friend to Gavin; it was in his pocket
when we found the body. Lord Rintoul
returned to his’ English estates, and never
revisited the Spittal. The last thing I heard
of him was that he had been offered the Lord-
Lieutenantship of a county, and had accepted it
in a long letter, in which he began by pointing
out his unworthiness’. This undid him, for the
Queen, or her councillors, thinking from his first
page that he had declined the honour, read no
further, and appointed another man. Waster
Lunny is still alive, but has gone to another
farm. Sanders Webster, in his gratitude, wanted
Nanny to become Auld Licht, but she refused,
saying, “ Mr. Dishart is worth a dozen o’ Mr.
Duthie, and I’m terrible fond o’ Mrs. Dishart,
but Established I was born and Established I'll
remain till I’m carried out o’ this house feet
foremost.”

“But Nanny went to heaven for all that,”
my little maid told me. “Jean says people can
go to heaven though they are not Auld Lichts,
but she says it takes them all their time. Would
you like me to tell you a story about my mother
putting glass on the manse dyke? Well, my
mother and my father is very fond of each other,
and once they was in the garden, and my father
kissed my mother, and there was a woman watch-
ing them over the dyke, and she cried out —
something naughty.”

“It was Tibbie Birse,” I said, “and what she