's. It was a black fog outside, an' even in the garret it
took him in his throat till he couldna get breath.

"He motioned for me to sit doon beside him. There was nae chair, so I
e'en gat doon on my knees. The lass stood white an' quaite at the far
side o' the bed. He turned his een on me, blue an' bonnie as a bairn's;
but wi' a licht in them that telled he had eaten o' the tree o'
knowledge, and that no' seldom.

"'O Sandy,' he whispered, 'what a mess I've made o't, haven't I? You'll
see my mither when ye gang back to Deeside. Tell her it's no' been so
bad as it has whiles lookit. Tell her I've aye loved her, even at the
warst--an'--an' my faither too!' he said, with a kind o' grip in his
words.

"'Walter,' says I, 'I'll pit up a prayer, as I'm on my knees onyway.'
I'm no' giftit like some, I ken; but, Robert, I prayed for that laddie
gaun afore his Maker as I never prayed afore or since. And when I spak'
aboot the forgiein' o' sin, the laddie juist steekit his een an' said
'Amen!'

"That nicht as the clock was chappin' twal' the lassie cam' to my door
(an' the landlady wasna that weel pleased at bein' raised, eyther), an'
she askit me to come an' see Walter, for there was naebody else that had
kenned him in his guid days. So I took my stave an' my plaid an' gaed my
ways wi' her intil the nicht--a' lichtit up wi' lang raws o' gas-lamps,
an' awa' doon by the water-side whaur the tide sweels black aneath the
brigs. Man, a big lichtit toun at nicht is far mair lanesome than the
Dullarg muir when it's black as pit-mirk. When we got to the puir bit
hoosie, we fand that the doctor was there afore us. I had gotten him
brocht to Walter the nicht afore. But the lassie was nae sooner within
the door than she gied an unco-like cry, an' flang hersel' distrackit on
the bed. An' there I saw, atween her white airms and her tangled yellow
hair, the face o' Walter Anderson, the son o' the manse o' Deeside,
lyin' on the pillow wi' the chin tied up in a napkin!

"Never a sermon like that, Robert Adair!" said Saunders M'Quhirr
solemnly, after he had paused a moment.

Saunders and Robert were now turning off the wind-swept muir-road into
the sheltered little avenue which led up to the kirk above the white and
icebound Dee Water. The aged gravedigger, bent nearly double, met them
where the roads parted. A little farther up the newly elected minister
of the parish kirk stood at the manse door, in which Walter Anderson had
turned the