mony a time," said the boy. The minister marvelled still more.
"But ye'll no' tell my gran'mither?" said the boy beseechingly, putting
the minister upon his honour.

Mr. Cameron hesitated for a moment, and then said--

"I will not tell your grandmother unless you are doing something worse
than reading Shakespeare, my boy. You are from Drumquhat, I think," he
continued. "What are you doing here?"

The boy blushed, and hung his head.

"Cutting thistles," he said.

The minister laughed and looked about. On one hand there was a mown
swathe of thistles, on the other they still grew luxuriantly all down
the slope to the burnside.

"I suppose you are cutting down the thistles in Shakespeare? There are a
good many of them," he said; "but is that what your master keeps you
for?"

The boy looked up quickly at this imputation on his honesty.

"I'm on piecework," he said, with a kind of defiance in his tone.

"On piecework?" asked the minister, perplexed; "how is that?"

"Weel, sir, it's this way, ye see. Gran'faither used to pay me a penny
an hour for cuttin' the thistles. He did that till he said I was the
slowest worker ever he had, an' that by the time that I was done wi' ae
side o' the field, the ither was ready to begin owre again. I said that
I was quite willin' to begin again, but he said that to sit doon wi' a
book and cut as far roon' ye as the hook could reach, was no' the kind
o' wark that he had been accustomed to on the farm o' Drumquhat. So he
took me off working by time and put me on piecework. I dinna get as
muckle siller, but I like it juist as weel. So I can work and read time
aboot."

"But how do you know how the time goes?" asked the minister, for watches
were not at that date to be found in the pockets of herdboys on the
Galloway hills.

The boy pointed to a peeled willow-wand which was stuck in the ground,
with a rough circle drawn round it.

"I made that sun-dial. Rab Affleck showed me," he said simply, without
any of the pride of genius.

"And are ye sure that the working hour is always the same length as the
reading time?" asked the minister.

Walter looked up with a bright twinkle in his eye.

"Whiles when I'm workin' at the thistles, she may get a bit kick
forrit," he said.

The minister laughed a low, mellow laugh. Then he quoted a text, as was
customary with him:

"'And Hezekiah said, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten
degrees in the dial of Ahaz.'"

The ministe