ce. As I made my way in that direction through the little hall
I heard voices through the half-open door beyond.

"It'll be all right, Archie," Penny was saying. "The priest shall have
the money as soon as he comes in, and if he can't say the Mass
to-morrow, I'll take care to send you word by Willy. Now, mind you get
a bit of fire lighted when you get back home. You must be wet through!"

"Thank ye kindly, Mistress Spence," came the slow response in the
quavering voice of the old man. "It's yersel' that's aye kind and
thochtful!"

I waited till I heard the door close upon the supposed "tramp" before
venturing to make the inquiries that rushed to my lips. And even then
I paused a while. When needing information from Penny, one has to be
circumspect; she has a way of shutting off the supply with ruthless
decision, yet with a seeming absence of deliberate purpose, whenever
she suspects a "pumping" operation.

"I'm one that won't be drove," I've often heard her say. So we old
fellows are often obliged to have recourse to diplomacy in dealing with
our old nurse.

Consequently I lounged casually, as it were, into Penny's domain with
the remark, "That poor old chap looked awfully wet, Penny."

"Wet enough he was, Mr. Edmund," replied the unsuspecting Penny, "and I
have just been giving him a good hot cup of tea; for he never touches
wine or spirits."

She was evidently betrayed by my apparent lack of inquisitiveness into
a relation of the details I was longing to hear.

"To think," she continued, "of the creature walking down in such
weather, and he such a frail old mortal, too, just to make sure of Mass
to-morrow for his wife's anniversary. I can't help thinking, Mr.
Edmund, that some of us might take an example in many things from poor
old Archie McLean!"

"Does he live far away?" I asked--just to encourage the flow of the
narrative.

"A good three miles--and his rheumatism something hawful," exclaimed
Penny, now thoroughly started on her recital. I had but to lend an
ear, and my curiosity would be satisfied.

Archie, it appeared, had been a soldier in his young days, but when he
came to settle in Ardmuirland his time of service had expired; that was
long ago, for he was now quite an elderly man. He took up his
residence in a deserted mill, by the Ardmuir Burn. As he proved to be
thoroughly quiet and inoffensive, the neighbors--true to their national
character, not speedily attracted by strangers--b