as a woman of
means, and Sanders let us call her a miser. He was always anxious, he
said, to be generous, but Nanny would not let him assist a starving
child. They had really not a penny beyond what Nanny earned at the
loom, and now we know how Sanders shook her if she did not earn enough.
His vanity was responsible for the story about her wealth, and she
would not have us think him vain.

Because she did so much, we said that she was as strong as a
cart-horse. The doctor who attended her during the last week of her
life discovered that she had never been well. Yet we had often
wondered at her letting Sanders pit his own potatoes when he was so
unable.

"Them 'at's strong, ye see," Sanders explained, "doesna ken what
illness is, an' so it's nat'ral they shouldna sympathize wi' onweel
fowk. Ay, I'm rale thankfu' 'at Nanny keeps her health. I often envy
her."

These were considered creditable sentiments, and so they might have
been had Nanny uttered them. Thus easily Saunders built up a
reputation for never complaining. I know now that he was a hard and
cruel man who should have married a shrew; but while Nanny lived I
thought he had a beautiful nature. Many a time I have spoken with him
at Hendry's gate, and felt the better of his heartiness.

"I mauna complain," he always said; "na, we maun juist fecht awa."

Little, indeed, had he to complain of, and little did he fight away.

Sanders went twice to church every Sabbath, and thrice when he got the
chance. There was no man who joined so lustily in the singing or
looked straighter at the minister during the prayer. I have heard the
minister say that Sanders's constant attendance was an encouragement
and a help to him. Nanny had been a great church-goer when she was a
maiden, but after her marriage she only went in the afternoons, and a
time came when she ceased altogether to attend. The minister
admonished her many times, telling her, among other things, that her
irreligious ways were a distress to her husband. She never replied
that she could not go to church in the forenoon because Sanders
insisted on a hot meal being waiting him when the service ended. But
it was true that Sanders, for appearance's sake, would have had her go
to church in the afternoons. It is now believed that on this point
alone did she refuse to do as she was bidden. Nanny was very far from
perfect, and the reason she forsook the kirk utterly was because she
had no Sabbath c