for
the road at this point descended steeply. Then, before he could
prevent it, a stick was thrust into his front wheel, and the next
second he was describing a curve through the air. His head took the
ground, he felt a spasm of blinding pain, and then a sense of horrible
suffocation before his wits left him.

"Are ye sure it's the richt man, Ecky?" said a voice which he did not
hear.

"Sure. It's the Glesca body Dobson telled us to look for yesterday.
It's a pund note atween us for this job. We'll tie him up in the wud
till we've time to attend to him."

"Is he bad?"

"It doesna maitter," said the one called Ecky. "He'll be deid onyway
long afore the morn."

Mrs. Morran all forenoon was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet.
After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her
housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made
preparation for the midday dinner. The invalid in the bed in the
parlour was not a repaying subject. Cousin Eugenie belonged to that
type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, find the rest
of life fall far short of their expectations. Her voice had acquired a
perpetual wail, and the corners of what had once been a pretty mouth
drooped in an eternal peevishness. She found herself in a morass of
misery and shabby discomfort, but had her days continued in an even
tenor she would still have lamented. "A dingy body," was Mrs. Morran's
comment, but she laboured in kindness. Unhappily they had no common
language, and it was only by signs that the hostess could discover her
wants and show her goodwill. She fed her and bathed her face, saw to
the fire and left her to sleep. "I'm boilin' a hen to mak' broth for
your denner, Mem. Try and get a bit sleep now." The purport of the
advice was clear, and Cousin Eugenie turned obediently on her pillow.

It was Mrs. Morran's custom of a Sunday to spend the morning in devout
meditation. Some years before she had given up tramping the five miles
to kirk, on the ground that having been a regular attendant for fifty
years she had got all the good out of it that was probable. Instead she
read slowly aloud to herself the sermon printed in a certain religious
weekly which reached her every Saturday, and concluded with a chapter
or two of the Bible. But to-day something had gone wrong with her
mind. She could not follow the thread of the Reverend Doctor
MacMichael's discourse. She could not fix her attention on