dinna want to
be held to sharper account than He faces me up to, when I hold
communion with mesel'. I dinna want any better meetin'-house than
Rainbow Bottom. I dinna care for better talkin' than the 'tongues in
the trees'; sounder preachin' than the 'sermons in the stones'; finer
readin' than the books in the river; no, nor better music than the
choir o' the birds, each singin' in its ain way fit to burst its leetle
throat about the mate it won, the nest they built, and the babies they
are raising. That's what I call the music o' God, spontaneous, and the
soul o' joy. Give it me every time compared with notes frae a book. And
all the fine places that the wealth o' men ever evolved winna begin to
compare with the work o' God, and I've got that around me every day."

"But I want to see life," wailed Jimmy.

"Then open your eyes, mon, fra the love o' mercy, open your eyes!
There's life sailing over your heid in that flock o' crows going home
fra the night. Why dinna ye, or some other mon, fly like that? There's
living roots, and seeds, and insects, and worms by the million wherever
ye are setting foot. Why dinna ye creep into the earth and sleep
through the winter, and renew your life with the spring? The trouble
with ye, Jimmy, is that ye've always followed your heels. If ye'd
stayed by the books, as I begged ye, there now would be that in your
heid that would teach ye that the old story of the Rainbow is true.
There is a pot of gold, of the purest gold ever smelted, at its foot,
and we've been born, and own a good living richt there. An' the gold is
there; that I know, wealth to shame any bilious millionaire, and both
of us missing the pot when we hold the location. Ye've the first
chance, mon, fra in your life is the great prize mine will forever
lack. I canna get to the bottom of the pot, but I'm going to come close
to it as I can; and as for ye, empty it! Take it all! It's yours! It's
fra the mon who finds it, and we own the location."

"Aha! We own the location," repeated Jimmy. "I should say we do! Behold
our hotbed of riches! I often lay awake nights thinkin' about my
attachmint to the place.

"How dear to me heart are the scanes of me childhood,
Fondly gaze on the cabin where I'm doomed to dwell,
Those chicken-coop, thim pig-pen, these highly piled-wood
Around which I've always raised Hell."

Jimmy turned in at his own gate, while Dannie passed to the cabin
beyond. He entered, set the dripping rat