is just the
time for something to happen,--for a great trumpet to blow to tell the
world what a brave fellow this friend of the flowers was; or at least
for some great person, perhaps the minister himself, to come and find
him there alone in the night. Then he might be carried home with great
rejoicing.

But nothing of the kind happened. In fact, nothing happened at all.
Jaikie began to creep back again in the quiet, colourless night; but
before he had quite gone away the honeysuckle said--

"Remember to come back to-morrow and water us, and we will get ready
such fine full cups of honey for you to suck."

And Jaikie promised. He shut the gate to keep out the hens. He crept
across the pebbles, and they hurt more than ever. He hung up the tin
dipper again on its peg, and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Jiminy
was breathing as quietly and equally as a lazy red-spotted trout in the
shadow of the bank in the afternoon. Jaikie crept into his bed and fell
asleep without a prayer or a thought.

He did not awake till quite late in the day, when Jiminy came to tell
him that somebody had been watering the flowers in their Corner of
Shadows during the night.

"_I_ think it must have been the angels," said Jiminy, before Jaikie had
time to tell him how it all happened. "My father he thinks so too."

The latter statement was, of course, wholly unauthorised.

Jaikie sat up and put his foot to the floor. All the pain had gone away
out of it. He told Jiminy, who had an explanation for everything. _He_
knew how the foot had got better and how the flowers were watered.

"'Course it must have been the angels, little baby angels that can't fly
yet--only crawl. I did hear them scuffling about the floor last night."

And this, of course, explained everything.

BOOK FIFTH

TALES OF THE KIRK

I

THE MINISTER-EMERITUS

_Ho, let the viol's pleasing swifter grow--
Let Music's madness fascinate the will,
And all Youth's pulses with the ardour thrill!
Hast thou, Old Time, e'er seen so brave a show?_

_Did not the dotard smile as he said "No"?
Pshaw! hang the grey-beard--let him prate his fill;
Men are but dolts who talk of Good and Ill.
These grapes of ours are wondrous sour, I trow!_

_They sneer because we live for other things,
And think they know The Good. I tell the fools
We have the pleasure--We! Our master flings
Full-measured bliss to all the folk he rules_,

_Nor